Marketing For Software Companies: 7 Ways to Market Your Software Business

It's always good to get back to the basics.  I recently read this article from

Avantegate on 7 Ways to Market Your Software or Software Services that I thought I could expand upon for all of you out there in the heartland of cyber-space.

As you already know, just creating a software product is about 10% of the battle.  The other 90% or so is MARKETING your software.  It doesn't matter what you're selling.  

Not to say that your goods should be shabby, but once you have created the product, you really need to put your rear in gear and get it sold. 

A Tale of Two Law Students

I recently heard a story from a top-drawer, killer ad copyist that had an interesting take on this.  He said what if you had two lawyers.  One was a straight "A" student from Harvard Law School and the other was a "C" student from Podunk University.  

The Harvard student put his shingle up and waited patiently for clients to walk in his door.  

The "C" student from Podunk got on a local talk show that was very popular and talked about how he helps clients with legal issues, while saving  them loads of money in the process.  Not only that, but the "C" student had a focused and well targeted direct mail campaign, gave speeches at his local Kiwanis Club and answered legal questions on social media sites like Facebook.

Now, guess which one was more successful.

The same thing goes with any other type of business, without some sort of a marketing plan in place, you are going no where fast.  

So here are the 7 ways to market your software.  I've added important links to each one of these ideas that was written about in the article.  If you want to see the original article, please click on the link at the beginning of this post. 

NOTE: I am not affiliated with any of the sites in this post.  All links are just that, PLAIN LINKS.  Not affiliate links.

1.  Continuous Search Engine Optimization.  You really need to check out SEOBooks article on SEO for businesses.  One of the best things I have ever read.  This site is loaded with high octane info on SEO that can help your online marketing efforts.

2.  Submit Your Shareware to Software Download Sites.  Here's a good article on how to do that from Avantegate called Submit Software for Higher Sales

3.  Write Newsletters and Press Releases.  If you don't have a method of delivering your Newsletters through direct mail, here is a way to do it online using Ezines. This is quite possibly the fastest way to get great traffic to your site and turn yourself into an authority.  If you don want to actually produce a newsletter online, you can always write articles using the Ezine Articles site, shown in this video.



4.  Affiliate Marketing.  For people that have developed Apps, one of the best places to go is Chupa Mobile.  This site is very straightforward and easy to use.  Create an account. organize the apps you created, sell them and collect the cash. (Don't forget, you still have to do the marketing!)

5.  Get Noticed On Online Forums and Blogs.  This is one of those situations wherein you will have to either read quite a few blogs and see which one's are most suited to your software niche. As far as forums are concerned, you'll just have to look around for the most popular ones and lurk for awhile.  As a copywriter, I usually frequent the Warrior Forum.  It is loaded with advice on every type of marketing, both online and off.

6.  Pay per Click.  In the last few years, PPC has gotten very, very expensive for people marketing their services.  So, you will need to learn how to use it first.  Just like anything else, you'll need to learn about marketing using this particular vehicle, because you can loose your shirt if you aren't careful.  
A great book to get is Ad Words Secrets Revealed, which is loaded with all sorts of strategies and information to help you launch a PPC campaign using Google's AdWords advertising behemoth.

7.  Affiliates Marketing.  One of the best places on the Internet to put your App online and have other people sell them for you is the Apple Itunes Affiliate Program.  There are also other sites like Appifier that will let you sell them there as well.

These are usually the best sites on the Internet to use or learn from.  I'm sure there are others on there, so if you want to share other sites you may have found, please leave a link in the comment section.

To your success!

Mark "Elmo" Ellis

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

"When it comes to high response copy, I've got your back!"

 (859) 797-9560

elmo033057@gmail.com

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

Portfolio Site: http://markelliscopyportfolio.blogspot.com/

How To Use This Google App To Set and Achieve Your Goals Fast!

I'm a big believer in creating lists.  I have whiteboards all over my house with lists of things I need to accomplish.  This was really helpful when I was working on rehabbing my house that was completely gutted from top to bottom.  I would list at least 2 weeks of work I needed to do at a time.  

