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I had a little chat with a friend of mine yesterday. He was trying to market his software product, he asked my opinion about it. I suggested several options, one of it was to have a sales team promoting his product. Apparently it didn’t work (according to him).  After some thoughts I concurred with him though there is still some reservation on my part - I still think it can work. But as economic rules, if it costs too much and there’s a cheaper alternative - you take the alternative.

Which brings to me the marketing side of software industry. The software industry itself is an interesting field. As a service based industry it is an industry that thrives on expectations. But unlike other service-based industries, its end products are intangibles.

So what do they sell exactly? …well, the answer is: software, sounds simple but in actuality is dreadfully complicated.

Software marketing is like selling vague promises (all kinds of marketing are some forms of promises - however, if you see a car being advertised at least you know that when you buy the car it will look as the car in the ad. Not the case with software). IMO this vagueness should be exploited. A software marketer should promises everything the product can achieve, without necessarily explaining how to achieve those results.

Wouldn’t that confuse the customers/clients? Yes it will, but that’s where the money is made. The sales team should only focus on selling, and leave customers complaints to technical team.

In other industries customers’ complaints are undesirable, but I think it is exactly the opposite in the software/IT solution industry. When they don’t complain, you know you’ve lost your customers. Complaints, so long as they can be resolved, are actually good.

Just have a look at the games industry, what software are they selling exactly? — just a piece of software that represents somekind of obstacles/challenges that should be resolved by the users. When it comes to software, it’s like selling puzzles: you give them the entire picture, then give them the pieces and they will try to build that picture out of the pieces, and you charge them fees to help them build the picture.