Category: Online Marketing

Pros and Cons of the Freemium Software Business Model

One of the hottest trends in the software business over last several years has been the rise of the “Freemium” business model. For those unfamiliar with the term, a Freemium model is characterized by an entry level version of your software which is totally free to users–forever.

This business model has actually been around in the software industry since the 80’s and was originally referred to as “crippleware” or “lite” entry level versions of software. The term “Freemium” apparently entered the software industry lexicon when used by Jarid Lukin of Alacra in 2006. But enough history. Regardless what you call it, the model on the surface is well suited to the software business due to no (or very low) cost of goods sold.

Whatever term you use, the model is predicated on creating a large “free” user base quickly, usually by using viral marketing methods such as referrals and word of mouth along with other very low cost methods such as SEO. The large free base is then “monetized” by selling advertising to their eyeballs and/or upselling them on premium software features or services. The Freemium model today is widely used in the software biz across a number of form factors including Open Source, SaaS and traditionally licensed software.

What’s most interesting to me about the model is the trendiness of it the last few years since the term Freemium came into use. I see many companies that appear to be adopting it because they feel like so many others are using it — that it must be the right thing to do. But is it the right thing to do in all cases? In my opinion–it is not. Let’s take a closer look.

Freemium Model PROS

Fundamentally viral: he more users you get–the more users you get. Free users will refer other users who could turn out to be paying users.
Allows you to upsell your own (free)customers–upselling a customer that’s already incorporated your tool into his workflow is generally easier than selling a new customer from “scratch”.
Keeps prospects in your target market away from being locked in by the competition.
The barriers to entry to your product line are at the minimum possible (even less friction than free trials and money back guarantees)
Great for startups to say be able to say ”we have XXXXX gazillion users”.
Enables Free Beta testing of new products with a large number of users.
“Free” traffic and user bases can sometimes be converted to advertising revenue.

Freemium Model CONS

Usually has low conversions rates to paid version, average is about 1%–although this obviously varies widely.
If you do offer customer/technical support to free users, it’s potentially a large expense unsupported by little if any revenue.
If you don’t offer support or only offer poor/reduced support to free users (such as forum-only support), what does that do to your conversion rates to paid users–as well as your overall reputation?
If you do offer reduced or no support to free users, lots of time can be wasted trying to figure out who “qualifies” for what level of support .
99% will never pay you a dime–are they REALLY customers?
In addition to customer technical support costs, if you’re SaaS-based the cost of data/bandwidth/hosting for free users can be significant.
Requires EXTREME application ease-of-use to work well.
There is some evidence that having a free version reduces your conversion rates on free trials of your paid product.

The main reasons I don’t like Freemium models, except when circumstances clearly call for it:

Having a free version conditions the market that “free” is the appropriate price.
A free version can reduce the overall value perception of your product
It’s critical to the success of a Freemium model and difficult to get the free/paid feature set split “just right”. If you don’t get this split just right, you either won’t be able to attract enough free users (too little value in Freemium product) or you won’t be able to convert you Freemium users to paid versions (too much value in the Freemium product).
“Free” is a mentality that’s hard to overcome in a user; it’s much harder from convert a free user to a paid user than it is from an entry level (cheap) paid user to a premium paid user. An example of this is the difficulty of online newspapers in converting readers to paid models after years of “training” them that their content should be “free”.
I’d prefer to use available profits on professional marketing programs rather than starving the marketing budget due to excessive support/hosting costs.

Even taking my biases above into consideration, there is definitely a place for a Freemium business model in some situations:

The Best Circumstances to use a Freemium Model

Although the Freemium model has worked in B2B markets, in general I believe it’s better suited to consumer mass markets where viral is possible, price points are already low and free user bases and traffic can be high–making it possible to monetize the traffic via advertising
Entering a market with a very strong, embedded competitor.
When attacking a market with very limited resources or lacking in marketing skills.
With a product has a great “social pull” which lends itself well to viral marketing.
Freemium has already become the standard in your market segment, so you’re almost forced to follow suit.
As an act of desperation when nothing else has worked.

I’m sure there are others circumstances where a Freemium model makes sense–the list above is what comes to mind quickly.

So that’s what I think about Freemium–many will not agree. What’s been your experience with it? Leave a comment below with your own thoughts, lessons or best practices.

Follow Phil Morettini and Morettini on Management via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, RSS, or the PJM Consulting Quarterly Newsletter. Contact Phil directly at info@pjmconsult.com

5 Comments by admin on May 11, 2013

filed in B2C, Business Models, Corporate Strategy, Online Marketing, Product Marketing/Management, Promotion

Does Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising Still Work?

Modern PPC advertising was pioneered in 1998 by Overture who was later bought by Yahoo. It really hit it’s stride in 2000 when Google introduced the AdWords platform. I’ve been managing PPC campaigns for myself and my clients since 2003. So while I haven’t been involved since the very beginning, I consider myself an early adopter of PPC technology.

The Early Days

In the early days PPC was great–using it to your advantage was like putting a knife through butter. Almost independent of individual product or market, it was very effective when I first started managing PPC campaigns. Things stayed that way for several years, even as Google (as the primary PPC platform) made constant changes to their platform. I remember soon after I started using AdWords Google made one particular change to their platform: for keywords you were bidding on that fell below a certain click-thru threshold, AdWords henceforth prevented you from bidding on that keyword-FOREVER! Needless to say, they fairly quickly decided that wasn’t in their best interest and changed things yet again. But mostly it was all good for quite a while–easy to start, easy to use and with an excellent ROI in most cases. One of the reasons it worked so well was that even many sophisticated Internet users didn’t realize that “Sponsored Links” were really Ads, leading to excellent click-thru rates and a steady stream of inexpensive visitors to your website.

PPC Enters the Mainstream

As Pay-Per-Click grew rapidly due to it’s outstanding value proposition, it entered the mainstream as an important marketing method for companies large and small. This of course drove Google to prominence as one of the top tech companies in the world and created a lot of millionaires and billionaires in the process. For a while AdWords worked so well it was like printing money, not only for Google but it’s customers, the users of AdWords. For some small companies PPC not only became a mainstream marketing method but consumed the MAJORITY of their marketing budgets. But as I’ve stated many other times, once a marketing method goes mainstream it begins to falter in effectiveness. There was a long slow decline over a period of years in terms of ROI, but for many years it was still effective–so the golden goose kept growing in size.

