Tag: consumer software

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

2 Comments by admin on May 11, 2013

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

Musings on Software Market Segmentation and TV Morning Shows

I like to check out one of the morning TV shows on one of the major US-based networks for a few minutes, as I’m eating my breakfast cereal. There are 3 major programs on at the start of the day: NBC’s Today Show (the traditional market leader), ABC’s Good Morning America (the perennial runner-up) and the recently re-branded CBS This Morning in (last place for many years).

So what the heck does this have to do with software market segmentation, you ask?

I’ve been struck by how much the morning show race reminded me of the software industry has become more vertical over time. In particular, there are some strong parallels between the software business and the morning shows with respect to the product being “soft enough” to make relatively easy product changes as part of a new segmentation strategy.

Recent changes in strategy on the TV morning shows

The Today Show has been the “10,000 lb Gorilla” of the morning shows since the beginning of the category. They’ve had a large lead over their competitors across multiple changes in on-air personnel and even societal cultural changes over the years. The Today Show’s format has been aimed at a “horizontal” audience–a little bit of something for everyone. They start with hard news at the beginning of the show and it gradually becomes “lighter”, transitioning to Pop culture, celebrities and gossip as the show progresses through its marathon 4 hour time slot.

The other two major shows have taken a real beating at the hands of NBC in the ratings, with many tweaks to their formats and even more turnover in personnel over those many years. Fundamentally they have tried to compete by “building a better Today Show”, essentially competing head on with the market leader in a horizontal fashion. But over the last couple of years, ABC and more recently CBS have changed their strategy, utilizing a much sharper segmentation than at any point previously. ABC has essentially gone “younger and lighter” over the last couple of years. The show has the least serious tone and is the most “fun” of the three, focusing a lot of time on pop culture and other topics skewed toward younger viewers. It’s paid off. Good Morning America has taken a clear lead over the Today Show due primarily to this new segmentation and to a lesser extent some personnel missteps at NBC.

After many years in last place, CBS has segmented sharply in the other direction with a shorter 2 hour program focused almost entirely on hard news and staffed by serious, credible news people. It’s too early to say how successful this will ultimately be for CBS, but they have won over this writer and have picked up some market share overall-I’m watching consistently CBS in the morning for the first time. The Today Show has been struggling to remix it formula and regain its clear lead, looking much like a complacent large company that has grown fat, dumb and happy as a result of years of unchallenged success.

Software Market Equivalents

Ok, enough about TV morning shows! How does this relate to segmentation in the software market? A very similar situation albeit in a B2B rather than B2C market, is the ERP software market. The ERP market is also a very large, horizontal market–a mass B2B software market, if you will. Just about every company in the world needs some type of ERP software to run its business, from an entry-level, basic accounting application like Intuit’s Quickbooks all the way up to very expensive, complex enterprise suites such as offered by Oracle, Microsoft, SAP and Sage.

This of course is one form of verticalization–segmentation by target customer size and sophistication. Intuit and Oracle aren’t targeting the same segments. But the ERP market is so large that over time it has also segmented by industry; nearly every industry group of any significance now has ERP software vendors with specialized applications aimed at a narrow industrial segment.

Another similar example is Medical Practice Management Software. The last time I looked, there were over ONE THOUSAND software vendors with products targeting this very large market. You would think the software requirements of most medical practices would be pretty standard across the board. But because the market is so large and lucrative, nearly every market segment (Surgeons, Gynecologists, Dentists, Chiropractors, etc.) has it’s own sub-market of competitors, with applications that speak that particular medical practice’s lingo and strictly models its business processes.

I have a personal example from earlier in my career that illustrates how important segmentation can be as part of a software company’s overall strategy. I took over as CEO of an early stage mapping software company with excellent technology but an unsophisticated business strategy. While the company had a neat technical advantage over its larger competitors, the product otherwise was positioned directly against the market leaders in that space. The primary distribution channel for the mainstream mapping products of the time was computer and electronics retailers, a notoriously tough and expensive channel. I was able to make some headway in penetrating this channel. But even with our technical feature advantage it was already too late in the game and we lacked the resources to compete and win head-to-head with the larger market leaders of that time.

So we quickly came up with a segmentation strategy that proved quite helpful. Initially we took out some features away from our primary product and created an entry level product priced far below the mainstream mapping products. This allowed us to occupy the price leader position targeting the most price-sensitive consumers, and distribute through both consumer/gaming software stores of the time as well as mass market retailers such as drug and grocery stores. The mainstream mapping software players had almost no presence in these channels due to their higher price points. This entry level product, created with minimal development costs, allowed us to generate cash flow to fund our longer term segmentation strategy which was to target the B2B market. The mainstream mapping products were fairly generic and used by business people as well as consumers, but really designed for any consumer with no business-oriented features to speak of. We were able to create a premium, business-focused version of our product which we positioned as the mapping products for mobile workers/road warriors such as sales reps and service technicians. We included important business-specific features, such as integration with the popular CRM systems of the day, which weren’t found in any of the other mainstream mapping products of the day.

Important considerations in segmentation strategy

Hopefully we’ve established that segmentation of your software market can be a very powerful tool to compete with and outflank strong competitors and ultimately maximize the value of your business. So what are the important things to consider in formulating your segmentation strategy? Let’s look at a few:

Horizontal vs. Vertical – The first thing to consider is how horizontal your segment currently is and how vertical you think you need to be to compete effectively. There is a fine line here; the more horizontal you can remain (targeting multiple segments with the same product) the higher your product’s ultimate profit potential. But you must be realistic about your market position–go as “vertical” as you need to win–or your profit potential is likely zero!

