Nowadays, there is no doubt that marketing is one of the most important foundations for a company to function in the market. In fact, without any marketing, your business would hardly be able to make money. Marketing strategies and the goals you want to achieve with it vary from industry to industry. In this article, we will discuss why you actually need marketing in a software house.
Marketing can be most simply defined as all the actions taken by a company to promote itself, sell its services and products to customers, communicate with its audience, and create the desired image. Such activities consist of many elements and strategies: creating expert content, running social media, link building, digital ads, email marketing, partnerships, media positioning, posters, CSR actions, etc. Planning the right marketing strategy is an art in itself, especially since it is not the same for all companies.
The way your organization communicates depends on the target audience you want to reach. Toy brands can advertise on TV in between cartoons on children’s channels. Or they may sponsor educational programs for kids whose families cannot afford them. Fashion brands partner with famous models and influencers who wear their clothes. They can also run activities to reduce emissions and be more sustainable, which they will tell the media about.
Technology companies have other tools to use in their communications. Conferences, actively managed social media (mainly LinkedIn and Twitter), expert blogging, free webinars come to your aid. What is more, they use marketing automation saas to improve the process and increase efficiency. There are plenty of opportunities for your software house to take advantage of. But before you decide what marketing strategy you want to implement let’s answer the question, what marketing can give you?
Do you know what Netflix is? Of course, you do. Everyone does. That’s because Netflix has very high recognition in its segment, and it owes this to a sensational marketing strategy. It’s not enough to have a great product or company to make money from it. The most important thing is to let other people know that you have a great product or company. And that is the job of marketing. Communicating your software house will make people interested in that, market know it exists, and that changes everything. When you have high visibility you are the first company that comes to mind when someone thinks they are looking for a software house, and that means more projects, more invitations to industry events, more money, and more growth opportunities.
Imagine having to entrust something important to a company you’ve never heard of. The internet knows nothing about it, there’s no information on the website, they don’t have social media, you’ve never seen their advertising anywhere. It’s like a ghost brand. Would you want a company like that doing your project? Handling your finances? Building your house? Probably not. Now take a look at the opposite situation.
If you want to partner with a software development company, probably the first thing you’ll do is type something like “software house application development” into Google. Marketing in a software house starts already at this stage – the best optimized, most visited pages will be displayed higher. And let’s not kid ourselves, nobody is going to scroll through 10 pages of results. You see an aesthetically pleasing, modern, and responsive website, which in itself is a business card of the company. There you find all the necessary information about the organization, a carefully described portfolio, and the scope of the company’s services. Social media is regularly updated with the company’s values and achievements. It is much more likely that you will want to work with such a software house because marketing allows you to build trust.
Even if you are better than your competitors, it won’t matter if customers don’t know about it. Good marketing keeps you ahead of everyone else, especially in terms of visibility. New customers often do not yet have an opinion on specific software houses. They research to find the best one for them. It is a bit like shopping in a shop.
If you are looking for a product that you have never used before, your attention will be drawn to those that are on the shelf at eye level, their packaging is eye-catching, and the writing on the label will convince you. Marketing in a software house gives you the advantage over your competitors in that it is easier to attract the attention of potential clients, get them interested in your services and complete projects, and establish cooperation.
Marketing is the voice of a company. With good marketing, you can maintain your image by speaking out on topics relevant to your industry. You can also take a stand on social issues if it is relevant to you. It also allows you to respond to any accusations or negative comments that appear on the internet. It gives you the opportunity to respond to opinions about your business that would otherwise exist outside of your influence. In other words, marketing in a software house is your starting point for creating what customers, the media, people in the industry think about you.
Money is not the most important thing. But it is important. Especially in business, where it is a status indicator. A company that has money has a lot of customers, and thrives in the market does not save on marketing. Other than that, marketing is a way of communicating what your company has done or achieved. You can brag about new projects, business partners, investors, institutions, and grants. This way, customers or other companies will see that your business is doing well and will be more likely to do business with you.
If a client is looking for a company to outsource to, they will first approach those they have heard of. Of course, as long as those rumors were about a good reputation and a professional approach. This is where marketing comes into play again, because it is responsible for your reputation and recognition in the industry, and therefore – increases the likelihood that clients will want to work with you. What’s more, the top firms in their industry will want to work with other top firms. Good marketing is therefore your chance to do projects for the big players... And that in turn will give you another opportunity to show off.
The same principle works for employee candidates for your company. The best professionals will want to work for a company that has a good reputation. It will be an opportunity for them to grow and develop their skills. In turn, you will gain a valuable employee for your team. In addition, employees also need to take care of their own PR. A well-built CV is a basis for a successful career. And it is much better to know that the employee worked for a reputable, well-known company that implemented ambitious projects. This is key to increasing employee engagement.
Market knowledge is a must if you want your software house to succeed. In turn, marketing forces you to know the industry inside out. Information about customer requirements and expectations, the latest trends, interesting technologies, and the competition gives you powerful tools (but no marketing resource management software – because we’ve made up our own). With data, you can create better development and communication strategies and gain more customers.
Companies with good marketing become leaders and even celebrities in their industry. Since everyone is talking about them, they are the first thing associated with a particular market. When looking for reports, commentaries, or strategies on a certain area, they will check how top companies approach the topic. They will be taken as an example of how the industry behaves, what is worth introducing now, and what technologies are worth investing in. They will set the direction of market development, and this is a very advantageous position.
The expert position is very important, especially in the B2B sector. Marketing will allow you to better position experts in your industry. As a result, people from your company will be more frequently invited to conferences, consulted on projects, and quoted in the media. What’s more, marketing will also make your team more specialized, as people working in communications will need to build up their knowledge of the industry.
Many companies assume that if they create a great product or offer the best service, the customers will come by themselves. This is partly true – but for that to happen, they need to know that your company even exists and what it does. And this is exactly the role of marketing in a software house. A well-planned strategy will allow you to increase the visibility of your company, build the image of a trustworthy and professional company, attract more clients, better candidates, and from there it is just a straight road to success on the market.
The main goal, the one big reason of digital marketing strategy – not only in B2B or Saas businesses but B2c as well – as the lead generation or – to say it more precisely – the contact details of the key prospects.
Because of the so-called target buyer, especially his journey during searching a relevant product, a software company marketing strategy and software product communication have to be based on inbound digital channels. To be more exact, based on a good presence in a place where potential customers search – in practice that means good visibility in Google search results. Those activities are divided into based on organic (search engine marketing in Google, Yandex, Bing, etc – depending on the country you aim to) and PPC ads (mostly in Google Ads, but also Capterra, GetApp, etc.).
Of, course, we shouldn’t forgive about an educational content marketing strategy that accords to the buyer journey and potential customer problems that need a solution (and that solution should be found on your blog’s article on the first-page search engine results).
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