It’s more difficult today

As I write this article, however, I believe that we may be at a point of inflection. I’ve found that in many market segments it’s become very hard to extract even a positive ROI, let alone be highly profitable . Unless you’re a large company where PPC expenses are a tiny segment of your marketing budget, or are focused on brand-building (a dubious use of PPC, imo) rather than sales–this will give you serious pause. The quality of visitor traffic has deteriorated, with time spent on site by PPC-generated traffic a fraction of Social Media or other Organically-generated traffic. Cost per click is now very high in for high-traffic keywords. Cost per conversions have risen steadily. I design campaigns using a fairly labor-intensive long-tail approach–but I have a hard time getting a positive ROI in some (but not all) market segments. I’m far from alone in this analysis, as this New York Times article illustrates. While there are people who spend more time managing PPC campaigns than I, as I stated above I have been at it for a while and am far from a newbie, leaving me pretty comfortable with my viewpoint.

Unfortunately, I believe much of this is due to Google greed. AdWords has never been a transparent bidding system, but a “Black Box” that Google can manipulate as they please. In the past they have shown some understanding that their advertisers need to make money for Google’s own AdWords business to remain viable. But I think that the short-term quarterly profit pressures of being a public company, along with the lack of significant new revenue streams past PPC have come to bear. These factors combined with the inevitable maturing and slowdown in the growth of the Search marketplace have led the company to make changes to their platform and the black box which they may regret in the long run. Here are a couple of examples:

I’ve always utilized a best practice of rotating Ads evenly, with the belief that I am the best judge of which the best Ad for my purposes. Google recommends optimizing which Ad to show based upon their automated algorithm, which quickly decides one Ad is best. Google’s interest is in maximizing clicks, which isn’t always in my client’s best interests. But after using this method for years Google eliminated it, forcing advertisers to utilize their automated algorithm and revert to a the highest click thru Ad after 3 months of even rotation. I noticed in checking recently the option to rotate Ads evenly indefinitely has returned–I’m sure it was because of Advertiser complaints.
Another thinly-veiled, short-term money grab is the “fibbing” Google does when it provides “estimates” about what it takes to get your Ad listed on the first page. I’ve found them to be almost uniformly wildly overstated in almost all circumstances, even on very niche keywords where it appears there are no other advertisers bidding!

These are just two examples of many things I’ve seen Google do within the AdWords platform and especially in their bidding “black box” that indicate Google is acting in its own (short-term) self-interest, to the detriment of their advertiser/customers. I believe this will prove to be very short-sighted in the long run.

Combine all this with the increased competition in the PPC marketplace since it has gone mainstream as discussed above and I believe AdWords may have seen it’s best days–an ominous development for Google as a growth company. By squeezing its advertisers, the company is definitely risking killing the golden goose.

I haven’t used the Microsoft PPC platform recently so I can’t say for sure that the experience there is the same, but in the past I’ve found it to be similar.

Where does PPC fit today in the Marketing Mix

I’ve been relatively critical of PPC as a current marketing method in this article–which is a turnaround for me–I’ve always held this method in high esteem. I still believe it fits in some shape or form in most marketing budgets, but I feel the need to temper how big a role it should play. PPC retains some big advantages–there is no better way to very quickly launch a marketing campaign than PPC. You can be promoting new products, testing messaging & value propositions and exploring new market segments almost instantaneously. It’s also very measurable and therefore objective–there’s no need to throw money around with PPC, based on a measure of faith like some other marketing approaches.

But in many market segments, the ROI has degraded severely over time. As a result, it shouldn’t take up a large segment of your marketing budget unless your objective measurements indicate that it justifies such a large investment. I’ve shifted emphasis in online marketing budget recommendations to social media and behavioral/retargeting advertising (standard PPC’s close cousin). Unless you see strong ROI justification in traditional PPC investments, I’d limit my PPC exposure to two areas:

Long term: long tail keywords that may not generate big dollars but show a reasonable ROI

Short term: new products, new market segments and messaging/value/price testing which have a limited term

That’s a quick summary of how I view Pay Per Click today. What’s been your own experience with PPC lately? Is it a big part of your promotional budget? Do you also see it declining in performance in your market segment? Give us a heads up on your experience and post a comment below.

Follow Phil Morettini and Morettini on Management via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, RSS, or the PJM Consulting Quarterly Newsletter. Contact Phil directly at info@pjmconsult.com

2 Comments by admin on November 9, 2012

filed in B2C, Business Models, Marcom, Online Marketing, Product Marketing/Management, Promotion, SaaS, Social media

tagged advertiser, advertising, adwords, channel sales, consultant, consulting, Google, internet, marketing, Microsoft, online, Overture, Phil Morettini, PJM Consulting, PPC, ROI, software, Yahoo

Is Your Tech Business Marketing or Sales Driven?

Software and hardware business are often segmented by the vertical or horizontal market they’re targeting, their technology platform, small vs. large companies and so on. One of the important ways to segment tech businesses, which isn’t often discussed, is by whether the company is sales-driven or marketing-driven in their customer acquisition strategies.

A balanced approach

Now some reading this article may ask “why wouldn’t you take a balanced approach”? Indeed, I don’t mean to suggest that either sales or marketing should be absent in the customer acquisition efforts of tech companies. There are a few scenarios that could be drawn up to support such a singular approach—but very few for sure. There are also some situations where the customer acquisition circumstances are “in between” in price, complexity, market size, etc. and you end up with a fairly balanced approach between marketing and sales. But in my experience the sales or marketing function will rise to the lead, more often than not.

Key criteria in choosing customer acquisition techniques

There are several considerations that often drive whether marketing or sales will dominate:

Product Complexity – This often decides whether or not a product can be truly driven to purchase by marketing or whether significant sales rep intervention will be required to close a deal. It should be noted that when product complexity is high, marketing support in the form of sales tools (examples: case studies, road map presentations by product management) will still be very important in the sales cycle. But this will generally be a sale that is driven by the sales force with marketing in a supporting role.
Product Price/ Typical Sale Size – The smaller the product price and typical sales size, the more likely you’ll be able to acquire customers exclusively through marketing, or in conjunction with inside sales that is largely “taking orders”. Conversely, products that cost a lot may require the extra interaction provided by an outside sales force (and the deal size also justifies the cost of the sales force).
Market Size – Very large markets with lots of customers are more easily and cost-effectively reached with effective marketing. A tight market with a small number of total prospects (think nuclear power plants) will usually be served almost exclusively by an outside sales force with minimal marketing intervention.
Use of Channels – While companies selling heavily through channels often need reps to call on the channel partners, far fewer channel reps are required than if the reps are dedicated to direct selling. Generally the heavier the use of third party channels in the customer acquisition approach, the more heavily the mix will lean toward investment in marketing.