The reason for doing this is two-fold.  For one thing, when you have really big projects like that, you need a list so you can prioritize the really important parts and get them done sooner.  Actually, I like to tackle the biggest parts of a project first because they are usually the most important.



The other reason for working like this is when you knock out the biggest and hardest parts of a project, you'll have a huge psychological advantage.  Your brain will automatically tell you that you are on the down hill portion of your work and you will feel a certain momentum in getting your goal completed.  Another advantage of doing work like this is you'll feel a huge sense of accomplishment.  Because you have completed the work in a much faster and more ambitious manner, you'll kill that dreaded Procrastination Beast and get more work completed and more goals accomplished.

Google's FREE Application - Smart Goals

Google has a great free Application on the Google Chrome Store called Smart Goals.  This is a very simple application that I use to list my goals and accomplish them quickly and efficiently.  

The best part about Smart Goals is that here is a very small learning curve.  It is so easy to use that it takes almost no time at all to learn how to use it.  It took me literally 3 minutes to sign up and start using it.

So if you want to start listing your dreams and pursuing them, this is the perfect way to get started.

Please try it out and leave a comment below.

To your success!

Mark Ellis

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

"When it comes to high response copy, I've got your back!"

 (859) 797-9560

elmo033057@gmail.com

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

Portfolio Site: http://markelliscopyportfolio.blogspot.com/

How To Get The Ball Rolling In Your Business or Enterprise

Ken McCarthy is a name that has been around for quite some time.  He has been credited with coining the term "Internet Marketing".  His programs and  system seminars have been around for decades now.

He just posted this great video by the founder of Teespring, a custom T-Shirt company that is doing quite well on the Internet.  I found this video to be quite illuminating on how a company or business should acquire its first customers and then gain maximum trajectory.   

Here is the link to Ken's site where the shortened video resides:
Ken McCarthy - Internet Marketing and Beyond

  If you want to watch a longer version with other companies and entrepreneurs, you can see that here:

How to Load Up Your Calendar With Ideas for Your Blog Posts

In my last post, I went over one of the many ways you could use Google’s calendar to help schedule your blog posts, email messages or online articles.  

In this post, I’ll show you how to use various websites to find topics that you can easily write. Moreover, I’m going to show you how you can also check to see whether or not these sources are worthy of even writing in the first place.

Note: I am absolutely NOT advocating copying other people’s work.  You can always write about the subjects and ideas in your own way and with your own words. But, you should never violate copyright laws under any circumstances. 

 I’m sure you won’t go to jail over this, but you’ll probably get sued. Not only that, it is dishonest. So, do not copy and paste for any reason!

Using the Calendar to Schedule Your Articles or Posts

Once you get a calendar that you want to use (standard, online, piece of paper, planner, whatever) you can now start to log in about 3 months of topics that you can write about.  You will be going to various sites to look up topics and then you will be looking at specifics within those topics. 

This is the same way Oprah, Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, The View and a host of other talk shows come up with their subjects and content.  Ever notice how 99% of the people on those shows have written books???  They use this content method themselves to get loads of ideas.

Let’s get started with…Amazon.

Using Amazon to Generate Ideas for Your Articles and Blog Posts

Rather than waste a lot of your time writing up a huge description of how this is supposed to work, I’m going to take you by the hand, step-by-step and teach you exactly what you need to know.  The reason I do things in this manner is so that I won’t leave holes in my procedure. 

I want you to have the full, unadulterated method to do this, so that it is “turn-key”.  In other words, you could pass these instructions on to other people and they should be able to do it with very little help.

Scenario:  You want to write about and share information on how to use social media on your blog.  However, you have no idea what to write about or what people are interested in. 

Drilling Down to Find Your Topics

Here’s how you do it. (By the way, you can use the same method of research for creating information products, or finding a niche for your business.)

Step 1:  Go to Amazon.com website.

Click on “Books” in Amazon’s search field drop-down menu.

  This will mean that you are only searching in the Amazon book category.  This is the ideal place to find topics related to what we want to write about. 

Make sure you click “GO” on the search field.

