While playing the software game was lucrative, this blog helps software companies sidelined by innovation to re-enter the game and to win.
Once upon a time it was lucrative to play the software industry game. We sold functionality at excellent margins. Annual maintenance was steady money for (rather) little work. Technology advanced at a manageable pace. The peer community dispensed recognition. Growth was steady and life was good.
But then the software game changed. In many niches FOSS has turned functionality into a commodity. SaaS upsets perpetual licensing, while annual maintenance is increasingly suspect. The community scattered as global players bought and consolidated. Innovation quickened. New business slowed.
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Seth Godin’s book ‘All Marketers Tell Stories’ inspired me to share what I’ve learnt in 30 years of the software business.
Software companies often find themselves stranded on islands of excellence, serving a small group of customers but unable to grow. Opportunistic sales result in a few more islands from time to time.
It’s depressing to see companies with excellent technology shipwrecked. A love-hate relationship with marketing is often a contributory reason. We love having many qualified leads, but hate getting our hands dirty with marketing.
Why’s marketing hated like this? In my experience the cause is often the developer background of many managers. Developers equate lead generation with advertising. And developers hate advertising even more than marketing!
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You can’t spread your own story, just create a fertile environment, weave your story, give it its freedom and wish it a world of luck.
Stories are your best chance of getting your message to the people you need to hear it. Even so, the right story told to the right people is no guarantee your story will spread. You need 5 ducks in a row to have a chance of spreading:
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Talking with people paying attention and seeking you out is a lot more fun than continuously interrupting people who’ll ignore you!
Don’t waste your time interrupting people not paying attention. Instead, focus on those few special people who are paying attention.
Those few special people are discussing your domain on forums, blogs and newsgroups. Your first job is to find and join these continuing conversations.
Don’t barge in, interrupt and start selling; that’s the best way of ensuring they’ll ignore you. Instead, start by listening for a while before contributing.
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Traditional advertising was about interrupting people to steal their attention; marketing is now about creating stories that spread.
Ask developers about marketing and they’ll tell you they hate it. This negative attitude assumes marketing is just another word for advertising.
While there was some truth to this in the past, those days are long gone.
Advertising was about interrupting people to steal their attention; marketing is about creating stories that spread.
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