Marketing Questions

Marketing is the process of communicating the value of a product or service to customers, for the purpose of influencing buyer behavior and/or precipitate behavioral change.

4 Votes
3 Answers
2.73K Views
Is opensourcing your product a good strategy?

Many companies going to the opensource route these days. Jetbrains is one example of a company that opensourced their well reknown IntelliJ IDEA after been commercializing it. Some company has...

asked Dec 23 '09 at 10:12
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Jpartogi
1,342 points

13 Votes
6 Answers
3.29K Views
Should we hire a sales or invest more time in our online presence?

We are a small software company with a process automation product. To do more sales, we would like to compare following options for next year: Hire a sales guy. Someone capable of doing cold...

asked Dec 25 '09 at 18:28
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Frans
66 points

8 Votes
13 Answers
4.51K Views
Know any large/public software companies that are using freemium?

I'm trying to find examples of large software companies that have used freemium (whereby there is a free product with a paid upgrade to a premium product). Anyone know of any companies that either...

asked Dec 28 '09 at 04:02
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Dharmesh Shah
2,865 points

1 Votes
3 Answers
2.45K Views
Advertising to Brick and Mortar Small businesses online (florists, cleaning companies etc)

I've got a product that is aimed at offline small businesses; florists, motels, cleaning companies and the like. I'm looking for ways to advertise to them online. There is so much content on the...

asked Dec 31 '09 at 19:32
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Sam Howley
108 points

7 Votes
8 Answers
4.06K Views
How Important Is Branding For a Startup? Should I Bring In Outside Help?

How important is branding for early stage startups? Within this question, there is some interesting discussion on how a brand can evolve based on everything you do - e.g. your name, website,...

asked Dec 31 '09 at 21:59
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Benjamin Wootton
1,667 points

2 Votes
2 Answers
2.02K Views
Quality assurance / testing communities?

I've been developing a test plan / test case management tool and am nearing the point where I will release version 1.0. Can anyone point me to any online communities of software testing / quality...

asked Jan 1 '10 at 03:28
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Consult Utah
325 points

3 Votes
1 Answers
1.84K Views
Producing Great Inbound / Web Content

A huge topic for sure, but does anyone have any stories or input about making great content for your website? I'm talking about the kind of content that encourages large numbers of tailored...

asked Jan 1 '10 at 20:57
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Benjamin Wootton
1,667 points

11 Votes
6 Answers
4.87K Views
Does charging less than your competitor make your product look inferior?

Our monthly subscription is 30% less than our competitors. We also do not charge a set up fee, whereas, most of our competitors charge $400-600. I think our product is "as good" or better than any...

asked Jan 3 '10 at 12:24
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Sparagi
346 points

4 Votes
6 Answers
3.2K Views
Marketing, Privacy and Being Good

What do you think about drawing the line between privacy and marketing? For example we're sending e-mail to our mail-list, shall we keep track of their clicks in the e-mail? Personally I hate this...

asked Jan 5 '10 at 00:26
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The Dictator
2,305 points

3 Votes
4 Answers
2.56K Views
Strategies for getting initial customers

At last I have gotten my SAAS product to a state where I can take on some customers. I believe as-it-stands it offers significant advantages over existing solutions. I am finding it incredibly...

asked Jan 5 '10 at 06:58
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Sam Saffron
432 points

2 Votes
4 Answers
2.41K Views
Outsourcing marketing

As a (soon to be) solo developer, I'm not an expert in marketing. Do companies exist who I could partner with to market my app, on a profit-sharing basis?

asked Jan 6 '10 at 08:20
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Macca
131 points

4 Votes
6 Answers
2.2K Views
How to increase customer referrals?

I have a web based application for consumers. Customers sign up. What are the best tactics to incent/encourage my customers to refer their friends to sign up? Would appreciate any and all...

asked Jan 7 '10 at 14:57
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Chris
4,214 points

4 Votes
4 Answers
2.86K Views
How do I promote my app if I have no contact at all?

How do you get people to know about your new app with no contact and how do you get content traction at the initial stage of a web app? I'd like to believe in 'users will come along if your app is...

asked Dec 7 '09 at 10:24
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Chhuang
21 points

2 Votes
3 Answers
3.24K Views
How to convert Beta Users to Sales

We've just finished a quite successful beta, most of the beta users were happy. Now we are ready to release the product and this is an enterprise product so we are not directly going to sell to...

asked Dec 8 '09 at 08:05
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The Dictator
2,305 points

4 Votes
7 Answers
5.03K Views
Professional Screencast Companies / Services

I'm looking for a list of companies who can produce professional screencasts for product tour and help videos. So far this is my list: Procasts Whistle Media 6 Professional Screencast...

asked Dec 9 '09 at 10:29
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The Dictator
2,305 points

4 Votes
4 Answers
2.84K Views
Is launching just before Christmas/New-Year a good idea?

We've had our app in beta for the past few months and we recently launched a major update which gets us to the point where I'm happy calling it a version 1. There's still a million and one things...

asked Dec 9 '09 at 10:41
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Rlivsey
206 points

4 Votes
6 Answers
2.64K Views
Getting a product in front of people who don't necessarily know they have a problem

AKA selling a solution in search of a problem! Our product is a web-based tool which helps people take and manage meeting minutes. The problem we face is that while most people don't like the way...

asked Dec 9 '09 at 11:03
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Rlivsey
206 points

3 Votes
4 Answers
2.85K Views
Found an idea whats the first thing to do? SEO, Finance... confused first business

Currently, I am listening to Dharmesh's interview on Mixergy.com. I really like making websites, made tones of them, but to get them off the ground, is what kills me. Right now, I have a small...

asked Dec 11 '09 at 13:08
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Bhargav Patel
16 points

9 Votes
13 Answers
6.29K Views
Does having a professional email account matter?

Is it just me or do: @yahoo, gmail, hotmail, accounts not look professional? I can't imagine cost being an excuse. Most hosting providers include email with the site.

asked Dec 11 '09 at 14:28
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Jeff O
6,169 points

6 Votes
4 Answers
2.44K Views
How do you monitor Internet perceptions of your company?

I'd like to know how the world perceives our company and products. (One reasonable response to this question is: "Don't pay any attention, just do good things." However, let's suppose I want to...

asked Dec 12 '09 at 10:06
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Dan
303 points