Step 2:  Next, you will need to scroll down the page until you see “Books” on the left hand side of the screen.  These are the categories of books there are.

 Now we can start drilling down and get very specific about what we want to write about.  

In our case, we'll want to look in either the “Business and Investing” category, or the “Computers and Technology” category.

Click on the “Computers and Technology” category. 

Step 3: Keep doing the drilling down process until we get to the social media books.  Here is the drill:

Computers & Technology ---> Internet & Web Culture ---> Social Media for Businesses

You should now see books listed in the middle of the page 

(Yes, I could have told you to simply go into Amazon's search engine, and type in "social media" and you would have found these.  However, we are trying to generate ideas here!  By drilling down, you'll have access to all sorts of ideas and topics you may not have otherwise thought about!)

Using the Sort Menu to Find Reviews

Step 4:  I want you to move over to the right side of Amazon's page at this point.  You will see a drop down menu called "Sort By".  Open the menu and select "Most Reviews".

The reason we're using the sort menu to find the most reviews is because we are looking for the most popular books on this subject.  

If there are a lot of comments, that's good thing because it means quite a few people actually read the book.  Also, they cared enough about it to comment, rate, and post it into Amazon.  

Negative Reviews Are Important Too!

The other reason why highly commented on books are important is because you can look at the negative reviews and see what people WISH were in those books.  

I recently did research on a piece of software a company was hiring me to write about.  I checked out the software they were selling on Amazon and in the process I looked at all of the negative comments people posted on Amazon.  By the time I was finished doing my research, I actually had enough ammunition to write an information product telling users how to overcome these problems.

So, negative reviews are also important.  

On the right hand side of the books listed, you'll see a row of stars.  Some of them a colored in and others are not.  There is also a number next to the stars that indicates the number of comments made.  

Step 5:  Click on the title of the book.  Next, you can actually click on the cover of the book to see the table of contents.  

These are the subjects that people will be interested in.  If you were creating a niche, you could get real specific about it and write about a very specific top or angle of this subject.

Inside of Mr. Kerpen's excellent book, is a table of contents.  As a matter of fact, Amazon almost always has a "Look Inside" feature which shows you the Table of Contents of the book.

One of the chapters is called "Think and Act Like Your Customer".  You could almost make an entire niche out of a title like that.

Step 6:  Write down the idea on your calendar.  You should try to post a new blog post just about every 3 days or so.  Monday, Wednesday and Friday would be a good idea for spacing of your posts.

Step 7:  Scroll down the page and check out the reviews.  If you see anything negative or something people felt that was left out of a book like this, then you may have fertile ground for a hot topic.  So, look for opportunities in these types of comments.

Step 8:  Rinse and repeat.  Do the same procedure for as many books in your topic area as you can.  Just looking at the Table of Contents sections will give you a load of ideas, and you can take that title or idea, Google it and find a boat load of articles all over the Internet on that particular subject.

BONUS:  Another Way to Find Hot Topics in Your Niche To Write About

I recently watched an excellent video on how to use social media by a guy named Michael Hyatt.  Apparently Mr. Hyatt is pretty big in the Internet Marketing arena, but I had not actually heard of him until today.  

Anyway, on this video he highlights 10 different ways you can use social media to boost your business or popularity on the Web.  You could use each one of these ideas to expand on in a series of blog posts very easily.

Here is the video:

On My Next Post:

I'm going to show you how to gain a huge following pretty quickly by using social media sites and a host of other ideas, so that people will actually come to your site and read your posts, opt-in to your email posts and eventually hand you wads of cash!

Until next time, God Bless!

Mark "Elmo" Ellis

Mark Ellis

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

"When it comes to high response copy, I've got your back!"

 (859) 797-9560

elmo033057@gmail.com

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

Portfolio Site: http://markelliscopyportfolio.blogspot.com/

"Use This Well Known Google Tool To Create A Money Making Machine And Pull Ahead of the Pack"

How to Fill Out Your Calendar

In case any of you missed my last 2 posts, we are exploring a technique that a millionaire revealed in a conversation I was privy to.  It was not a short and sweet sonnet, so I've had to try to explain this whole strategy over the course of about a month. 