Market Maturity – The more mature the market is when you enter, the more likely it will be important to segment smartly and attack a vertical niche. Of course this or any single factor shouldn’t be used in a vacuum to create a strategy–many factors need to be considered in your segmentation decision.

Market Size – The larger the market size, the more likely it is that it’s ALREADY segmented and will likely force you to do the same. There are several prominent potential exceptions here, listed in the bullet points below.

Market experience of the company - Do you know the market well, and just as important, are you known by the market? In cases where you’re known and understand your market well, it raises your odds of success even entering with a more horizontal approach.

Levels of funding – Big companies with massive resources or heavily funded startups may be able to successfully use a horizontal approach, although many confident late entrants of this type have failed in a variety of software market categories.

IP/Technology & other strategic advantages – A true innovator with market changing IP may also be able to attack and win in an established market using a horizontal approach, as they are effectively changing the ground rules of the market. But again, I’ve witnessed many companies very confident in their technical advantage that have ended up with their hats handed to them when competing head on in an established market.

Important upfront decision–but never too late to change

Like any important business consideration, it’s far better to optimally segment the market for your products up front then to wait until you are FORCED to do so. But just like a morning TV show, in the software business it’s relatively easy–at least compared to other technology categories such as computer hardware or semiconductors– and almost never too late to modify your target segments.

What’s your feeling on how best to approach segmentation in the software business? Post a comment so we can all benefit from your experiences.

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 October 21, 2012

filed in B2C, Business Models, Corporate Strategy, Distribution Channels, Pricing, Product Marketing/Management, Retail, Software/Product Development, Startup/Early Stage

Separating Technology Wheat from the Chaff

In software and hardware businesses new ideas, technologies and products come down the pike at a rapid-fire pace. Many fail immediately and some muddle along before finally fizzling out. Some meet with modest success. Only a very select few turn into long run big hits. How can you tell which products will become hits, out of a sea of mediocrity?

Not many people can differentiate between these new ideas, technologies and products at an early enough stage to profit massively from it. Keep in mind I’m not talking about small successes, but the really big ones. The ability pick the big winners out early is a rare skill set, yet one that is applicable across a wide swath of functions including general management, product planning/management, inventors, venture investing, stock analysis/selection and many more.

Short of having a brilliant mind, multidisciplinary worldview and the ability to see the future—how do you go about maximizing bets on what will hit it big and what won’t? Here are some questions that may be useful to ask when making your evaluation:

Does it solve a fundamental problem, bend a cost curve or create a new playing field?

Not every new product is based upon a fundamental technical breakthrough—but it sure helps! After all, innovation is still the basis of the technology business. This is where you look first when seeking big ideas you can profit from, something that fundamentally changes the game in a particular marketplace. One of the most spectacular examples of a breakthrough that met all three of these criteria is the personal computer. It solved some fundamental problems of the time associated with mainframe computing, certainly bent the cost curve of computing downward (and continues to due so even today) and created an entirely new ecosystem with broad societal implications. Meeting all three of these criteria is a very tall order that you won’t see often, but passing one of these three tests is almost essential for a big-time winner with staying power.

Where does it fit in the marketplace?

There are certainly many great stories of fundamental research breakthroughs without immediate, obvious market applications that ultimately found a market and became a great hit. The problem occurs when the second step—finding a market—is given short shrift, or skipped completely. This can happen when there is pure excitement and the folks funding the project have a purely technical viewpoint. The number of big successes without expert market vetting is actually pretty rare although there have been some spectacular exceptions.

We’ve all heard of the invention of super glue by accident. And Thomas Watson Senior, Chairman of the IBM Corporation in 1943 was quoted as saying: “I think there is a world market for about five computers.” Five units do not make a commercial market, but IBM made the investment anyway—and look how that turned out. But in reality the number of fundamental breakthroughs in the research lab dwarfs the number of truly successful, innovative new commercial products. So it’s important to not get too excited about these breakthroughs until a commercial application becomes obvious and realistic. Avoid at all costs the proverbial “Cure looking for a disease”, regardless of the almost mythical stories of a few massive winners borne from purely technical circumstances.

How does it compare to alternative solutions, both current and forecasted?

After deciding the breakthrough isn’t a cure looking for a disease and which market segment it fits in, it’s also very important to evaluate how it stacks up vs. rival technologies and products. And not just with respect to a current market snapshot, but looking forward as well. Forecasting really comes into play here; which technical platform has the longest runway? An example is satellite TV vs. Cable TV. When Satellite TV came into play it took a lot of market share quickly by providing innovative new services which the utility-like Cable TV companies were slow to match. But in the long run the wired infrastructure of the CableCos may provide a strategic technical advantage in that long running battle that may enable a more advanced and diverse product set.

Do the owners have what it takes to bring it to market?

This question applies not only when evaluating someone else’s product or technology—but also your own. Realistic self-reflection is important here. There have been some great new innovations that have been wasted due to bad marketing, lack of financial resources or just plain ignorance and incompetence. These weaknesses often lead to the “ arrows in the back of the pioneer”, where the folks that initially bring out the “next big thing” fail or are quickly overtaken by a more tactically skilled competitor, who improves on the idea and/or out-executes them in the market. The software spreadsheet market is instructive here, conjuring up images of several bigger fish progressively swallowing smaller ones. Visicalc was the original spreadsheet innovator overtaken by Lotus who was then in turn overtaken by MS Excel. The resources and capabilities of the innovation’s owner matters a great deal in the long run.

