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
"When it comes to high response copy, I've got your back!"
Portfolio Site: http://