If you didn't get a chance to read my recollection of what I was told, you can read Part I - How to Set Up A Blog and Part II - How to do Research for Your Niche or Subject. 

How to Lock and Load Your Money Calendar

If you have gone through all of the steps I've written about in the last 2 steps, you should have already:

• ·         Researched and chosen your niche
• ·         Signed up for a blog (either WordPress or Blogger) account and formatted it
• ·         Researched topics you will be writing about using For Dummies, Amazon or eBay

By the way, if you don’t know how to set up a blog, I have an online video series you can watch here: Bloggingwith Google’s Blogger

Once you have set up your blog, it’s time to set up your calendar.  The reason why you’d want to use a calendar is so that you can have a series of articles related to your niche that are somehow logically connected to one and other.  Not only will a calendar connect your articles to each other, but you’ll be able to establish goals, set deadlines and be able to have a list of subjects that will make it so much easier to write about. 

Google’s Calendar – My Calendar of Choice

If you haven’t seen Google’s calendar it looks like this:

Google's calendar will allow you to color code different sections of your calendar, so it easy to view 

The reason why I like this calendar so much is because I can access it anywhere there is a computer with an internet connection.  Not only that, it updates the current date and time that you are on automatically.  Another thing that is pretty cool, is that you can color code different parts of the calendar so that it is visually easier to use.  So my marketing weapon of choice is Google's Calendar.

Now, if you don't want to do that, you don't have to.  Any kind of calendar will do, whether it resides on a computer or not.  

Creating Your Subject Schedule

Once you have your calendar picked out you will now return to Amazon (or eBay, or For Dummies.com) and look at the material you accessed using the technique in my last blog post and drilled down into your subject matter to find a niche, or even a niche of a niche.  (Once again, please read my last Blog post on: Finding a Niche to Make Money On.)

Once you start looking at the resource material or books you can start to use your calendar to fill out a schedule.  Actually, this isn't any different than making an outline.  Take a look below:

Subject: Social Bookmarking

Introduction to Social Bookmarking in Marketing
I.  Social Bookmarking 
A.  Why is it important to use it
   1.  How people use it
   2.  Why it is important to learn how to use it
   3.  Successful businesses that use social bookmarking
        a. Star Bucks
        b. Apple


So forth...

You want to fill in at least two months worth of subject material.   if you are having a problem using Google's calendar here's a Video on how to use it: 





The Reason for Doing This 

There are a couple of reasons why you will want to schedule like this.  First of all, there are a large numbers of entrepreneurs that put up a website and then drive traffic to it.  

Whatever means they use to drive traffic to their sites, the results are usually not spectacular.  One of the reasons this is so, is because webpages and sites that are static, usually don't get traffic.  What I mean by static is, they sit on the net, and usually the content stays exactly the same.  It doesn't change.  

Internet search engines have become very sophisticated in the last few years, and they demand that a site have at least 2 basic criteria:

1.  New, well written and focused content, and...
2.  relevant links coming in

At the end of the day Google loves fresh, original content and so do readers. Google also loves relevant, quality links to your site. So, if you are writing good content that people love, then they will link to your website from theirs.  

But, get real, if you have a crappy, static, site, chances are nobody will link to them, even if you ask.

If you would like to read more about this subject, then read this link by Michael Bluejay: Why I Won't Link to Your Site  This is one of the most brilliant pieces I have ever read on this subject.

Also, SEOBOOK has a great article on Blogging and SEO as well.

The main point is...

If you write well planned material that actually offers some high - octane content, you should have no problem eventually getting readers to your blog.  

in my next post, I'm going to show you how to get social media on your side, with an actual blueprint that you can use to get as many readers and possible prospects as possible.  

Until next time, God Bless!

Mark "Elmo" Ellis

Mark Ellis

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

"When it comes to high response copy, I've got your back!"