Marketing driven keys to success

Adequate marketing funds – If you’re going to be marketing-driven in your customer acquisition approach, you better dedicate enough money to fund marketing programs with superior performance. To do otherwise will cripple your business.
An objective, data driven culture – The beauty of a marketing-driven approach is that it can take much subjectivity out the management of optimizing your customer acquisition activities. Especially in this era of highly measurable online marketing, decisions should be made on what the data says—not on the whims of the CEO or some other senior executive.
Excellent inside sales in support – Except for very simple, low cost products where marketing can truly drive the sale all the way to completion—these days that often means a software download, SaaS signup or physical product order—it’s still important to have an efficient (but low cost) inside sales operation supporting your marketing machine.

Sales driven keys to success

Great sales people – Hiring good people is so very important in every area, but when your relying on an expensive outside sales force to drive revenue—you better hire the best reps you can afford and attract.
Success driven comp plan – If your success depends upon them, make sure your sales reps become really happy only when the company is happy as well.
Good marketing support in the form of lead generation programs and sales tools – Unless you have a tiny market with obvious, easily identifiable prospects, it’s still very important to have a marketing function which generates leads as well as supplies good sales tools.

The best approach isn’t always chosen

Unfortunately, logic and situation analysis doesn’t always win out when designing a customer acquisition strategy. Usually by the time a company grows to be large, their approach is in line with what’s best for the business. Of course, your chances of growing to be a big company are reduced if you make serious errors in sales and marketing strategy. But in any event, by the time a company is big they are usually utilizing both sales and marketing heavily and in the proper balance.

Startups and early stage companies are another matter. Often the emphasis on either sales or marketing is based on the experience of the founders and senior executives. If they’ve been successful in the past and their new company has a similar focus, maybe it’s fine and their approach works again. But a problem occurs when these executives start up a very different type of company than they’ve had success with in the past. It’s human nature to fall back on what I refer to as your “common business sense”, which is formed by your personal background and past experiences. This is when you can get a misalignment between what a company needs and the approach taken in the sales & marketing mix.

Even worse still is when the customer acquisition approach develops more or less haphazardly. This can happen when the founders of a company really don’t have much functional experience in sales or marketing. This occurs somewhat frequently in software and hardware companies, as many startups are created by technical types. In these cases there may be a fairly unsophisticated approach to both sales and marketing—and whatever works early may end up dominate. For example, a sales rep is hired who has some success, so the model becomes hire a lot more reps and turn them loose without much (or any) support on the marketing side. Or an early direct email campaign or online advertising generates some sales, so money is poured into that method. Unfortunately, these may not be the best approaches strategically for the business in the long run.

That’s what I think about Sales vs. Marketing driven orientations in software and hardware companies. What do you think? Post a comment with your own opinions or stories about what drives customer acquisition in high tech companies.

Follow Phil Morettini and Morettini on Management via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, RSS, or the PJM Consulting Quarterly Newsletter. Contact Phil directly at info@pjmconsult.com

No Comments by admin on July 27, 2012

filed in Business Models, Corporate Strategy, Distribution Channels, General Management, Marcom, Online Marketing, Pricing, Product Marketing/Management, Promotion, SaaS, Startup/Early Stage

Social Media Marketing for B2B Tech Companies

By now, every company has grasped the importance of having a social media presence on the web. Or have they?

In discussions with potential clients and others I am actually amazed how many folks have done little or nothing in the area of social media marketing.

Why do you think this is? Some business executives immediately associate “social media” solely with consumer-oriented activities on social medial sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. You know the stereotypes that are popularly characterized by the mainstream media: pictures of wild high school parties, viral invitations to flash mobs, and inane posts about what people are having for breakfast.

But there is serious business going on in the Social Media world. The fact is that Social Media marketing has definitely become not just a mainstream activity, but a critical one. No longer are at an advantage if you are heavily using social media in your marketing mix; you are falling behind if you aren’t!

Social Media is obviously very important in B2C software and hardware marketing. Because it is less well understood, I will be focusing on B2B marketing in this article.

Blogs

A Blog is the single most important step into Social Media for a B2B tech marketer. In addition to being a great way to bring traffic directly to your site, it provides the content to use as bait for all of your other social media activities. There are almost too many benefits to list here, but let’s try a few:

New and high quality website content which increases SEO (search engines LOVE fresh, high quality content. This assumes a self-hosted Blog–it’s critical for your Blog to be hosted on your domain to maximize SEO benefits)
Direct traffic to your website
Fast & Easy search engine crawling and indexing due to the large number of Blog ping services, Blog indexes and Blog search engines
High quality backlinks from the Blog services mentioned above, as well as from happy readers who link to your Blog
Content you can repurpose in a number of ways such as publishing in newsletters and posting on appropriate social media sites
Positions your company and key employees as “thought leaders” in your category

This is just a taste of what a Blog can do for you; the uses and benefits are limited mostly by your imagination. It’s a bit of work, no doubt, but has a high return if you dedicate reasonable resources to the effort.

Linkedin

After creating your Blog, this is the second most important social media activity for a Business-to-Business technology marketer. Key employees should create a complete profile (for professional development purposes, if no other reason) and a profile for the company should also be created. But that’s just where the fun starts. Here are some additional important activities to consider:

Join and Use Groups: Other than setting up a complete and effective profile for both you and your company, the most important thing you can do is join groups. You’re allowed up to 50, and if you choose the groups well they can be a very effective segment of your online marketing efforts. Become known and respected by participating in discussions. But most importantly, post links to your Blog content, press releases, newsletters, webinars, etc. If you’ve targeted the right groups, this will create a good deal of qualified traffic to your website and other online vehicles.

Build your Network: This is the place where you want to go fast, but don’t hurry. The more people in your business segment you know, the easier it will be to market your product over a long period of time. The key is to take a long term perspective. You don’t build a network by being pushy or “all about you”. It’s like any other form of networking. Reach out not only to connect, but to actually assist those in your network. In the long run, you’ll have a stronger position and it will benefit your business.

