The Business Of Software

While promoting our software we often string senseless buzzwords instead of saying specific benefits. My colleague commented my last post with "we use few words to convey much meaning. It's all in the interest of brevity". Making it short without making it little, I'd say. Seth Godin's recent article makes an interesting point.

"Marketers spend a lot of time describing a future and making it real. The more general you are in describing it, the farther away people imagine it is. "We're going to launch a new product next year" sounds a lot more distant than handing someone a prototype and saying, "this launches on January 3rd at 2 pm at CES."

Short version: If you want people to embrace your version of the future, talk about it like it's right around the corner, not on another planet."

Ever tried to attempt meeting someone just saying "let's meet", for the sake of brevity, without setting place, date and time?  

Are our clients more rational or emotional when it comes to buying our software? 

Buying decisions are a mix of emotions and rationality. We have been taught that commodities like caustic soda may involve little emotion, while motorbikes or wine may embed more emotional elements. Quite clear, so far.

I remember my professor at the University mouthwatering while working on a finite element analysis software. I was chuckling at him, while pretending interest, -dully boy. And the Software was ANSYS, by the way.

I paid my dues few years later as a research fellow, unfolding a FLUENT Software CD as if it was a candy box.

It seems here that all purchase decisions are processed in less-evolved areas of our brain, regardless the product we buy. Goodness, decisions on -if and when- buying our enterprise solution software are processed by the same brain-area interested in basic matters like reproduction!

Does the B2B vs. B2C and Commodity vs. Luxury goods marketing distinction have any sense, then?

Women have been used to sell products to men for decades. No doubt that male brain is wired to respond to attractive females in revealing attire. 

I know what you’re thinking dude. Enterprise solution software users are mostly young males, and dah dah...

I wonder whether this attention-getting trick has a real impact on sales. A study made by a neuroeconomics expert, “Heat of the Moment: The Effect of Sexual Arousal on Sexual Decision Making”, shows that men who are sexually aroused are more focused on short-term gratification than on long-term logic. Alas engineering software decision making is the output of a (even too) long term logic.

So No-Bikini in your marketing campaign. No half naked women on your CAD surface shape morphing; now you know, professors at MIT say it won't work. Stick on your traditional print collaterals, actually...

Our customers often demand solutions from a single supplier to increase simplicity, or to blame only one company if something goes wrong...

Who will win the race of being the One-Stop-Shopping provider, then? Software companies, who hold the customer interface or Professional Services, who could use their existing customer relationships to gain leadership?

I think the outcome will be affected by standardized software components (componentware) business.

Componentware is changing the dynamics of the software business game. Componentware suppliers can plug in software components piece by piece rather than purchasing a single complete program from a single source.

Software companies see it as an opportunity of disintegrating the value chain. SAP, for example plans to split its  monolithic and proprietary solution into single components that will facilitate the customization and integration of third party components.
On the other hand, Professional Software Service Providers look at the Componentware as both a threat and an opportunity. While the traditional task of customization and integration of legacy systems becomes less significant, componentware could make them faster than In-House IT departments.

Got to go to swim and lose weight. Take keyboard classes and improve my French. Yep.

In September I'll get back in touch with my old friends in Paris, and with my classmates in Rome, and the former colleagues in Milan.

In September I'll open a PLM community _and_ review the sales process _and_ work on the CRM.

Ever noticed that wine tastes better when we drink it with friends?

Maybe we just pay less attention, or maybe wine is more a social lubricant than else. Nevertheless our opinions are influenced by those around us. We tend to answer a question incorrectly when everyone else around us does the same. So, if others seem to be “enjoying the wine”, the peer effect is likely to lead us to enjoy it as well.

Alas, the opposite behavior happens as well. As soon as one who tasted the wine declares it’s awful, others might find defects too. 

Ever had similar peer effects around the lunch tables at your software users' meetings or while lurking at your product user-forums? Tough. Sometimes there’s enough to make you blush. 

As software marketers, we have a big advantage, as we can easily test different ways to present our product on the internet. We can easily test even different features/pricing configurations. Rather than guessing how our users might respond to your product, we should test more. The one thing I learned so far is to ask to my clients. No maverick’s opinion can substitute a direct measure of our customers' behavior.
No more expensive than a wine-tasting-panel, after all.