 (859) 797-9560

elmo033057@gmail.com

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

Portfolio Site: http://markelliscopyportfolio.blogspot.com/

Blogging Secrets Of a Millionaire Affiliate Marketer Part 2

Millionaire Affiliate Marketing Trick That’ll Put Your Product On Top! Part 2

If you weren't here for my last post, I told everyone on board here that this was a blueprint on how to generate income by becoming an affiliate marketer.  

This strategy was revealed to me and a few others by an established millionaire who’ll probably rip my fingernails out for telling you. But, I don’t care because he probably got it from someone else that told someone else, that told…

You get the picture.

Anyway, If you missed the last exciting installment, you will need to read how to get started with affiliate tools.

How To Do Research For Your Topics

There are four main tools that are valuable for figuring out what to write about.  From what I heard, many of the popular talk show hosts use this method for scheduling their content.

My particular favorite for this trick is Amazon.com.  If you want to find out what people are really interested in, just check out which books they purchased.  I mean, heck, they PAID for this info, so they must really be interested in it. 

Not only that, but if you look at the reviews on Amazon’s site you’ll see that not only did people buy the stinkin’ book, they took the time to write comments.   If there are a lot of comments, then you know it’s probably a hot topic.  

Amazon's comments sections under their product descriptions are great for determining topics and niches to write about 

The Amazing Amazon Topic Procedure

This is a very easy method to find topics to write about;  I'll put it in a step by step manner to make it easy.

         Step 1 go to www.Amazon.com to get started

Step 2 Once you are on the Amazon main page, you can start to research your topics by clicking on the drop -down menu where it says "All" next to the search screen.  Click on "GO" while you have a blank search field.

         Step 3  Click on "Books".  After you do that, the screen should refresh and you will see a new horizontal list right under the search field just above a big semi-orange "Books".  Click on "Best Sellers".

Here is the link: 
Amazon Book Page

Follow the first three steps above to get to the book categories.

Step 4  You will now notice that there is a menu on the left hand side that says "Books".  You can now start to drill down into more specific subjects.  For example, under "Books" you can click on "Business & Money".  Once you click on that another menu will open up that has more categories in that subject area.  

Step 5 Now, you can get even more specific!  For example you can now click on Marketing & Sales, and that will open up a whole new batch of categories within that category.  

Here is what an Amazon page should look like after you have drilled down into a category.  Let's click on Marketing & Sales.  You'll notice right off the bat that you can see more specific categories on Marketing & Sales.   Also take a look at the top selling books in this category. 

You can keep drilling down by clicking on more specific topics when the next menu opens. Also note the number of comments!

Step 6  Once you have drilled down enough, you can now begin to look at the books and subjects themselves.  Take a look at the book Go Pro 7 Steps to Becoming a Network Marketing Professional ,by Eric Worre.    There are a whopping 2019 comments as of this writing.  (Please note the little red arrow on the right.)

Now, in the land of marketing books on Amazon, that's pretty impressive.  To find out if they are all favorable comments or not, just click on the number next to the book and you can read what people like or dislike about it.

The Table Of Contents - A Most Valuable Resource! 

By clicking on most books on Amazon, (especially the popular books) you can see their table of contents with the "Look Inside" feature.  The table of contents will give you a great outline of what you can write about for almost a 2 month period.  

NOTICE!  I am not saying to copy other people's work.  You are just going to get ideas on what to write about.  Hopefully, you'll use several books and mix and match topic ideas.  Also, I am not into network marketing or multilevel whatever, I am an advertising copy writer. 

I just happened to pick this book because it had a high count of comments.  Unfortunately, you will have to look at other books in your topic area because this particular sampling by Amazon didn't have the table of contents for this book.  

However, there are loads of other books that you can not only look at the table of contents, but also read some of the chapters.  Check out this screen capture.

If you click Look Inside on Amazon, you can actually see a "Table of Contents" link on  the right.

  In my next installment, I'll show you how to use this technique to fill in your calendar and get ready for the next exciting step... Writing your first blog post!

Mark Ellis

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

"When it comes to high response copy, I've got your back!"