Search for Prospects: People are listed on Linkedin that you wouldn’t find elsewhere. It’s a great place to search for both companies and high level executives that you’d like to connect with. Be very careful in your targeting efforts and try not to be too obviously sale-sy. But if you are respectful and careful, an excellent source of targeted prospects awaits you, that you can contact directly (with a premium account) or connect with through your mutual contacts.

Ask and Answer Questions: This Linkedin feature provides a great, low key way to both show off and improve your knowledge. By answering questions posted by others you can demonstrate your knowledge in a forum without having to appear to be bragging. Don’t be afraid to ask questions either; there are a great many resources out there to fill in the blanks in your current knowledge base.

Twitter

This is a great place to connect with like-minded people. As profiled time and again in the mass media, it’s also a great place to waste time. So unless you find that you can become a productive and efficient Twitter networker, make sure you don’t become addicted to tweeting. Some people love it, some hate it–what’s important is to leverage it optimally for your business. I personally don’t waste a lot of time on Twitter, but there are some folks who have dedicated a lot of time–to great effect for their business. Especially if you have more time than money for marketing, there’s a lot you can do to gain exposure and goodwill for your business here. At a minimum you should post your Blog content, press releases and other important external communications. You should also think about assigning members of key departments (PR, customer service, tech support) to Twitter, giving your users and potential customers an easy, informal way to interact with appropriate parts of your company

YouTube

Yes, Youtube! Everyone loves to go to YouTube to view that video of the 6 month old baby surfing in the bathtub while smoking a cigar (Ok, I made that up, but if you do a search you might just find it on YouTube). But it’s also a great place to post a short intro video about your product or service. You can even put up training videos to show the depth of your knowledge in a particular area, or the depth of your product or service offering. The videos are hosted on YouTube, but you link to them and feature them on your website. These videos will give you a leg up in search engine ranking as Google, et al love video content and provide it with preferential search result positions.

Facebook

Yes, use Facebook as well! Facebook is certainly not a core platform for business to business marketers. But 750 million users (and still growing like a radioactive weed) shouldn’t be ignored. So create a personal profile and company page and post your Blog content and other external communications pieces there. If nothing else, you’ll get some quality backlinks to help your SEO efforts with very little effort. Don’t waste time here, but it makes no sense to completely ignore this platform, either.

Coming Soon — Google +?

This is a real wild card that could have a big impact on the Social Media Marketing landscape. As I write this article it’s too early to tell what Google+’s ultimate impact with be on B2B social media marketing. Most people don’t yet have access. I haven’t used it yet, so I only know what I’ve read. It’s still in pre-release phase (although it seems that most things at Google are!), and the features are still being developed. But so far it appears to be off to a very promising start, with 25M users in only a few weeks of controlled beta release. Reviewers have raved about the elegance of the “Circles” feature, which allegedly makes it very easy to segregate those connected to you into logical groups, a real problem on Facebook. Of course, Google is aimed far past B2B social media with Google Plus, taking aim squarely at Facebook as a mass-market social media network. But I think this new platform also has particularly strong potential for the B2B crowd, with possible integration with tools like Google Adwords, Analytics, Apps, Docs, etc. We’ll have to wait and see where this goes, and I’ll be watching closely.

There’s certainly much more that can be written on this topic. This was just a quick look at what I think about the importance of social media marketing for B2B Software & Tech companies. For example, there are new vertical social media networks popping up every day–there may be one perfectly aligned with your market. This is a varied and rapidly evolving topic–what are your questions or opinions? If you need help with your marketing mix or other aspects of managing your software or hardware company, please contact me at your convenience. In the meantime, post a comment to share your views on this topic and continue the discussion.

Follow Phil Morettini and Morettini on Management via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, RSS, or the PJM Consulting Quarterly Newsletter. Contact Phil directly at info@pjmconsult.com

2 Comments by admin on August 14, 2011

filed in Business Development, Marcom, Online Marketing, Product Marketing/Management, Promotion, Social media

Is Outbound Marketing Dead?

The craze in the marketing world these days is “Inbound Marketing”–otherwise know as “content marketing”, “permission marketing”, “new marketing” “modern marketing” and a few other buzz-terms. The definitions may vary slightly, but they’re essentially variations on the same theme:

Potential customers find you, rather than you (the marketer) approaching them.

The current commentary on marketing methods goes like this:

People are insanely busy these days, and constantly inundated with marketing offers of all kinds, causing them to tune them out. Traditional outbound methods such as direct mail/email, advertising, etc. no longer work as a result. The answer is to use inbound marketing methods, defined as to driving traffic to your website via search engines, content (such as blogs and videos) and social media. Since these users have found you, they are by definition more attentive and better qualified targets.

Of course, although this discussion is very hot in the marketing world today, it isn’t really a new topic. It’s an argument about Push vs. Pull marketing, concepts which have been around nearly since the beginning of marketing as a science. At any rate, the preceding paragraph makes a lot of sense, does it not? No denying that getting boatloads of prospects finding you is a good thing.

The problem I see is that like most “trends”, the inbound marketing case is being grossly overstated. There is no doubt that the Internet has enabled pull/inbound methods grow to a degree not previously possible. If you’re a software or tech company marketer, in almost every market/product situation you should be leveraging online inbound methods to the max. But is that all you should be doing?

Of course not. Some companies may be able to fill their pipelines using only inbound methods. But this shouldn’t be an either/or discussion. In almost every situation, both inbound (pull) and outbound (push) should be used. They are not competitive methods; they each serve a different purpose, and are actually very complementary. Let’s take a look why:

Different psychographic profile of prospects

Prospects are not a homogeneous group in any market. They come in all shapes and sizes–early adopters, mainstream buyers, late adopters, etc. As a result, they respond to different stimuli, and have different buying styles. Many want to be totally in control and never have any “invasive” marketing targeted at them. But for every person that is offended by any offer directed at them, there are others who are happy to receive a timely, targeted offer which saves them money–as well as time– in searching out a software or hardware product they need. This is especially true for some very busy folks, and others that absolutely hate the shopping process. Outbound marketing can be a real advantage with these prospect profiles.

