High Tech Product Promotion

In this forum, I’ve discussed many topics related to software and hardware companies over the last several years. One of my favorite topics is tech product promotion methods or the marketing mix.

I work with a lot of early-stage software and hardware companies that are at the point where gaining (or regaining) market traction is crucial to moving the company forward. In these situations finding successful, profitable promotional programs are quite often a crucial activity. One that will make the difference between success and the premature death of the company.

Same old, same old promotion doesn’t work

So what’s the best way to promote SaaS, infrastructure software, and hardware products? If you’re asking that question thinking there’s an actual answer, you are likely on a path to failure. One-size-fits-all promotional programs rarely work. If they do, it’s probably just lucky. The most important thing to remember about promotion (and marketing in general) is that each company and product line represents a unique situation. Even with the exact same company and product line, a promotional program that worked 12 months ago may well fail today. Markets are not static, particularly fast-moving, high-growth technology markets.

And there is a wide range of product and market types within the high-technology business sector. The proper promotional approach for a $500,000 enterprise software application with 1000 total potential customers is far different from that for a $19/month SaaS package with 5 million potential targets. This seems obvious, but I see a lot of folks falling back on “things that have worked before” in past lives. Even if that “before” isn’t all that relevant their the current situation.

Tried and True leads to false confidence

If you find yourself falling back on some “tried and true” formula, you’re thinking “behind” the market, not “ahead” of it. I always chuckle a bit when I see a company post a position specification for a new VP of Marketing. The spec often states they are seeking candidates only from 10 specific, large software companies with recent success in a particular market. It’s very likely that one of those candidates will bring along the “formula” that made “Giant Software Company A” a huge success. Unfortunately, the strategy may be terribly inappropriate for their new company. The success of that formula may already be waning. And that formula may have NEVER worked at a different company size/time/market stage. This is one example of “shooting behind the market”. With tech product promotion programs, thinking ahead of the market isn’t just preferable, it’s required.

The reason for this is that what often works best in tech product promotions are novel new approaches.  Or new spins on old approaches, approaches borrowed from other distant market segments, etc. Unfortunately, once something works, others in the market segment take notice and the copy-cat campaigns flood the communication channels. This usually greatly reduces a successful program’s effectiveness. Nothing works forever,(especially high-tech promo programs. So you need to be constantly trying to find the next new promotional program; again, out ahead of the market. It’s similar to when the coach of a sports team installs a new system for his team. This temporarily throws the competition off balance for a time, which can be quite successful. But eventually, the competitors adjust and match or counteract what is providing the advantage. And they usually copy it for themselves.

First Its Art in Initial Product Promotion

So how do you approach finding a successful product promotion program for your company? Do you just guess? Well, not quite. I always say that promotion combines “Art” and “Science”. Unfortunately, the Art part comes first. The thing is, you will NEVER know for certain whether a promotional approach will be successful until you try it. So there is quite a bit of “Art” in formulating the initial “test programs”. But of course, you don’t just “guess’! The initial program is put together utilizing the experience of the marketer. They utilize their past experience with programs in similar market conditions. But also a snapshot of the current market conditions and product position, the amount of budget available, and the overall goals of the company. At this early stage of developing promotional programs, the key is making small, intelligent bets.

Then Science Comes into Play Downstream in Product Promotion

The key word in the discussion immediately above is “test”. This may be the most important concept in the whole topic of promotion. Unfortunately, one that is dramatically underutilized in many tech companies.

Marketing promotional programs are all too often put together haphazardly, without much analysis of the specific situation. Often they are designed in a certain way because the VP of Marketing or CEO has “always done it that way”. They are comfortable with a certain approach. In the “old days” executives without much marketing experience liked to see print ads because, in their minds, that was what marketing looked like. If the VP of Sales is involved in formulating the promotion budget, trade shows and conferences might be what he’s used to. Or seminar-style promotions might be preferred if the executive comes from a market with very high price points.

All of these methods may be very applicable to a particular situation. However, these are some of the higher-cost, lower-return activities in the promotion bag of tricks today. Overall, I see thousands (and sometimes millions) of dollars wasted on programs that have been given very little thought prior to large execution expenditures. Worse yet, these programs are often approved and implemented with little ability to judge whether or not the chosen programs end up being a good investment. This brings me to the measurement part of promotional marketing.

Formulate, Test & Measure your Promotions

I’ve never been a big fan of marketing programs that aren’t measurable. When measurement doesn’t occur, it’s often because program implementation just isn’t thought through well enough. Accurate measurements could have been put in place—but aren’t. Some programs, however,  just don’t lend themselves to correlating the program results to the corporation’s performance. Image or Brand Advertising are two expensive examples. While there is a place for such programs, I recommend that they be left to those monster corporations who can afford ambiguous results within their very large budgets. For the preponderance of companies out there where every nickel counts, I highly recommend that you for the most part stick to programs with results you can measure. These days, that means a heavy focus on digital (online) marketing.