Is it defensible?

This is what often separates the “flash in the pan” from a true long term winner. Defensibility can be defined by the traditional technology means of patents, copyrights and trade secrets. But there are more subtle ways of defense that can be very successful in the long run: branding, entrenched distribution channels, strategic partnerships and cost advantages.

Especially in the software and hardware businesses there are tons of fast followers, who are lying in wait for an emerging trend or new market segment, where they can apply deep resources and tactical skill to out-execute the pioneers. In hardware markets the major Japanese manufacturers long ago mastered this model by taking US inventions and productizing them cheaper and better. The large Korean manufacturers then found success with this same model and most recently it’s been replicated by the Chinese. In the software business Microsoft and other large software companies have grown by either mimicking or buying up technology leaders who have pioneered a new market segment. However it’s done–make sure the next big thing is defensible before betting on it becoming a big-time, long term winner.

Does it pass muster from every angle?

As stated earlier, it really helps to be a “renaissance man” man with a multidisciplinary worldview. But people meeting that description are in very short supply, so it’s really important to employ experts across several key disciplines such as technology, finance, manufacturing and marketing, to evaluate market potential and possible weaknesses. In the technology business marketing and technology are usually the key differentiating factors, so at a minimum make sure that expertise is brought to bear in those areas during your evaluation.

There you have my view—how to do separate the winners from the losers. Post a comment with your own view of this very debatable 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 September 8, 2012

filed in Business Development, Business Models, Corporate Strategy, Distribution Channels, General Management, Product Marketing/Management, Software/Product Development, Startup/Early Stage, market research

Does Interim Management Ever Make Sense for Tech Companies?

Is there ever a time when hiring an outside senior executive for a short term assignment in a software or hardware company is the right thing to do? If you’re based in the US, the general answer (at least up until this point) seems to be NO.

Obviously there are many exceptions to this statement. But in the great majority of cases when an executive position opens up, the next person in that role is another permanent executive hire. In the small minority of cases where there is someone designated in the role with an “Interim” tag, it’s usually someone from inside the company. In the case of Interim CEOs, it’s often a current board member. Seldom do you see someone come in from outside the company who is brought in on an Interim basis.

This is very much a US phenomenon, however. In Europe (and in the UK in particular), the use of Interim Executives is a much more common occurrence. Why is there is such a different view of this function between the two main areas of the western business world? The use of Interim Senior Managers is increasing in the US, but at a very slow rate. Past the obvious difference in labor laws which make it much harder to reduce the permanent labor force in Europe, I’ve always assumed there is a cultural reason for the European vs. US gap in Interim usage. But I’m really not sure what other reasons there are for the differences in attitude.

So are US companies missing out on a practice that could in some cases be very beneficial to their business? Let’s look at a few circumstances where hiring a senior Interim Executive might make sense:

Covering Gaps

This is probably the most common reason to retain an Interim C-level Manager. An executive has left the company–whether willingly or not. The team left behind needs leadership. You can attempt to fill this gap by temporarily putting the team under a manager of another functional area, but of course this isn’t optimal. This manager usually doesn’t have the right background to manage the function and besides probably has a full plate managing his own functional area. This is the solution you see most often, but it isn’t generally a great solution. If the time gap between the former executive leaving and the new permanent hire coming on is very short, it might be fine. But if the time period the position is open is lengthy (or worse, you hurry into a very fast new hire) the performance of this functional area can really suffer. Bringing in an experienced Interim can often be a great solution to allow you to keep momentum moving in the right direction in the area of concern, while allowing the company to take it’s time and have a careful, thoughtful hiring process for the next permanent executive.

Agents of Change

There are many different reasons that a company might benefit from utilizing a change agent. One of the more common scenarios is a company undergoing financial duress. It’s often very hard for incumbent management to make the hard decisions required to bring the company back into balance, enabling it to continue as a going concern. While a new permanent hire can take the necessary steps, it can sometimes be beneficial to use a transitory change agent like an Interim Manager to take these steps. An Interim can step in and act quickly, while the right permanent hire might take too long in circumstances where timing is critical. Also, under this approach the new permanent hire, whether a CEO, CFO, etc. can come in with a clean slate and begin his tenure on a more positive note.

Another scenario common in the software and hardware business is a rapid change in technology, or some other massive change in market dynamics. In these instances it can be quite helpful to bring in an Interim specialist in the technology or market style to guide the company through a challenging period.

More generally, while most companies highly value their corporate cultures, if care is not taken there is also a tendency for things to become a bit stale over time and worst-case produce an inbred, group-think approach to business. Sometimes a fresh, outside perspective can inject new energy and innovation into problem-solving and other aspects of the company culture, even if utilized only for a short time.

Lastly, sometimes situation arise in companies where conflict over policy or personality is tearing the company or department apart, impacting the organization’s ability to function as team working toward important common company goals. Sometimes this is a transitory issue but it can also be the result of a toxic corporate culture. In these cases, bring in an Interim Manager with no previous “dog in the hunt” can allow him or her to serve in the role of an unbiased, Honest Arbiter to bridge the divide between the warring parties.

Manage a Special Project

The final common reason to employ an Interim Senior Manager in a tech company is the ubiquitous “special project”. There are many good reasons to bring a temporary senior resource on for special projects. Sometimes a project is very, very challenging, and it makes sense to bring in the most skilled, experience expertise possible to raise the odds of success. In other instances you feel confident in the level of internal expertise to bring the project to a successful conclusion, but the proper internal candidates simply don’t have the bandwidth to serve in the leadership role for the project.

