How To Get Your Program Professionally Marketed? 131
one-man orchestra writes "I'm the sole programmer of a small, multi-platform, commercial audio program (a spectrogram editor). After over 6 months on the market, I realized that the program would never just sell itself, and that I need some real marketing done for it. Being a one-man orchestra is becoming increasingly difficult; I only can devote so much time to marketing, my skills in that department are lacking, and I'd much rather spend more time coding. Despite my lackluster part-time marketing effort, I still manage to make a modest living out of the sales. My logical assumption is that with someone competent taking care of that part, revenue could greatly scale up. But what's the right way to go about doing this? What type of people/company do I need to contact? What to expect? What to look out for?"
This is really a niche marketing problem... (Score:5, Interesting)
"Program" and "commercial audio program" are two different beasts. Have you sent press releases/info to the bigger music software news sites? (KVRAudio, harmony central, etc). Or to technical forums? (Gearslutz, ProSoundWeb, etc). It's not like you're selling an anti-virus package or an MMO, this is kind of a specialized market...
Re:Some tips specific to audio apps. (Score:3, Interesting)
I haven't found press releases to be that useful, but developing press and analyst contacts absolutely is.
An easy trick is to Google the term, or the nearest relevant term, and find out what writers have written articles about the subject. In many cases this will be their area of coverage (their beat), or at least an area of interest, and within reason they will actually want to know what's going on in the field.
I got a chapter in a Grid Computing book out of one such contact.
Finding out who the relevant writers and analysts are is much more effective than sending tons of press releases to random people at random publications.
Re:This is really a niche marketing problem... (Score:2, Interesting)
You have to find out who the writers and analysts are who cover, and hopefully are interested in, the subject. That will yield a 25 to 30 percent success rate (which isn't great but is good enough to get the ball rolling).
In terms of technical forums, spamming them won't work. You have to establish yourself as an expert by answering questions about the subject and build up karma points with people.
Re:Protect Your Intellectual Rights Before You Sel (Score:4, Interesting)
Are you crazy?
That stuff turns off any normal buyers. It might work if you're doing something uber-specialized you sell to large companies, but normal people stay far away from anything like that. Just for a start, how would I sign this contract by hand while being in another country? Do you really expect somebody to print and mail a contract, and wait for a week or two until it gets to the destination?
IMO, for a program destined to the general public abstain from any of the following:
* Required registration
* Required email address
* Price not listed on the website (since that usually means "an arm, a leg, and a kidney", or "as much as we can get you to pay")
* Dongles and other intrusive methods of control
* Lack of specific information on what exactly the program does
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Get personal (Score:3, Interesting)
After that, you can drive traffic to your site with keyword buys, maybe small ads in journals. Send press releases to any of the journals or magazines that apply to your application.
But I think that you'll find that the most effective thing will be for you to establish a personal presence on the Internet, and to link that presence to your product's web site. Are there USENET newsgroups or web-hosted forums for people that could use your program? Don't just spam the forums, but participate genuinely in the discussions. Of course, your sig must have a link to your web site (the name of which should minimally define the product). Share your personal expertise in the specialized field your software addresses, and it will reflect positively on the product. You could also set up your own forum, but without a means to attract users it would probably languish.
Finally, look to conferences and conventions applicable to your product. Many (but not all) of those conferences are quite willing to let you give a seminar or poster session for an application using your product. Purely academic conferences usually don't allow this type of semi-commercialism, but many others do. The good part about giving a talk, seminar or workshop is that you usually get into the conference free as a VIP, and you don't have the expense of purchasing or manning a booth. Running a booth at NAMM, AES or other major shows is not feasible unless you already have substantial sales.
Re:Some tips specific to audio apps. (Score:2, Interesting)
Listen to your users. If your users like your software, they will talk about your software. Word of mouth goes far. If your software gets feedback from an active community, you will go far. It's like a Moebius loop of good times.
I pay attention to every blog and forum post that links to my site (using the referral information) and quite often I see my program being proposed as the answer to a question. Unfortunately while it works it currently works on too small a scale to make a real difference. I also regularly get e-mails regarding bugs or feature requests and I try to update my program accordingly as quickly as I can.
Windows is all over the place, so I guess list in as many places as you want/can?
Oh I tried doing exactly that, and when you google the name of my program you see it on a lot of shareware sites and such, unfortunately I don't think that works so well. I'm afraid that these sites (at least for Windows, haven't tried Mac yet as the Mac port was only recently released and still is in beta as a couple of features are lacking) aren't the right target for my program. It's hard to know for sure but I'm not sure any sale ever came out of any of these sites.
We have a lot of community driven music competitions
I just started my first processing challenge, but I felt that starting a challenge and "announcing" (almost spamming) it on any forum I could was probably not the optimal way to do marketing. No IRC channel yet, until now I haven't deemed my following large enough to warrant the creation of a dedicated IRC channel, although I may reconsider it now.
we're interested in doing hardware partnerships / have our software included with hardware
How do you do that? Like, who do you contact? That would interest me.