Different stage in the buying process

This is a key point which someone relatively new to marketing may not understand. If you have a prospect in the active buying stage, inbound marketing works great. Since they are out searching for your product or service, if you’ve done a good job on inbound marketing activities, there is a good chance they will “find” you. But what about those target prospects that aren’t yet in active buying mode? Should you just be ignoring them? I think not. First of all, you absolutely want to get a leg up on your competition and get your message to them as early as possible. By doing this, you’ll be on their short list of vendors to check out when they are ready to buy. But the right offer can also turn that future prospect into an active buyer–without so much as a look at the competition. What happens to your odds if yours is the only marketing message they see? Outbound marketing is much more effective than inbound in this scenario.

Timing vs. budget

From a marketer’s perspective, outbound and inbound marketing may fulfill different needs. Inbound marketing may provide a solid, day-in-and-day-out flow of leads and revenue. Outbound marketing can provide a more instantaneous bump to your numbers. Think PPC advertising vs. SEO. An inbound marketing technique like SEO is probably the more powerful activity in the long run, but and outbound method like PPC advertising can start creating business almost instantly. This outbound marketing bump can be very useful during slow periods where you’d like to “smooth out” your numbers, when you’re just getting started, during a busy (but competitive) holiday buying season or to give extra emphasis to a new product introduction.

Targeted Offers

Since you have greater control with respect to when a prospect will be exposed to an offer, it’s much easier to provide urgency and that critical timeliness component via outbound marketing. In addition, targeting can also be easier with outbound methods. Direct outbound marketing, in particular, can be highly targeted if good lists are available.

Push and pull on the same prospect

Lastly and very importantly, this really isn’t an either/or argument–as I stated earlier. When discussing inbound and outbound marketing, we’re really still just talking about push and pull by other names. As any good marketer knows, push and pull work together. The number of total marketing impressions matters–more impressions increase your odds. This is fundamental brand-building. As an example, it’s well documented that PPC ads and organic results on the SERP converts better than either alone. So don’t choose between inbound and outbound marketing–use best practices in both methodologies to optimize your marketing results.

So what do you think? Will all your investments going forward be toward inbound Marketing activities, or is there still room in your budget for outbound methods? I’d love to hear your plans and opinions–post a comment to weigh in on this discussion.

Follow Phil Morettini and Morettini on Management via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, RSS, or the PJM Consulting Quarterly Newsletter. Contact Phil directly at info@pjmconsult.com

4 Comments by admin on May 16, 2011

filed in Online Marketing, Product Marketing/Management, Promotion, Social media

Is SEO a Legitimate Marketing Technique?

I have definite ideas on this question. But what got my attention recently was a reference to SEO in a prime time television show (one of the legal dramas) on one of the major US networks. It went something like this:

Lawyer: “What are you concerned about?”

Client: “I’m concerned that the jury will have a negative reaction to my profession; a lot of people don’t like what I do”.

Lawyer: “What is it that you do?”

Client: “I perform search engine optimization.”

When it hits primetime TV, you know the topic has entered the consciousness of the masses. And in this case, not in a good way!

For the uninitiated, SEO is an acronym for “Search Engine Optimization.” Wikipedia defines SEO as “the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the “natural” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results”. This is done by various methods, but the two most important aspects are creating relevant content on your website, and gaining links to your site from outside websites.

How can this be so bad? Well, like any other form of marketing it can be taken to extremes. Because it’s so valuable to appear near the top of a search results page in a search engine like Google, some will do practically anything to make that happen. And that’s what causes the problems. Techniques that the Search Engines consider inappropriate are called “Black Hat”; the page results that are listed inappropriately are referred to as “search spam” or “SEO spam”.

All this simply means that when you type in a search phrase into Google, for instance, you are presented with a bunch of websites that aren’t appropriate for what you were looking for. I’m sure you’ve all done a search, and the top sites that pop up have absolutely no value. The results might show a poorly constructed “Directory” aimed at a particular vertical topic, but really isn’t useful except to its owner trying to get Ad clicks. Or a site stuffed with a huge number of articles–none original or written by the site owner, and sometimes even modified by computer program to make it look “original”, but in actuality making it practically unreadable to humans.

Arguments for SEO

It’s just a marketing technique like any other, just like Press Relations in the “real” world. Why can’t you use all the tools at your disposal to make sure that your website is visible to your target audience?

“White Hat” SEO techniques are above board and available to everyone. What’s wrong with writing appropriate content for your site, and requesting backlinks from other compatible sites on the web? If you do a better job than your competitors, or they don’t choose to use these methods, that’s simply you beating them in the marketplace.

White Hat SEO is really just an acceleration of and a focus on the very things that happen naturally for a successful company on the web: Attractive onsite and offsite content, with a large number of links to your site from other sites with a compatible focus.

The “Black Hats” will always be around–the only way to avoid being left in the dust by these scoundrels is to use (legitimate) SEO techniques to compete for position in the search results–or they win by default.

Arguments against SEO

Any technique designed ONLY to move a website up in the search engine results pages (SERPS) is by definition cheating and not legitimate.

SEO is a slippery slope; there really is not sharp dividing line between “white hat” and “black hat” techniques.

Search Engines work best without any efforts to circumvent the “natural” results; any manual intervention to change them is a distortion of the real world, and therefore inefficient for the market.

Buying or otherwise obtaining links that you wouldn’t get naturally is deceptive, and therefore of no value and even immoral.

Content stuffed with keywords simply to rank high–rather than inform–is also of no value and is ruinous to the beautiful Internet.

The irony of this controversy is that inbound marketing techniques like SEO originally held the promise to marketers of largely avoiding the negative stigma associated with more direct methods. Now, it appears that the term “SEO” has gotten a negative connation in the web marketing world, much like all direct email marketing is considered by many to be SPAM. It’s apparently gotten bad enough that the term “SEO” has completely fallen out of favor with some; “Content Marketing” and “Inbound Marketing” are two new code phrases for what really is just SEO in a repackaged form.

My view is that this is a real shame. In the email world, there are legitimate direct email marketers, offering real products and doing their best to target their offerings to interested prospects. These companies shouldn’t be lumped in with Spammers who are nearly breaking our email systems with endless numbers of fake Viagra ads. In the same way, companies using standard SEO methods to ensure their target prospects can find them, shouldn’t be thrown together with the black hats who distort search engine results while trying to make a quick buck. I realize many folks don’t make this distinction. What’s your view? Post a comment to let us know where you come down in this argument.