In certain circumstances such as an M&A project, a new market/technology investigation or the startup of a new division you may wish to maintain a certain level of discreetness or confidentiality in the early stages of the project.

In many of these special project cases a more traditional consulting engagement could also serve the needed purpose, rather than a deeper and lengthier Interim Management engagement. The proper engagement method depends upon long and how independent the engagement needs to be.

PJM Consulting provides Interim C-level Management Services to software and hardware companies, in addition to our core Management Consulting Services. Contact us using the information below if you’d like discuss a potential need for an Interim Manager.

These are some ideas on why and when you might want to consider hiring an Interim Senior Manager. Space was limited; I’m sure there are many prime areas I left out. Post a comment with your own thoughts on the applicability of using Interim Management 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 June 16, 2012

filed in Corporate Strategy, General Management, Startup/Early Stage, Uncategorized

Are There Any Software Segments The Cloud Won’t Swallow?

It’s become pretty clear in the last couple of years that we are heading irrevocably toward a cloud-dominated future in the software business. The evidence is irrefutable. To attempt to get a traditionally licensed PC or enterprise software business funded by an institutional investor would be a suicide mission these days.

Whether it’s SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, Cloud-based, web-based, Internet-based—WHATEVER, it’s all still basically the same thing. Some folks get very snippy about all the different definitions, but they are all just different segments or interpretations of the same model: Software hosted outside of the customer’s premises and available via an Internet browser. Although the technology has improved dramatically over time, it’s really the same basic idea as ASP (application service provider) model from back before the Internet stock bubble burst.

In many cases this trend is happening for good reasons, with the primary one being the simplicity the model offers end-users. But like anything, it’s not the perfect fit in all instances. For example, I’m still not convinced this model will ever be definitely cheaper than solutions that rely more on local computing power. For that to happen, I think we’re going to need to go back to the era of much cheaper dumb terminals to replace our powerful PCs. Having all that desktop power and storage (and the associated costs) sitting on your desks unused is pretty inefficient.

In addition, I also don’t believe SaaS and other cloud-based variants are necessarily the most profitable business models for every software vendor, even though institutional investors love it. I recently had a conversation with a venture capitalist and I asked him why the VC community was so in love with software in the cloud, specifically SaaS-based models. After some discussion about the various elements of SaaS and customer premise-based software models, it really came down to something simple: traditionally licensed software companies are valued at 1-3X revenue and SaaS-based companies are valued at 5-6X revenues. Of course, it’s all about the money and this makes perfect sense. But will this valuation gap be sustainable, or is it a market inefficiency that will go away over time? But I digress, that’s a topic for a different debate….

There are some very good (and maybe not so good) reasons that certain segments won’t come completely under the spell of cloud-based computing. Let’s take a look at a few areas where I forecast the cloud won’t become dominant:

Banking

This is one of the toughest software market segments there is. Banks are notoriously difficult to penetrate, and security is paramount. I believe this will be one of the toughest segments for cloud-based solutions to penetrate, and will be even harder to dominate. Certainly they’ll be a lot of cloud-based applications in non-critical functions. But anything that gets at the core banking functions, including customer data or money will be kept private. That might be a traditional on-premises solutions or private cloud-based apps, but anything sensitive from a security viewpoint will be held tight.

Government

I believe this will be a similar situation here to the Banking market. Certainly the Cloud has already penetrated many areas of the government, and will continue to do so. But there are larges segments of government services where the data is just too sensitive. We’ve seen a lot of embarrassing breaches lately with respect to intelligence data that absolutely needs to remain secret. I think we’ll see a pullback from this data being available via the Internet, rather than moving deeper in that direction.

Open Source and Mobile

Outside of the cloud, these are the two software segments that institutional investors will still put money into. It’s true that many mobile applications have a cloud-based back-end, and a lot of Open Source platforms are used to generate cloud-based apps. But both of these areas represent code that will sit on customer-controlled assets and will slow the adoption of a centralized model where all computing is done in the publicly-accessible cloud.

Buyers vs. Renters

Some folks just like to own stuff. While the rental model works for many due to the reduction in software and hardware investment, which saves capital for other purposes, others feel that renting is wasteful. Indeed, SaaS and other lease/rental-oriented models aren’t necessarily the cheapest in the long run. This is really a psychographic attribute that isn’t likely to change among those so-inclined.

100% Service Levels required

The Internet is a long way from the old AT&T Ma Bell monopoly when it comes to service levels. Have you ever had the power go out at a company you work at? In this day and age, when that happens, everything immediately stops. With the every-increasing reliance on Internet-based technologies (and being accelerated by cloud-based apps), the Internet connection going down can have roughly the same effect. The Amazon EC2 Cloud Services outage in April 2011 gives a sneak preview of what can happen to productivity levels if service levels are compromised on a wide scale or for a long period of time.

Security Conscious (and the Paranoid)

There are many out there among us that have their own safes rather than using a Bank’s safe-deposit box, or are building safes rooms or bomb shelters to protect against perceived threats they view as inevitable. Many others are simply very cautious and prudent, and that means holding things close to the vest and not embracing the newest technologies until they are viewed as bulletproof. The profiles vary from the prudent to the paranoid, but the common thread will be slow or no adoption of technologies that are viewed as giving up control of something important.

As we embrace cloud-based applications at an extremely fast rate, my own feeling is that we are headed toward a major, high-profile event that will slow adoption considerably. I’m not sure what form that will take, but it could easily be a major data security breach that causes real damage to a lot of people, or an Internet-based outage that brings a bunch of businesses to their knees. There are many examples already which support that these types of events are quite possible. Several times a year now I get a notice that my private data has been compromised by one vendor or another. The Amazon EC2 outage discussed above already gave a number of people pause about being held captive by this model.