We are also keeping our eye on audio trade shows like NAMM / Musik Messe.
What does keeping an eye on them consist in exactly?
Hope this helps.
I greatly appreciate your insight, thanks a lot!
Duct Tape Marketing (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Some tips specific to audio apps. (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't give stuff away if you can't afford to (which is the beauty of selling software versus hardware).
Back in the day (which was pre-blog) I wouldn't give software to anyone who hadn't been published in a major trade publication. That kind of worked, and kept the guys looking for freebies in check to a degree, but you have to just accept that only a percentage of the people you contact will reply and only a percentage of the people who reply will actually write something. That's why it's a bit of a numbers game (lots of things in the funnel for a few things out).
For my book "Elevator Pitch Essentials" I have probably sent out 50 review copies and gotten 5 articles in return. That's kind of depressing, but it's the way it is.
I will say that the whole blog thing has changed the question of accreditation. I will send free copies (both PDF and hard copy) of my book to bloggers but I have had a very high success rate (80%) and it costs me nothing to send a PDF and only a few bucks to send a hard copy.
I always hated the phrase "You have to spend money to make money" when I was just starting out, but now I find myself telling it to people.
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Protect Your Intellectual Rights Before You Sel (Score:3, Interesting)
I had a lot of discussion about this with fellow developers prior to releasing the first version, and I've been repeatedly advised to not worry so much about it and mostly not do anything that would get in the way of legitimate users. I settled for using two binaries, a demo one, freely available but devoid of the code needed to turn it into a full version, and a full binary, only accessible by a download link given after you bought it, validated by part of your serial number in the download url.
It may seem weak, but not making the full binary available this easily seems to work well. over 6 months and over a hundred sales later I still can't find anything on torrent sites, rapidshare and the like or eD2k. Let's hope it goes on like this.
Virtual Assistant? (Score:4, Interesting)
These are niche players, specializing in helping small businesses and solo entrepreneurs with everything from data entry to (drum roll please) marketing.
Depending on where you live, you might find someone local, you may find one across the continent. Research them first, gather client feedback if possible, and hopefully you'll come up smelling like roses.
Here are some I found on Google:
http://www.davisvirtualassistance.com/ [davisvirtu...stance.com]
http://www.paulahill.com/about/ [paulahill.com]
http://www.trinityjacobs.com/virtual-assistant-marketing-services.html [trinityjacobs.com]
Re:Get A Life (Score:2, Interesting)
I wrote it to make a living. It might seem like an absurd move but I couldn't find a job for the 6 months I looked (I'm young and without any prior experience) and that was before unemployment in the country I live in started sky-rocketing. And that's most likely all I'll have until I return to college in over a year and get a student loan.
Re:Search Engine Marketing (Score:2, Interesting)
I haven't done any search engine marketing and the only keyword that people find my site with is the name of the program. Strangely enough I have a FOSS project and while I did no SEM either with it it would rank high for a whole lot of random words that were found in the website's pages. Why it doesn't work like this for this site, I don't know.. There are lots of links to my website in tens of forums and blogs, yet Google seems oblivious to that..
Your skills as a coder will serve you well for SEO/SEM. I have an online business and had no experience with SEO until I read up on it. My site has been #1 in google for the past 3 years. (Quick tip: a forum works wonders for SEO) As a coder you you can ensure keyword relevance, density etc. I dont think you will have you a problem with your keywords, it looks relatively niche, but many have some difficulty competing with .edu domains.
A few sites to get you started:
seomoz.org ( they have a tool to determine the difficulty of your particular keyword)
seochat.com
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/ [digitalpoint.com] (keyword suggestion tool)
Good luck!
Re:Some tips specific to audio apps. (Score:5, Interesting)
Hi omo, I run a recording studio and produce music so I guess I'm in your target market. I think it's really important not to alienate your potential customers, especially online. If you get in someones face, online, who might be able to help you it kills word of mouth marketing very quickly.
In other words, ask yourself if it's a problem with the program or if the problem could be you.
Running a recording studio is hard and producing music is extremely challenging. After setting up a room, miking up the musicians (and each band has it's own complexities just there), making sure no dumbass has brought a powered up mobile phone into the studio, doing the recording session and producing a mix for musicians who can't make up their mind about the final result the last thing you need is to rely on a production tool from someone who has an attitude and can be regarded as unhelpful.
You may have a good idea, exporting a sound file to a graphic image and then use photoshop or something to edit it but I question why a producer is going to use/learn a *visual* tool to do *sonic* work. I know of a lot of good producers that don't want to see their video monitors and hang towels over them while they listen to the mix on a four inch auratone. They don't want to engage their eyes because the visual cortex causes a distraction when setting up the 'ghosts' in the audio monitors. It's about sound and the illusion it creates, not about the illusion and the sound it creates.