 (859) 797-9560

elmo033057@gmail.com

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

Portfolio Site: http://markelliscopyportfolio.blogspot.com/

Millionaire Affiliate Marketing Trick That’ll Put Your Product On Top! - Part 1

This is an actual blueprint I got from a millionaire affiliate marketer. No crap.  I will never guarantee that an idea like this will make you rich or anything of the sort.  For all I know, this individual may have used this idea 30 years ago in a different economy and is just now getting around to telling us about it.  

Whether you will have success with this map is anyone’s guess, but you may want to give it a try. 

Preliminary  Stuff That You Must Do

Once you have decided on your niche, (this is a big massive step that I have outlined in a previous posting -click the link to read it.) 

You will need to set up a blog.  That is fairly easy to do.  I use Google’s blogger all of the time and I have about 20 of them.

 If you are going to be super serious about your business, you’ll need to get a URL. (.com or .net…Whatever!)  Any good marketer will tell you that for Search Engines to help rate you, you should have your own URL.  It is also far easier to have a URL as an address, because it is easier to remember, put on stationary, etc. 

However, if you want to save the meager dollars per year and use www.blahblahblah.blogspot.com as your address, go ahead.  I personally think that if most of us use '.blogspot.com" we will still get a good amount of traffic anyway...But that's just me.  Also, you can still add your web address later and still keep all of your content.

WordPress VS. Blogger

I have had people tell me to not use Google’s Blogger and go with WordPress.  I have used both; WordPress is  a little more complex than Blogger, in my opinion.  I have read opinions that if you want to change templates in WordPress it is easier and there are more templates for you to use.   

However, if you don't possess HTML skills or knowledge about how to fix issues with WordPress, then you are in for a steep learning curve.  Blogger is designed to be as close to a word processing program as possible.  Very easy to use and manipulate and you can also get templates for it as well. 

I personally think this is the easiest way to go.

Another opinion I've heard online, is if Google doesn't like what you are about, they can shut your Blogger blog down.  I have heard of this and I believe that there are people that have been shut down by Google, no doubt. 

However: IT IS RARE

Beginning The Work

OK, once you have your niche, web address and are signed up to Blogger or WordPress, you can now begin THE WORK.  And believe me, you need to know how to write because you’ll be writing a lot. 

But as the millionaire blogging-marketer said, "there must be method to your madness."  

So, the next thing you’re going to need is a blank calendar.  Google has a calendar and you can access it here: Google’s Calendar.  However, if you want to use another calender like an app on your cell phone, then go for it. 

 Personally I use a small black planner that I physically write in, but I'm still in the Dark Ages.  

Once you have your planner, you can start putting some serious thought into your blog posts.  The way you do that is by using some of my most favorite tools for getting ideas: Amazon, For Dummies, and eBay.

The reason that we are going to use these sites is so that we can see which topics are popular so we can start making lists on our calender.  If you have a Google Adsense account, you can also double check to see whether or not there is traffic for your subjects by using their Keyword Planner.

The Tools You Should Have So Far

Before we get into the nuts and bolts of what you should do.  Let's go 

and make sure you gather all of your tools first.  This way, you won't be overwhelmed with this plan of action and give up.  

• Decide on your niche - use Amazon as I have written about in an article about finding hot niches

• Get a URL or web address from GoDaddy, Register.com or Host Gator.

• Create a Blog account with Blogger or WordPress.

• Get a blank calendar to fill in your subjects and topics in.

• If you can, get an Adsense account so you can look up your subjects in the Keyword Planner and make sure it has enough traffic to write about.

OK, make sure you have this stuff.  One thing I need to mention is that once you buy a .com (URL) you'll need to migrate it into your blog.  I use Go Daddy to buy my web address because they will help you and even tell you how to do this with Blogger.  

Host Gator has an easy way to start a WordPress Blog if you have your hosting through them.  Blogger doesn't need a hosting plan.  Anyway, I've included HostGator's blog set up video below.

In my next post, I'm going to show you how to use For Dummies.com, Amazon, and eBay to plan your blogging calendar.

God Bless.

Mark "Elmo" Ellis
www.MarkEllisCopy.com
"When it comes to high response copy, I've got your back!"
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