So that’s my take on some areas we’ll see little (or at least slow) adoption of public cloud-based software models. Do you see other areas I left out? I’m sure this will be a bit controversial as well—some out there disagree and believe the Cloud will take over the world. I’d like to hear from all of you, regardless of your view. Post a comment to add to the debate.

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 29, 2012

filed in B2C, Business Models, Corporate Strategy, General Management, Operations, SaaS, Software/Product Development, enterprise software

Optimal Levels of Formal Process in High Tech Companies

The level of process in an organization is a pretty esoteric topic that I haven’t seen discussed very often, or in very much depth. Yet I believe it is critically important to any CEO looking to grow a company, particularly a software or hardware technology based company.

The reason I believe it is so important is that, in aggregate, how process-oriented your company culture is effects every nook and cranny of company operations. Oftentimes, however, senior management doesn’t even explicitly think about how much process they want governing company operations. More often than not, this part of the culture grows in a random and haphazard manner, driven by unforeseen key events that shape the level of process. Sometimes the level of structure varies dramatically by department. In these cases, managers below the senior executive level usually are driving department cultures that may or may not be process-oriented, depending upon their own operating styles. The key takeaway here is that process levels often aren’t being driven strategically, but occurring tactically or even haphazardly. This is usually a mistake–here’s why I think so.

In technology companies, in particular, the level of processes can make or destroy your business. There are three reasons that I feel there is much more sensitivity in high tech companies to process levels:

The rapid evolution of technology and technology markets
The need to innovate if you want to thrive in technology businesses
The necessity and difficulty of constantly ‘taming” new technology

I’ll use as an example a recent experience with a client to illustrate my point. The client is a small but growing software company. They have in their culture a high level of chaos, as is common with many growing, young software businesses. The company was bootstrapped and grown out of what started as a service business, and possesses very little in the way of corporate controls or processes.

On the positive side they are very responsive, fast-moving and innovative, able to capitalize on changes in technology and inefficiencies in the market. These are very important qualities in a software startup, particularly one of the thinly capitalized variety. These attributes are the very reason they’ve been able to crack through the very early stage that kills many startups, and has allowed them to grow and thrive.

But there’s a flip-side to this type of unstructured corporate environment, however. This company lacks the discipline that is required to “stick to the plan”. Indeed, there is very little planning going on to begin with! This operating style fits great in the segments of the business where innovation is critical, such as conceiving new products. But in other areas where a more disciplined, structured approach is important, performance is much lower and is a drag on company results. While excellent at conceiving and quickly prototyping new products, follow-on releases often come out much later than planned. QA is not a formal function and the initial new releases and documentation are lower quality than they could and indeed should be. The website has very little oversight and is littered with a lack of consistency, broken links, old content and grammar & spelling errors. We’ve worked on correcting these problems — carefully — without killing the very environment that is enabling success. It’s tricky to fix without “throwing the baby out with the bathwater”.

This is just one example, and of course the level of process needed to run IBM optimally is fundamentally different from that of an early stage software startup. In your particular company, it may be very important to have a high level of formal process in one department–and just as important to minimize the level of process in another. This may be quite different altogether in other companies.

So how do you know that you need to adjust your level of process in a strategic sense? Here are a few guidelines to get you thinking about where your process level stacks up vs. what may be optimal:

Your competitors are beating you to the punch

This is a sure sign that you are bureaucratic and process-oriented relative to your market. While there may be good reasons for the processes you have installed, being consistently behind in responding to market needs can have a very negative effect on your growth prospects.

You are constantly releasing “flawed” products into the market

This is the converse to the first point above. It usually indicates you moving too fast, with too little process and structure in product development, QA and release. In truth, the end results of this approach is usually worse that being beaten to market.

Employees are complaining about so much process

I always listen to what employees are saying; they are the “canary in coal mine”, often a leading indicator of issues that later show up in your financial statements. The caveat here is that these types of complaints can also indicate a hiring problem. Make sure you’re not hiring people who’s operating style aren’t a good fit with the way the company needs to operate.

Employees are complaining about the lack of process controls

The converse to the point directly above is when employees are complaining about how much chaos exists in the company. While the point above about watch for hiring mismatches rings true here as well, this is often the time you need to take a hard look at adding some structure to how you operate.

There’s absolutely no “chaos” in your organization–and little or no innovation as well

I have a rule of thumb when it comes to pricing new products: if no one is complaining about price, you probably are leaving money on the table. My “chaos corollary” is similar: if there is no chaos in your operations that folks are complaining about, you probably have created an environment so process-oriented it will limit your innovation and resulting revenue.

Generally speaking, I have a bias towards a little less process and a bit more chaos in software and hardware companies. Often excessive process is just a bad band-aid covering up poor hiring practices. Nothing allows you to minimize process like a strong, responsible, empowered group of employees. Creating the environment to hire and retain highly responsible people generally leads to a company getting done everything it needs to, with a good level of innovation to boot–while keeping formal process to a minimum.

I recommend holding off adding new processes until you absolutely have to, because going the other direction is much more difficult. But in fact, it’s important to have the proper balance if you want your company to function optimally. Analyze what the proper level of structure and process is not just for your company overall, but in each discrete operating segment of your business.