Clearly, your program is used during the production phase and being a 50/50 proposition it very much comes down to how *you* come across to your market. If you are reasonable, they might give it a shot, if not word will spread very quickly. Be realistic and have some humility about your program. It's not essential or even revolutionary but it could have a place so make sure you don't come across as a buffoon and try to make out that it is. Leave the attitude behind, know when to say sorry when appropriate and, most important, try to make friends. Those things will gain you respect and credibility.
That said, it looks interesting and I wish you the best of luck.
Beware, sharks ahead... (Score:3, Interesting)
Do keep in mind that marketing is in general an honorless and greedy profession. The odds are that the people you will have to work with will be quite happy to destroy you if they see an opportunity to take your product for themselves.
They will wait until after you have paid them to market it first, but act before the marketing has actually begun, of course.
Three things (Score:2, Interesting)
Work on your Search Engine Optimization, i.e. appearing on the first page/first few hits, and buy key adwords.
Lastly, if you believe your app would be valuable to enterprise customers, hire an offshore concierge at $3/hour to do research on potential buyers. They work damn hard for their $3/hr.
But most of all, focus on your Net Promoter Score. You're literally investing in viral marketing probability. Traditionally marketing cannot fight the exponential growth of referrals.
Re:Partners? (Score:1, Interesting)
Well, I would like to fill in that 'likelyhood for success' worksheet for myself. Is it online somewhere?
Be careful who you do business with (Score:3, Interesting)
That's the one piece of advice I'd offer.
True story: a company rang me up about a year ago to ask if I'd be interested in buying some imaging software (think Ghost, Acronis etc).
I asked where they'd got my name and number from.
It turns out they had partnered with a company that produces imaging software that I had previously had contact with and were using the information they got through that partnering agreement. Specifically, they were using it to sell a competitors' product . And they honestly seemed to have no idea why I might be a little nervous about doing business with them.
Re:Some tips specific to audio apps. (Score:1, Interesting)
Although I haven't tried the app myself, it looks like you need Photoshop to get the most benefit out of it - all the examples show editing done in Photoshop, at least. If this isn't the case, then perhaps putting more emphasis on using the app itself without any external software, or at least focus on software that's audio-related - it's one thing having it as a plugin in SoundForge and editing the sound in a window there, but Photoshop is a big app and not one in my experience that's installed on a musician or audio engineer's PC.
Having it available as a VST effect and/or instrument would make sense. As it stands, I'd be more likely to load up Coagula (http://hem.passagen.se/rasmuse/Coagula.htm, I'd question the uniqueness claim based on this program by the way) if I just wanted to converted audio to image and vice-versa. Using the sequencer (Cubase/Sonar etc) to trigger the playback and controls (time resolution etc.) shouldn't require much extra work, and there are plenty of VST plugins out there which have large UI windows and a lot of 'offline' setup, take a look at some nativeinstruments.com plugins for an example, particularly vocoders and beatslicers (Kontact might be useful for comparison).
By all means have a standalone version, but VST is typically more natural for people to understand and use. The automation in particular could extend the possibilities far beyond the current standalone interface - converting a photo to sound and tweaking the time resolution down to 1/10th the original speed is fine, how about slowly ramping that up from 1/10th to 1:1 over the first minute of the track? Flipping the spectrum on live input so you can adjust the source while listening to the result?
You could also load a set of images to use as filters, attach them to notes, so that when someone plays C-4 a suitably explosive filter effect is applied to the live sound input (draw an inverted V, save it as image, attach to C-4 and you get a linear filtersweep). Programming this is reasonably simple too, just look for VST tracker source. In general, the closer you can get to something that's usable 'live', the more situations it can be used in.
If you can get it to work as a live VST effect, and then put some videos showing people using it as an effect in a live session, that might help generate more interest. Of course, none of this is much help with your marketing / sales problem, but could give your fledgling marketing department more to work with!
Re:Some tips specific to audio apps. (Score:2, Interesting)
it looks like you need Photoshop to get the most benefit out of it
You'd be surprised but according to many users it's the main selling point. They'd rather edit with something powerful they're used to like Photoshop or GIMP than have to deal with a new app's clunky way of doing things (and my spray tools are definitely clunky, they need some work).
I'd be more likely to load up Coagula
Coagula doesn't load sounds.
how about slowly ramping that up from 1/10th to 1:1 over the first minute of the track?
As it is that wouldn't work for Photosounder even if you could automate the knobs the way VST allows you to because it needs to resynthesise the whole sound when you do that. I have plans to make it possible to change those things live, although it will take obscene amounts of CPU power.
In general, the closer you can get to something that's usable 'live', the more situations it can be used in.
I have an idea for something that could be used live, however that would pretty much require a multi-touch screen.
You've got good points though, it's just that actually following your suggestions for this actual product would take it far from where it's headed.