Follow Phil Morettini and Morettini on Management via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, RSS, or the PJM Consulting Quarterly Newsletter. Contact Phil directly at info@pjmconsult.com

7 Comments by admin on February 15, 2011

filed in B2C, Corporate Strategy, Marcom, Online Marketing, Promotion

tagged consulting, content marketing, Google, high tech, inbound marketing, online, Phil Morettini, PJM Consulting, search engine optimization, seo, strategy, tech, technology, website

Is Google Actually Good or Evil?

I know this has been a topic that’s been discussed at length by many other folks. But a recent personal experience caused me to explore it further.

I recently transitioned my Blog from Google’s Blogger platform to WordPress.

Like most software transitions, it was a bit of work, and somewhat painful. Thankfully being from the software industry I have a bit more technical savvy than the average Blogger. I’m sure there are more than a few non-techie Bloggers who were pulling their hair out as a result of the very same transition that I went through – Because Google has made us do it.

By the way, I couldn’t have gotten through this painful transition to Wordpress without great support from my Hosting Provider, ITX Design. If you are looking for a new webhost, I recommend them highly. Good prices and GREAT technical support. Special thanks to Melissa and Paul in ITX Design tech support; I’d have been up a river without a paddle without their expert assistance. Now back to the discussion of Google’s true colors.

Is software really ever free?

I’d been Blogging using the Google Blogger platform since February 2005. If I’m not mistaken, Google had just acquired Blogger, or did so shortly thereafter. At the time, you could already host your Blog on Google’s Blogspot hosting service for free, but Google seemed happy to allow you to also host it on your own website if you wished. For anyone using a Blog to help build a long-term presence on the web, including increasing SEO on your website, there really was no choice in the matter. You have to host it yourself.

I always wondered why Google was doing stuff like this–providing software for free, with no apparent major return on investment. As a software executive, I always found “free” software from a commercial enterprise to be an oxymoron. I understood how Google would benefit if my site was hosted on Blogspot; Google serves ads on your Blog in return for hosting it for free, and I presume they are also gaining additional market intelligence by tracking visitor activity and behavior on Blogspot Blogs. But what did they gain from allowing their software to be used by people who were hosting their own Blogs?

Apparently, not enough.

Google’s weak excuse

Google announced that they would no longer support FTP (and therefore self-hosted Blogger Blogs), the venerable protocol used for modifying content since nearly the beginning of Internet time. I really shouldn’t be surprised, since about three years ago all the new features for Blogger have been available only to Blogspot-hosted installations. I found their stated rationale for their decision was really curious. Google’s statement indicated that FTP was soaking up an outsized percentage of their resources. HUH?

Sorry Google, but it’s a bunch of HOOEY. Let’s face it; FTP couldn’t possibly be that big of a strain on their systems. It’s ridiculous. First of all, only a small number of Blogger Blogs are self-hosted; the great majority of them are hosted on blogspot. And there aren’t more well-tested or understood protocols around than FTP.

I guess from Google’s perspective they could justify their actions by saying that they are eliminating a “free ride” for people who aren’t providing enough in return for their use of Blogger. But I have a big problem with that–no one forced them to offer Blogger as a self-hosted platform to begin with. They never said it was “introductory” in nature, or gave any indication that they abandon users in the future. Besides, what about all that “Do No Evil” nonsense, which is supposedly the company motto?

Was this evil?

So was this “evil”? That is in the eye of the beholder, of course. Evil may be too strong a word in this case–but this certainly wasn’t what I could call “good”. Google left a bunch of people high and dry, and the only possible reason they did it is to force people onto the Blogspot hosting platform so they can sell more advertising. That doesn’t fit my definition of supporting a free, open, non-proprietary Internet–which Google purports to be all about in most of their PR-oriented public initiatives.

If they were going to abandon people for their ridiculous, stated reason that FTP support was overwhelming them–then don’t let me use your software on my own website in the first place. I would have used WordPress or one of many other options in the first place, and would have saved myself a great deal of trouble. One reason I actually chose Blogger initially was because I believed that they would be around, and continue to support the platform. How wrong I was. I find this situation the definition of bait and switch, and one which has caused a bunch of people a whole lot of grief.

It’s not Larry and Sergey in the Menlo Park apartment anymore…

I really don’t question the sincerity of Larry Page and Sergey Brin with respect to their “Do No Evil” credo. But Google is a very BIG company now, and “corporate” decisions usually aren’t based on morality. The bigger a company gets, the less likely any one person’s individual morality will effect any given decision taken within the company. There’s lot’s of pressure to make money in individual business units, especially in tough economic times, and as a company’s original differential advantage fades.

Everything at Google must support advertising, in some way shape or form. Otherwise, I’m sure it very hard to justify the expense. There are a whole bunch of managers beyond original two founders are making big decisions now, and I’m pretty sure that the decision to eliminate FTP support from Blogger didn’t even make it very high up Google’s management totem pole.

So does Google really “Do No Evil” at this point? Did they ever, or was it just bluster or marketing? In my mind, this is a question that’s very much still open to debate. My personal feeling is that they are just a big company like many others, run by people with a variety of agendas–and a lot of presure to maximize profits. That doesn’t always lead to what everyone considers “good”.

So that’s my personal experience with Google–what’s yours? Many of you have your own experience with or thoughts on this industry giant; post a comment or a question to activate a discussion.

Follow Phil Morettini and Morettini on Management via Twitter, Facebook, RSS, or the PJM Consulting Quarterly Newsletter. Contact Phil directly at info@pjmconsult.com

No Comments by admin on April 17, 2010

filed in Online Marketing, Social media

tagged Blogspot, FTP, online advertising, seo, web hosting

All atwitter About Twitter Marketing

There’s been a lot said and written about the newest Social Media craze, Twitter.

Particularly in the popular press, there’s also been a lot of misinformation. Sometimes the only way to get the real story is to try it yourself. I thought I’d give it a shot, and throw in my two cents on what Twitter’s really all about with respect to marketing.

I’ve been on Twitter for a few months now. As of today, I’m following around 45 people, and have about 45 following me as well. I think that at this point I’ve got a pretty good idea of what Twitter is and isn’t. So here’s my take:

WHAT TWITTER IS

Most fundamentally, it’s a micro-blogging platform with a limitation of 140 characters per post. Most of you have almost certainly seen a blog online by now. Just like blog postings come in many shapes, sizes and topics, so do “tweets”–the term for an individual message or post on Twitter. “Following” someone on Twitter is akin to subscribing to updates on a blog.