There you have it–my view on how to analyze and instill the proper amount of formal process for your company. What’s your view on this topic? Post a comment to expand 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

4 Comments by admin on April 21, 2012

filed in Business Models, Corporate Strategy, General Management, Operations, Software/Product Development, Startup/Early Stage, enterprise software, hardware

Starting Software Product Businesses Within Service Companies

The focus of my consulting practice is on commercial software product businesses, whether traditionally licensed, mobile, open source, SaaS–or some combination of all. While many software product businesses are originally organized with that purpose in mind, a remarkably large number of others started in another business. Let’s take a look at a few service-oriented scenarios which tend to grow into or spin off software product businesses:

Software (consulting) services

It’s very common for a product to be developed out of a software services company, which can mean a range of services such as consulting or outsourcing. These companies are being asked to design/create full applications, either for internal use by end user customers or as actual commercial software products. As a result, these service companies are in good position to recognize software product opportunities; sometimes these products are created by a funded service contract (if the service company is savvy enough to retain code rights!).

Government contracting

This is a very similar situation to the Software Services example above, with a couple of important differences. Government contractors are often not pure software development organizations; they may create hardware or provide other services as their government customers dictate. So they may not have a culture which emphasizes software development. Even more importantly, it can be tricky to retain rights to code developed with government funding–contracting expertise and an upfront emphasis on rights retention are critical in these circumstances.

Hardware/Systems

Another common scenario is software developed within a hardware or systems-oriented company. While not strictly fitting into the service category, I’ve included this example because it’s another common way software product companies are started that doesn’t fit the traditional methodology. The fact is that even in hardware companies these days, most of the innovation and IP is software-based. So it’s not at all unusual to see software developed as part of a systems approach that is later seen as having a market as a standalone application, apart from the hardware. Many successful software companies have started as spin-offs from hardware or systems-oriented companies.

VARs

Here’s another slightly different flavor of the Software Consulting Services example we began with. VARs are solutions providers for end user customers and are frequently asked to extend existing applications which are lacking in some way, integrate these solutions with other applications, or even write a standalone custom application. They are therefore well-positioned to get an early view of (and sometimes a customer-funded head-start developing) products needed to satisfy unfilled end users needs.

End user

End users often have in-house development capabilities and develop their own applications. In this case, the “service” organization is the internal IT department. These applications are often developed because of a “hole” in the existing commercial product offerings available in the marketplace. Forward thinking organizations may further develop and then spin-off these internal applications into commercial products.

So that’s a look at how organizations which aren’t-software product-oriented end up with a software product business. It can be a really great way for a software business to start–but there are many things that can prevent the successful transition into a going concern software product business. Here’s a list of a few:

Issues Which Can Prevent Success:

Culture

This is a frequent culprit in the failure of product businesses which are developed in the various service environments as discussed above. Depending upon the parent’s business, a mismatch in culture can come from a lack of understanding of either the software or product aspects of the resulting new business. For example, the management team of and “end-user” company that has developed a product may not be sufficiently software-savvy to make the right decisions to put the new business on a solid footing. A business executive in a software services company may not understand what it takes to develop a product to commercial product standards, or successfully market it. One of the biggest mismatches in culture often occurs within a government contractor. The “common business sense” required to be successful in the contracting business is shockingly different than that of a commercial software product business. The cultures are nearly polar opposites–It’s like English vs. French.

Capitalization

Often the cultural differences listed above or low overall capitalization of the parent company leads to the most common problem of these software product spin-offs: lack of proper initial capitalization. One of the attractive aspects of the software business is that it requires much less investment capital that a manufactured goods business–but it’s still a product business. Product businesses require more capital than service businesses. So even if you’ve created a great mousetrap, if you don’t have the money required to continue to develop it as well as market it–at least until you’re cash-flow positive–failure is quite likely.

Not productized

Maybe the most common problem of all is the lack of “productization” of the software application prior to launch as a commercial product. The level of usability, functionality and reliability required in the commercial product marketplace far exceeds the standards of the custom software application market. When you are supporting a single company directly with a custom app, you can afford a level of support which can overcome minor deficiencies in the areas listed. Once rolled out to a mass market of users in the software product marketplace, these deficiencies can kill a promising new product very quickly.

Me-too Products

One of the areas of expertise lacking in a service-oriented company (almost by definition) is Product Marketing/Management/Planning. The lack of this functional expertise can lead to a number of mistakes. One of the elementary mistakes that I see surprisingly often is not ensuring that you are making a novel “contribution to the market”. A software product startup with the 19^th product to enter an existing market, with no discernable competitive advantage, is a great way to lose money.

Lack of software product industry experience

If you add up the potential mistakes listed above, most of them can be mitigated by the addition of software-product company operating experience. Sadly, in many instances the parent service company senior management is too proud or simply ignorant and unable to acknowledge this weakness. This potential weakness can be alleviated by hiring an experienced operating executive, or retaining a software product industry management consultant such as PJM Consulting.

The bottom line to all of this is that there are alternatives to the more conventional approaches of creating a traditional investor-funded or founder-bootstrapped software product company. Whether created intentionally from the beginning or a “happy accident”, companies started this way can provide an advantage of significantly reduced capital-requirement-to-profitability compared to traditional startup methods. But there are potholes and roadblocks that must be avoided to prevent crib death of embryonic software startups born this way.

