Year In Review

So this will be my 23rd and final post for 2006. As I stated initially, this is my first blog and my intent was to do a weekly post and gear everything toward our software marketers.

I'm proud to say that I actually did do a post every single week and I've really enjoyed it. Most importantly, I've had many of you respond to let me know you are benefiting from it, which has been my primary goal - to assist you in your marketing and lead gen efforts. Is there anything I can do differently? Any related topics that you would like to see me touch on?

Feel free to email me at ortner@capterra.com. I'm always open to suggestion. In the meantime, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

- Mike

Cooperation of Sales and Marketing

The more I think about it, the more I see why so many software companies hire one person to run both both marketing and sales. The amount of cooperation required between the two departments in handling leads is so crucial to the success of a company that giving one person the authority to make it happen helps reduce the risk that it will not happen.

As stated in this piece by Kate Maddox of BtoB, "managing leads throughout the sales cycle is a daunting job for virtually all organizations."

The handoff of a lead from Marketing to Sales is much more complex than just about any company realizes, especially due to the potential overlap of functions/tasks specific to the lead nurturing process.

The problem in bringing both functions under the command of one VP Sales/Marketing is that a new risk arises that one of the functions (usually Marketing) will get less priority. Very few people have enough marketing AND sales expertise to run both organizations. So what often happens is that a Sales VP will be in charge of Marketing, they will hire a Marketing Director, and Marketing will then play second fiddle to Sales.

Then they will fail.

Any thoughts? Please email me at ortner@capterra.com.

Why do print ads?

I read an interesting BusinessWeek article by Catherine Holahan that reports on the rise of Internet marketing. First, a couple stats she mentions:

1) Internet advertising has risen to $16-17 billion in 2006, which represents 6% of total ad spend of $281 billion. That share is expected to increase to 7% in 2007 and 8% in 2008.

2) Prints ads (magazines and newspapers combined) still represent 38% of all ad spending, despite audiences spending triple the amount of time online than reading magazines and newspapers.

Why is it taking so long for this shift from print to Internet to occur? The common answer to this question is that these things take a while, both for advertisers to change their practices and for Internet marketing models to stabilize and become mainstream. And I certainly agree with this - in fact, we witness it every day from our perspective at Capterra.

However, I wonder how much two other facts are slowing the transition...

1) It strokes the ego of company executives to see their print ads in newspapers and such. Related to this, it may even help employees feel more excited about the companies they work for.

2) The added expense helps companies reduce their taxable income. Corporations are constantly looking for ways to spend would-be profits in order to reduce their taxes. So when they have an opportunity to spend a million dollars on ad campaign, they may choose to measure the ROI not on the million dollars but on 70% of a million dollars (assuming their corporate income tax bracket is 30%).

If the corporate income tax ever does go away, I'd be very interested to see what would happen to print ads. Any opinions? Email me at ortner@capterra.com.

Are you guiding your web visitors?

I just finished reading a short piece by Nick Usborne that really hit the nail on the head regarding the navigation of prospects through your website. His final remarks read as follows...

"Put at its simplest, each page not only has to fulfill its own purpose but also has to pre-sell the reader on the next page to view. In other words, every page has to be written and designed not as a standalone source of information but as part of a dynamic, linear sequence. And each page in that sequence has to build momentum in a forward direction."

As a software marketer, you have the challenge of leading the prospect through as much of the buying process as possible within the confines of your website. This doesn't mean they will purchase your software online, but you must lead them to the point where they want to give you their contact details and hear from your salesperson.

To summarize, your website needs to guide the prospect toward becoming a lead. Does every page in your site do this?