So the formula I’m suggesting uses some judgment to place your initial product promotion bets. Always make sure that you objectively test different key elements(such as price) of your offer alongside several controlled options. Then obsessively, continuously measure the results. Marketing best practices mean always testing and measuring new versions of each key element, allowing you to continuously improve and refresh a campaign. Measurability doesn’t just happen, it needs to be “designed in” upfront. If you don’t consider measurability for a specific program until after the fact, you may have lost the opportunity to measure it at all. Or at least not as well as you could have, with some simple planning prior to program execution.

Top 6 Tech Product Promotion Bets

As I stated above, every product promotion or marketing program needs to be individualized to the current time, market, product line, and budget. You’ve got to start placing your bets somewhere (the “art” segment of finding great promo programs, as discussed above). For someone out there just getting started or trying to evaluate where to go next, here are some good programs to consider:

Press Relations (PR)

Generally my favorite marketing program for most high-tech companies. This activity is intended to provide your products and company with reviews and publicity in technology trade journals and vertical market publications. Depending upon the product possibly even general circulation newspapers and magazines, as well. If you have a good product that fills a need, getting positive reviews will provide your company with tremendous leverage and credibility. helping fill the prospect pipeline with eager potential customers.

Depending upon your particular market and resource level, hiring a PR firm or a “do it yourself” approach might be most appropriate. But nearly every company with a real solution for a particular market needs to have an active PR program of some sort. The key here is that you need real “news” the press will be interested in, or your campaign will fail. So don’t waste time and resources on PR when you don’t have something that will intrigue an editor.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Unless you’re selling a $1,000,000 product with a potential customer universe numbering less than 100, SEO is something almost every company should be doing. SEO is the activity that helps your website be found “higher up” in the results of a search conducted by someone using a search engine such as Google or Bing. No time to go into great detail here, but this is a high-return activity if done well. A little investment of time or money upfront can yield a strong return in revenue and profit gains down the road. Much like PR above, even with no budget to outsource this, you can and should conduct an SEO review and make improvements to your website on your own. In fact, for most companies this is preferable.

Social Media Marketing

Today we’re mostly talking about Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin. There are also many good vertically-oriented social media sites. look for those specific to your market. It’s important to know what you’re doing before charging headlong here.  The most important thing is to generally avoid in-your-face aggressive marketing. Instead, provide useful “how to” content and advice to establish thought leadership. If for some reason you haven’t embarked on this successfully yet it’s best to seek advice when starting.

Direct Email to House Lists

f you’re not doing a good job of capturing contact information on your customers and prospects, shame on you! The lack of a good job in this area is a deficit that I see in the marketing efforts of tech companies, especially early-stage companies. It’s critical to capture email addresses and do it so that the customer or prospect grants you explicit permission to contact them by email. This is called “opt-in”.

You’ve likely spent a lot of money establishing a relationship with these prospects or customers initially. Down the road, a well-executed direct email campaign to sell them additional products and services can bring a quick boost to your revenue. With nearly zero incremental marketing costs, I might add. Every software and hardware company should strive to have an active opt-in direct email campaign. This will allow your brand to maintain mind-share within your target audience, as well as to mine your installed base for high-margin revenue.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising (also known as Search Engine Marketing or SEM)

This promotional area has gotten quite a bit more competitive over the years. However,  I still recommend it as a basic marketing program for a great majority of software and hardware companies. These are typically the small “text ads” that appear next to organic Search Engine results. They are labeled as “Sponsored Links” or something similar. More complex ad types have also become available over the years. But text ads are still the most common type of PPC ad.

Banner Ads on Websites are also available. My favorite of these is “remarketing” ads to your website visitors. New policies on cookies are affecting these and the online advertising world in general. Pay-Per-Click programs are the internet advertising analogy to print ads in the old print media world. This is much like organic search engine results are the online analogy to editorial placements in the old print world. The two best-known Pay-per-Click services are Google Ads and Microsoft Ads, with Google being dominant. Profitability has declined using this marketing promotion method. But for companies with highly targetable or niche markets, this can be a very cost-effective and rewarding activity.

Direct Email to Rented Opt-in Lists

This is another promotional activity that has taken a big hit in popularity over the last few years. This is due to the problem of SPAM and the over-saturation of email in general. I’d focus first on doing a good job in target marketing overall and you have been successful with emailing to house-lists and Pay-Per-Click advertising programs. Focused direct email programs to targeted rented lists might still be useful in some cases. However, avoid email “shot-gunning” as it almost never works and can harm your brand immensely if poorly done.  Just remember, direct marketing in every medium is all about the offer and the list. So if you have a strong offer and are able to rent a list that fits closely with your target audience, emailing to outside lists may still be a contributor to your overall promotional plan. But be very careful here.

I hope that this has been a useful outline of the basics of high-tech product promotional methods. As always, I’m very interested in your feedback. Post a comment with your own views.

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