So that’s some of the lessons I’ve learned with regards to creating product businesses from service companies. Is this something you’ve done or witnessed others attempt?–what were your results? Pitch in with your two cents — post a comment to expand 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

7 Comments by admin on March 23, 2012

filed in Business Models, Corporate Strategy, General Management, Product Marketing/Management, SaaS, Software/Product Development, Startup/Early Stage, VARs, hardware

Extending Your Technology With Spinoff Products

Many software and hardware businesses, particularly smaller ones, are religiously focused on a specific vertical market. As well they should; focus is one of the most important attributes that can bring a business from startup to a strong growing business. This is often one of the key areas I concentrate on with many of my consulting clients. Many businesses just can’t turn down any sort of deal, no matter what the effect it has on their existing product development plans or other key corporate initiatives.

But there is another side to the focus issue. Many tech companies have developed excellent, mature technology bases at huge expense. If that basic technology has a horizontal appeal, it can be quite profitable to spend a modest amount of additional effort to bring that technology to other adjacent markets that the company is currently not serving.

Care needs to be taken, of course, to not spread your marketing efforts too thin. But if you’re smart about it your company can increase, sometimes dramatically, the return on its product development investments. Let’s take a look at a few potential tactics, all of which I’ve used successfully both at companies I’ve run and with consulting clients:

Customize your products for adjacent markets

As an example, maybe you have an ERP software package aimed at retail markets. It might be quite easy to customize the product for other inventory-oriented businesses, such as distribution or service/repair businesses. By doing this you’ve created a potentially large new revenue source, at a fraction what building that product from scratch might cost. The trick in this instance is often marketing the product–read below for a couple of ideas on how to accomplish that without doubling your marketing budget.

Private Label/OEM products

Private labeling or OEMing your product to another vendor can be an excellent way to extend your product development ROI. It might be as simple as partnering with a non-competitive vendor who takes your existing product “as is” or with minor modifications, as well as changing the product identity and labeling. The target partner would be a company very strong in a market segment that you aren’t successful in, have no interest in directly marketing in, or simply is beyond your resource level. If done well, this is a win-win for both companies. Your company gets additional revenues with little to no additional costs (“pure profit”), while your partner gains additional revenue in it’s target market–without any product development investment.

Integration & bundling with other products

One of the best things a software vendor is to create a “developer’s version” of it’s product, which essentially consists of creating APIs (application programming interface) to the software. This allows easy integration with complementary software applications and even hardware. Back when I was CEO of a mapping software company with limited resources, we created a developer’s version which enabled both integration and bundling with a number of complementary applications, notably in the real estate and CRM segments. Once again, this tactic required only modest product development investment and enabled us to draw revenue from a number of different markets. We would never have had the resources to pursue these markets if we tried to build a new product from scratch as a company would traditionally do.

Different price points

Using my favorite mapping software company example, we were often forced to think creatively to wring out as much revenue as we could out from our existing technology. One of the other tactics we used was “de-feature” our existing $99 high-end consumer application to create a $9.95 version, which we then sold through mass market retailers of all kinds. Not only did this create more revenue, but the high volume business also created a bunch of opportunities to upgrade these entry level customers to our higher-end core product. This is a strategy I’ve used many times; you almost can’t go wrong when creating a larger customer base for your technology. I use the simplistic phrase “the more you sell, the more you sell” to illustrate the advantages of this approach.

Business vs. consumer version

At that very same mapping software company we used one other great approach to extending your technology: creating a B2B version of our consumer product which was aimed at road warriors such as sales and service professionals (the converse works just as well). The B2B version had a few additional features and we sold it via different channels and strategic partners. It didn’t have the unit volume of the consumer version, but the margins were much higher.

So there are a few ideas on how to extend the use of your IP to increase your overall ROI. What are your ideas on creatively utilizing existing assets to create additional growth? Please post a comment with your own thoughts so we can all benefit.

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

1 Comment by admin on December 5, 2011

filed in B2C, Business Models, Corporate Strategy, Distribution Channels, General Management, Product Marketing/Management, Software/Product Development, Startup/Early Stage, enterprise software, hardware

tagged B2B, business model, channel, consumer software, distribution, early stage, growth, hardware, high tech, management, PJM Consulting, product, Product Development, software, startup, strategy, tech

What’s Up With HP?

As regular readers will know, I am a Hewlett Packard alumnus and a longtime admirer of the company. I worked at HP in the eighties, and with hindsight it was one of the finest periods of my career. It was a GREAT place to work, as documented by books and case studies written about the company. My time there definitely had a major effect in shaping my management philosophies.

The more recent -periods at HP have seen a lot of change and a fair amount of turmoil not typical in the company’s first 60 years or so.

Let’s analyze some of the recent events and assess the overall strategic situation:

Firing of Leo Apotheker

What a disaster this was. To hire a new CEO with a major change in strategic direction in mind, then let him go in less than a year is not good. What isn’t known is was the new strategy totally conceived by Mr. Apotheker, or was he brought in to support a new strategy favored by the HP board. Either way, it’s an awful mess for such a major company, and the HP board has not distinguished itself in the last decade.

The new strategy itself while risky on the surface wasn’t the real problem, imo. The communication of the new direction was the real disaster, and smacked of incompetence. Don’t announce you’re “going to sell the business”–that does nothing for valuations. If you’re going to sell it, get on with it and sell it without premature public announcements. By most accounts Mr. Apotheker’s short reign was punctuated by missteps, retractions, chronically missing financial targets and general bumbling. My sources inside the company say that he had lost just about everyone’s confidence, from employees to shareholders to the board. It’s hard to say if that’s fair; new managers can be sabotaged by entrenched forces against change. And major changes were on the way. But the buck needs to stop with the CEO, and it certainly did in this case.