The 140 character limitation is very extreme, and forces even the most verbose writers to be very brief. This can be a good thing. This 140 character limitation also allows Twitter to be available on even platforms with very limited resources, such as cell phones. This wide platform availability extends the potential uses for Twitter, greatly adding to its utility as a one-to-many instant-communication tool. Twitter is actually pretty simple.

WHAT TWITTER ISN’T

It’s not robust–it’s very limited by the 140 characters. So it isn’t suitable for everything–certainly not anything that requires a lot of detail. You really can’t publish anything of note directly on Twitter. It’s not good for:

* Complex or lengthy communications
* Private communications, while possible, are probably best handled via other methods.
* It doesn’t replace a Blog or website

Contrary to what you see in the popular mass media, it’s not some weird cult of people who are inexplicably exchanging tweets on what they’re having for breakfast. It’s also not strictly an avenue for following the day to day minutiae of People Magazine’s list of 100 top celebrities (Aston Kutcher’s 1 million twitter followers notwithstanding) The biggest thing to remember about Twitter is that it’s just a horizontal communications medium–which by itself isn’t much of anything. Twitter is really what people decide to make of it.

WHAT TWITTER IS GOOD FOR

The uses for Twitter are almost as broad as the profile of its millions of users. It’s hard to classify best uses because of this. But in simple terms, I find that the major uses of Twitter falls into a few categories–at least with respect to what interests a marketer:

Personal Communications with friends
In this respect, Twitter is like a simpler, quicker version of Facebook in how it’s being used. This is where you see people broadcasting where they’re having breakfast–those messages are really intended for their circle of close friends.

Personal Branding
An executive or professional using Twitter to increase awareness of his/her capabilities or work.

Business Branding
Similar to personal branding, but used by a business to provide exposure to the capabilities, products or services it offers.

Business Communications
This is the more tactical business use–restaurants broadcasting the specials of the day to their customer base, new product announcements, links to press releases, etc.

HOW BEST TO USE TWITTER

Have a strategy, and stay true to it
If you are using Twitter for business branding, don’t continuously talk about what you’re doing for fun that night. A more personal message occasionally which is of particular interest in fine, but remember your target audience. This is one of the biggest mistakes that a newbie Twitterer makes–they think being on Twitter means broadcasting their daily minutae. But for business conversations–who’s interested in that? It’s common sense. If you’re using Twitter for business/marketng purposes, stay on topic at least most of the time. If you want to use Twitter extensively for multiple purposes, it might be best to create multiple personas.

Use it to listen and learn–not just broadcast
If you pick the right people to follow, Twitter can be an extremely efficient source of information in your chosen topical interests. You have to be careful–you can easily become obsessed, and Twitter can become a real time sink. But if you’re judicious in your use, you can leverage the work of others to find things of interest to you. And by watching how other skilled Twitter users utilize the platform, you can learn how best to use the tool yourself.

Use links
Even though the 140 character limit won’t allow complex messages, links are allowed, and are very powerful in Twitter. Often Tweets are “teasers” or introductions to the linked document. For example, I broadcast the availability of new articles on my Blog by posting a Twitter message

Use keywords
One of the most powerful aspects of Twitter is the ability to easily “re-tweet” a message, or pass it along to your own Twitter network of followers. This makes Twitter a very powerful viral platform in getting the word out on your chosen topic. If you include keywords in your tweet that are relevant to your target audience, the viral aspect can really enhance the breadth of delivery of your marketing message.

That’s a take on Twitter after a few months of use. I’m sure many of you have different experiences with this exciting new platform–post a comment and let’s get the discussion going!

Follow Phil Morettini and Morettini on Management via Twitter, Facebook, RSS, or the PJM Consulting Quarterly Newsletter.

2 Comments by admin on July 22, 2009

filed in Online Marketing, Promotion, Social media

tagged 140 character limit, blog, branding, business, communications, deep links, keyword, marketing, micro blog, Social media, Twitter

Will Microsoft’s BING Finally Bring Success in the Search Engine Market?

Microsoft’s new search service is called BING, and takes a contrarian approach to the simple Google Interface. The BING interface is kind of a cross between Google and the Yahoo Directory, with a bit of Expedia, MapQuest, Shopping.com, UTube and Flicker thrown in for good measure. Never accuse Microsoft of being modest in their ambitions–this site takes on directly just about every major category in the online world.

I’ve given BING a quick look. It’s polished and appears pretty comprehensive. The search results don’t seem to be that much different from previous Microsoft efforts, although the interface’s major categories may allow the finding of information more quickly than an elegantly simple one like Google’s–if you know upfront the category of information that you’re looking for.

HOW LIKELY IS SUCCESS?

Will they succeed? They have many times before in similar situations. They’ve been laughed at and written off in quite a number of markets over the years. MS has a bad corporate habit of releasing poor products in their first one, two, and even three incarnations. Any other company would give up after so many failures in a particular segment-but not Microsoft. Don’t forget that as a software company, Microsoft has always seemed to believe that it is their god-given right to sell every line of software code written in the world.

There are many examples of Microsoft rising from the dead in software market segments. In spreadsheets, Excel was at one point in time a speck on the wall compared to Lotus 123. WordPerfect had a commanding lead over MS Word in word processing back in the DOS days. And a large number of MS Network Operating System Server software offerings (beginning with LAN Manager) were considered a joke relative to Novell Netware, for the longest time back in the 90s.

In all of these situations, Microsoft had the last laugh, soundly beating their seemingly entrenched and unbeatable rivals in large market segments. As a result of this corporate history, they believe that can beat anyone and rarely give up. Occasionally, I have seen them back off, notably after several tries competing with Intuit in personal financial software. But if it’s considered a strategic, core segment by MS, they will throw a huge amount of resources at the segment, take large losses, and not give up until they’ve broken through.

I call them the Terminator of High Tech.

TERRIBLE TRACK RECORD IN ONLINE SERVICES

Of course, this isn’t a pure software market, its online services. The problem for Microsoft with Bing and the search engine market in general is that they’ve been floundering almost completely, for a long period of time, in online services. In fact, they’ve not had much success in their history online at all. This is especially noteworthy in contrast to their domination of the desktop software business, and the competitive advantage their desktop monopoly should provide them in online services. Yet they’ve done poorly in almost everything online, and are a distant third in search engine marketing–not even all that close to a fading Yahoo.

