Software Go-To-Market Strategy and Tactics

It’s challenging to generalize the optimal approach to Go-to-Market for a software product. Like most things in technology marketing, it is highly dependent on the specific situation. Are we talking about a startup or a billion-dollar software company? SaaS, Open Source, or a mobile app? A breakthrough application or a follow-on to an existing product?

All of these questions and more matter greatly as you develop and configure your unique Go-to-Market mix.

But some activities tend to apply to a high percentage of Go-To-Market scenarios. Let’s take a look at some of my favorites:

PR

In most cases, in a product introduction of any real note, press relations should be a heavy part of the marketing mix. The exception is minor introductions, usually of existing products, that just aren’t very newsworthy. But often this is indeed the VERY BEST time to rev up the PR machine. Please note that when I’m talking about PR, I don’t mean just cranking out a press release and putting it out via one of the press release services such as PR Newswire, Businesswire, Marketwire, etc. That’s part of the puzzle; it might get you some minor press placements.

But to maximize your Go-to-Market PR opportunity, you need to use the human touch. This means contacting and cultivating relationships with editors who cover the beat that is critical to your product category. This is ideally done well before your introduction. If your introduction is newsworthy enough, it may also be worthwhile to engage the services of a PR agency. This will amplify the press opportunity for your product introduction. However, whether you hire an agency or handle PR internally,  PR in the tech business in this era of technology-driven marketing hasn’t changed much for a long time. Obtaining those product reviews and key article placements, which can give your product introduction a huge momentum boost, still requires relationship building.

PPC advertising

PPC advertising has become a staple of software company promotional budgets. As a result of PPC becoming mainstream, its effectiveness and efficiency have degraded relative to the “old days” when this was a highly effective marketing activity. There is still a place in nearly every budget for PPC advertising, such as Google Ads and the Microsoft Ads network. The go-to-market strategy is a good time for this activity. One of the key strengths of PPC is the ability to launch and scale campaigns quickly and efficiently. While other activities in your product introduction toolbox may ultimately be much higher return, PPC can get you started in the right direction with very early site visitors, leads, and sales.

A key tradeshow or two

If you’re a regular reader of mine, you may be aware that I’m not the biggest fan of spending a lot of money on tradeshows in this modern, online-oriented marketing era. But there is still room in the marketing mix for a strategic show here or there. If it’s possible to align your new product introduction with a particularly appropriate event, Go-to-Market may be the best time to spend on a show. My reasoning here is that there is something about personal contact that just can’t be duplicated through most of the generally more efficient online marketing methods. Early in a product intro cycle, an industry-specific conference or trade show can allow you to really “take the pulse” of the target market.

This includes testing messaging and pricing with real (and real-time) human feedback. That can be invaluable in catching anything non-optimal in your Go-to-Market approach early on. As well as giving you a chance to adjust it before too much is lost. In addition, the trade press tends to congregate at important events. This enables you to efficiently improve your PR efforts by meeting with many editors in a single location, in a short time. This assumes you’ve planned and arranged those meetings early on in your show planning. Editors are in high demand, and their schedules fill up quickly. So it’s important to be very organized to ensure you don’t squander this important PR opportunity.

 Special introductory pricing

It’s often difficult to establish the perfect price point or structure for a new product. Especially if the product you’re launching is novel or even revolutionary. My standard pricing approach is value-based.  But in completely new Go-to-Market situations, it may be difficult to do a good job of quantifying that value before entering the market. Even with run-of-the-mill introductions, your initial ideas on pricing may often not be optimal.

Because of this, I’ve always felt that a great way to introduce a new product from a pricing perspective is to set your nominal list price at the high end of your range of possibilities. Then run a series of pricing tests via “special introductory offers”. ALWAYS make these offers time-limited. You can learn a lot about price elasticity by doing this. The tests can be run for different periods, in different regions, or even individual vertical segments. Running these tests can help you converge quickly toward an optimal list price. You can ultimately adjust your list price toward the introductory prices, which yield the best results. All while not jacking around with your list price in the near term, which can cause confusion and freeze buyers.

Introductory pricing side-benefits

A nice side benefit of these introductory pricing campaigns is that initial sales should be bumped nicely by these special offers. Time-limited offers have a way of accelerating buyer decision-making. Especially when a product is new and unproven and might not otherwise have a sense of urgency associated with it.

So that’s a quick look at some of my favorite Go-to-Market tactics. There are many more relevant activities that could be listed here. What are some of your favorites? Please post them in the comment field below so we can pool our knowledge.

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