Planned Sale of the PC business

To be honest, I go back and forward on this one. Back in my HP days the PC business was a money-losing, also-ran business with tiny margins. The corporate line of thinking at the time was that HP HAD to be in the PC business, it was so central to everything else the company wanted to do, and the computing world revolved around PCs. I never bought it. In fact, the PC folks got in the way of many things we wanted to accomplish in the peripherals segment of the business, specifically connecting to and partnering with all the other PC makers.

The PC business remains a low margin one today, but one that HP has established a leading position in. I haven’t studied the balance sheet, but I doubt the PC business is so capital-intensive that it would prevent HP from having the money to adequately invest in a new direction. I don’t think selling it off is a stupid move, but announcing it as a first step seems extreme, and only served to make everyone involved nervous about what the future holds.

Eliminating the Tablets/WebOS

Another PR disaster and one that was totally avoidable. The problem was in buying Palm in the first place, and paying a billion dollars for a company that had almost completely failed in the marketplace. Then introducing a new line of tablet computers to great fanfare, almost immediately obsoleting them, and then announcing you’ll be making a few more because everyone love the fire-sale obsolescence pricing–it appeared that the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing.

By most accounts the WebOS is a nice piece of software. The problem is that this move was so very late to the game. If it had been done a few years earlier, it might have been a savvy deal, and allowed HP to make a major move into mobile devices with a differentiated product offering. But by the time of this acquisition, Palm was already discredited and Apple, Android and Blackberry had solidified the top leadership positions. And the price was completely ridiculous for as failed company. You can put this one on Mark Hurd, as it came on his watch.

Buying Autonomy

HP recently announced completion of the Autonomy acquisition, paying a dear price for this enterprise software company. Autonomy is a good acquisition if you’re intent on growing software as a share of revenue; the only issue is the price. It was very high, but one must remember that HP’s overall revenues are north of $125 BILLION. Autonomy adds less than $1B in revenue, which is a drop in the bucket relative to HP’s size. With a purchase price of over $10B, HP paid more than 11X revenues–pretty pricey even by today’s inflated SaaS valuations. Autonomy will have to be an exceptional growth in engine for this to pay off. Only time will tell.

Copying the IBM playbook

The IBM playbook was to sell off low margin, lower growth hardware business such as PCs (IBM sold its PC business to Lenovo, a shocking move at the time). Then focus on increasing software and services revenues relentlessly, for a long period of time. It’s worked extremely well for IBM, although I remember there were some tough times in the beginning. Would it work as well for HP, who appears interested in copying IBM’s strategy? I’m not a big fan of copying other company’s strategies, although on the surface the two companies are similar. The key to success or failure is usually execution in most cases of corporate strategy. Executing this strategy would also take a very long time to have an impact on HP’s financials. HP’s software share of total corporate revenue was less than 3% in 2010. There are only so many $1B+ software companies out there. Most software acquisitions on their own will have a minimum effect on HP’s overall revenues, unless they went after one of the few industry giants–which would truly shock me. HP has become strong in services after it’s acquisition of EDS in 2008, but is still much less prominent in services than IBM. So even with an aggressive acquisition program and strong organic growth, HP looks to be a hardware-dominated company for a long time in the future.

Meg Whitman appointed CEO

It’s hard to say what influence this will have on the corporate strategy. Ms. Whitman is a seasoned CEO who has been involved in great success, although one could argue that she was very fortunate to benefit from a snowball rolling downhill with Ebay. In addition, her background is heavily consumer products with almost nothing in the enterprise space, which is HP’s supposed new direction. HP’s business is only 25% consumer products, and if you eliminate the massive PC business, it becomes a whole lot less. I never underestimate smart people or their ability to adapt, and she definitely fits in the smart category. But experienced business people also tend to fall back on the comfort level of their past experience and what they understand best. It will be very interesting to watch as Ms. Whitman’s tenure evolves, especially how she affects the previously announced strategy.

What happens next?

I think that HP ends up keeping the PC business, while at least in the short term attempting to become more software and services intensive. You’ll see more software and services acquisitions. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see the flight away from consumer-oriented businesses to abate as long as Meg Whitman is CEO.

I also think that the original IBM-style strategy will be difficult–but not impossible–for HP to implement. For this approach to work, shareholders, employees and the board will all need to be very patient and supportive of the plan. Meg Whitman will really need to believe in it as well, and as discussed above, her background is far from a perfect fit for where they’re headed. My guess is that this strategy won’t be given enough rope for it to work and we’ll see another change of direction in the medium-term, but you never know. That’s what makes this kind of speculation so much fun!

What’s your take on the future direction of HP? Where are they headed, and does it end well or not? I’m interested in your analysis of recent events at the company; post a comment to share your views 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

7 Comments by admin on October 17, 2011

filed in B2C, Business Models, Corporate Strategy, General Management, Mergers & Acquisitions, SaaS, enterprise software, hardware

tagged Autonomy, B2B, business model, CEO, consultant, consulting, consumer software, hardware, Hewlett Packard, high tech, HP, IBM, Leo Apotheker, management, Meg Whitman, Palm, PC, Phil Morettini, PJM Consulting, software, strategy, tech, technology, WebOS

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

Morettini on Management

General Management and Marketing Advice for Software and Tech Companies

Pros and Cons of the Freemium Software Business Model

Musings on Software Market Segmentation and TV Morning Shows

Separating Technology Wheat from the Chaff

Does Interim Management Ever Make Sense for Tech Companies?

Optimal Levels of Formal Process in High Tech Companies

Starting Software Product Businesses Within Service Companies

Extending Your Technology With Spinoff Products

What’s Up With HP?

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