So as most pundits will confirm, Microsoft has been terrible in the online world. This does not bode well for the possible success of Bing. But as I alluded to earlier, there is another side to this equation.

MICROSOFT CONSIDERS ONLINE SERVICES IN GENERAL AND SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING SPECIFICALLY, TO BE ABSOLUTELY AT THE CORE OF THEIR FUTURE SUCCESS–AND EVEN THEIR SURVIVAL.

Yes, this hugely successful company has always been a bit paranoid–which may be a bit on the humorous side given their overall success. But it has worked well for them over the years. It has given the company a sense of urgency which is very hard to generate in corporations of their size and stature. So anyone with a sense of history would be foolish to rule them out.

HOW CAN MS OUTFLANK GOOGLE?

But how are they going to defeat their competitors, mostly notably Google, this time in the online world? In my quick evaluation, I didn’t see anything technically revolutionary, such as demonstrably more-relevant search results. Some people may prefer the Bing category-oriented interface better than Google’s, but it will be a matter of taste–I can’t see an overwhelming advantage here. In past cases MS may have overwhelmed a segment with marketing, or simply given away a product, to ensure defeat of a rival they feared could grow into a broad line Software competitor (Novell, Netscape, etc.). It’s unclear to me what strategy they will be able to take to defeat Google, which is a dominant, embedded brand with wild profitability in Search Engine Advertising. But I believe they fear the Google franchise and know they need to crack to code to online success if they are going to retain their position in the long run. So don’t expect any throwing in the towel any time soon.

Maybe Microsoft will hit upon some innovative strategy that will enable them to win the day in this crucial market. But the one thing I can think of right now, that may work in their favor, is deep pockets, longevity and sheer persistence. Google has also been unable to achieve success outside of their domination in their core Search Engine Marketing segment. This is very analogous to Microsoft’s struggles outside of desktop software. The Search Engine advertising segment will eventually mature, and there are already some early signs of slowing. Plus Google risks killing the goose that laid their golden egg by raising their “Auction” bid rates to levels that will make it hard for their customers to make money–don’t get me started on that. Advertisers may eventually take their advertising budgets elsewhere. So for MS in this crucial platform it may be a matter of hanging around, making incremental improvement to their Search Engine offerings, until Google shoots itself in the foot.

Doesn’t sound like much of a strategy, I know. But stranger things have happened. Let me know what you thing of Microsoft’s launch of Bing. Post a message or drop me an email.

Phil Morettini
PJM Consulting
http://www.pjmconsult.com/

No Comments by admin on June 5, 2009

filed in Corporate Strategy, General Management, Online Marketing, Uncategorized

tagged consulting, consumer software, Google, marketing, Microsoft, online advertising, online services, Phil Morettini, PJM Consulting, search engine, search engine marketing, strategy, Yahoo

White Papers in the High Tech and Software Marketing Mix

There are many marketing methods in Software and IT marketing that can be appropriate in some–but not all situations. I’d put White Papers in that category. The term “white paper” is a broadly used term, and can mean different things to different people. I define a white paper as a document written to provide insight or expertise specific to a market, process or product category.

PRODUCT & MARKET APPLICABILITY

White Papers are used far more often in B2B marketing than in B2C marketing. I have seen them used in a B2C environment, but only infrequently. A White Paper is most often useful when there is complex technology or work processes involved. In a B2C environment, they would usually only be used in an “early adopter” market where a product concept is new and prices and sales cycles are still long.

MARKETING RATIONALE FOR WHITE PAPERS

Why use a White Paper at all? The best reason is to build credibility for your company or product. White papers are most frequently accessed by prospects early in the sales cycle, when a prospect is just beginning the research on a product category. These documents allow company personnel to show off domain or technology expertise, which should reflect well on the product you eventually want to sell the prospect. The white paper positions your company as thought leader in your category. It also allows you to subtly and gently position your company and product in the prospect’s mind, very early in the sales process. It is often helpful to designate one (or a few) people in the company as the author of the white paper and as an expert in the field.

THE “RIGHT WAY” TO DO WHITE PAPERS

So what are the key factors to creating a successful white paper? Here’s a few:

Written by a domain or technical expert
Succinct-no fluff or overt marketing–to the point
Aimed directly at your target prospects
Provides valuable information to your target
Mostly solution-agnostic, any product or company promotion must be subtle

WHAT NOT TO DO IN A WHITE PAPER

And what are the things to avoid a wasted effort? Keep these points in mind:

Can’t be a product brochure -no relentless promotion
Don’t make it the length of a book
Never stretch the truth
If it’s too general, so that no one will invest time to read it

BEST USES FOR WHITE PAPER

What can you do with your white paper once you’ve put in the time, money and effort to create one? There are many good uses–here’s a few to consider:

It will contribute positively to Search Engine Optimization on your website
An excellent item to use as a PPC campaign offer
A great email marketing campaign offer
Very useful to build credibility in social media postings
An important intermediate step in the marketing/sales funnel process–often useful just after a website visit, but prior to a webinar or product trial
Versatile “lead bait”–regardless of the medium or campaign, you should require contact info from the prospect prior to a white paper download
Assists in moving a prospect along without “high touch” interactions–helping automate the marketing/sales process and shorten the sales cycle

In summary, white papers can be very valuable tools in a variety of market segments. These documents should be used to differentiate your company as a progressive thought-leader in your market category. The optimal goal for a successful white paper is to position your company as a preferred vendor or serious alternative for prospects in your market segment. This is accomplished by demonstrating expertise and providing credible, valuable and unbiased information which is valued by the target prospect. Your goal is NOT accomplished by “tooting your own horn”, playing fast and loose with facts or duplicating your company brochure. If you want to be a successful white paper marketer, it’s important to restrain yourself from tactics in these latter categories. That’s what I think about using white papers as an important part of your marketing mix. Please post a comment and add your experience and thoughts on this topic.

Follow Phil Morettini and Morettini on Management via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, RSS, or the PJM Consulting Quarterly Newsletter. Contact Phil directly at info@pjmconsult.com

No Comments by admin on April 15, 2009

filed in Online Marketing, Promotion

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Pros and Cons of the Freemium Software Business Model

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Is SEO a Legitimate Marketing Technique?

Will Microsoft’s BING Finally Bring Success in the Search Engine Market?

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