Association of Software Professionals

ISVCon, the Software Industry Conference,  is now opening sponsor registration for the 2013 conference.

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About the Conference  Sponsorship Options  Become a Sponsor/Exhibitor

Location

ISVCon 2013 will once again be held at the Atlantis Casino Resort Spa in Reno, Nevada.  The Atlantis, a 4-Star hotel, was recently awarded the prestigious 4-Diamond rating.  It has a beautiful, modern conference area, with a large, comfortable, and surprisingly quiet foyer overlooking the casino.  The property includes 9 restaurants and 10 lounges, and a cabaret with live entertainment.  It is also just a 10-minute ride from the Reno airport via the Atlantis’ free airport shuttle.

Reno is located in Northern Nevada, a wonderful area with lots to do both inside and outside of the casinos.  Reno is just 15 miles from the California border, and is a popular weekend vacation destination for Northern California residents.

New Dates, Days, and Options

ISVCon 2013 will be held September 27-29.  The conference will run for 2-1/2 days, Friday through mid-day Sunday.  We’re hoping to attract lots of new faces, given that Reno is within driving distance for San Francisco/Silicon Valley, and we are also planning to do considerable marketing.

Sponsorship Levels

Our existing Sponsorship levels, prices, and benefits received an update this year.  Our Silver Sponsorship is priced at $1299 and includes 2 free conference registrations;  our Gold Sponsorship is priced at $2599 and includes 4 free conference registrations and a free Sponsor Table; while our Platinum Sponsorship is priced at $4999 and includes 8 free conference registrations, and 2 free Sponsor Tables.  All sponsorships include many other benefits, please see our Sponsorship Options page for more information.

Also, we’ve added a new Sponsorship option this year!  Our new “MISV” sponsorship level was added by request, for those industry participants who don’t necessarily want to exhibit, but simply want to attend and show their support for the event.  This new sponsorship level is priced at just $599, and like our other sponsorship levels, it includes a variety of perks and benefits.  See our Sponsorship Options page for more information about this new sponsorship level.

Sponsor Tables Instead of Break Room Booths or Hospitality Suites

You may notice that instead of having “Break Room Booths” or “Hospitality Suites” we now offer the availability of Sponsor Tables.  These Sponsor Tables will be set up in the main foyer/break room area of the conference, which is located directly in the path of the session and lunch rooms… meaning that each and every conference attendee must pass through this area in order to get to any of the presentations, breakfasts, or lunches!  The break room is also where all the snacks and refreshments will be located, so the attendees will congregate there between events and sessions.  The Sponsor Table concept was added by request from previous sponsors, and will include tables and chairs rather than pre-defined “exhibit booth” style areas.  This area will be open for attendees during the entire conference schedule, and will also be part of the Welcome Reception and other special events during the conference.  Sponsor Table spaces are limited, and will be assigned on a first-come, first-served basis.

Your Sponsorship

Your sponsorship of ISVCon will help support this long-standing industry conference, and give you an opportunity to meet with both experienced ISVs and start-ups in a new, exciting, and professional setting.  The sooner you sign up as a sponsor, the sooner your logo/ad box will be displayed on the ISVCon website for visitors to see.  Early sponsorship also helps support the conference financially, and is appreciated.  And, early sponsorship allows you to receive primary placement for your Sponsor Table areas, which have limited availability and will be assigned on a first-come, first-served basis.

Please consider supporting ISVCon with your sponsorship.  To become an ISVCon sponsor, just follow the instructions at our Become a Sponsor page.  If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.  I look forward to working with you.

Sincerely yours,

Rich Holler
Sponsor Manager, ISVCon
rich@isvcon.org
http://www.isvcon.org

P.S.  Attendee registration is ongoing, so signing up for sponsorship right away will insure that your company logo/ad will be displayed on the ISVCon website as more attendees come to register.

Rich Holler Announcements, Articles, News ASP, association of shareware professionals, ISVCon, marketing, microisv, misv, SIC, software business, software conference, software marketing

Prospects are learning more and more about cloud computing. Whether you sell software as a service (SaaS) or applications that run on laptops/desktops, tablets, or smartphones, you need to understand how cloud computing is being sold, and how it is being perceived in the software marketplace.

The February 22, 2013 issue of Processor magazine reports that a recent survey from KPMG International revealed that about half of businesses and nonprofits have moved some of their applications to the cloud.

Here’s what these early adopters of cloud computing are finding:

About one third of the people surveyed said that the costs of moving to the cloud were higher than they had planned. This means that whether you’re offering solutions that run locally or in the cloud, you need to weave both the expectations and the realities of cloud computing expenses into your marketing message.

About one third found that they experienced “significant implementation challenges” when moving to the cloud. Again, microISVs need to weave this information into their marketing presentations. If you offer desktop/laptop applications, then tout the control, security, and stability that businesses enjoy when data and programs reside on computers that they control. If you offer SaaS, then explain why moving from the desktop/laptop environment to your cloud-based application won’t be burdensome.

More than one quarter of the people surveyed said that they had experienced significant security-related problems. These problems need to be part of your marketing message, too. If you’re offering SaaS, explain how you’ve already addressed and eliminated the security problems commonly associated with moving to the cloud. If you’re selling desktop/laptop solutions, talk about how safe and secure they are.

Some of the people who took the survey said that they are working on legal and regulatory issues associated with cloud computing. While Processor magazine didn’t go into much detail, there seem to be tax and earnings issues that need to be addressed. Software developers need to monitor all of these cloud-related issues, and weave them into their marketing messages.

Until now, cloud computing was a fresh idea with a handful of hypothetical problems. As more and more businesses move applications to the cloud, the problems will become much more real. Stay on top of the cloud computing movement, and make sure your marketing plan reflects both current perceptions and current realities.

Al Harberg Articles cloud computing, SaaS, software marketing presentation

Salt is not boring, Seth Godin tells us in his book “Purple Cow – Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable.” Sure, salt has been sold for centuries as a commodity. Today, however, lots of companies are selling exotic salt for very high prices – and very high profit margins.

Is your software more boring than salt?

Then find a way to change the software so you can get people excited about it. Godin isn’t suggesting that you wrap your application in sales hype. He wants you to change the application itself. Convert it into a purple cow that people will get excited about.

Figure out how people in other industries have started with boring products, and made them exciting. Popcorn comes to mind.

“Find things that are ‘just not done’ in your industry,” Godin tells us, “and do them.”

    – by Al Harberg, the Software Marketing Blog guy

Al Harberg Articles boring software, Purple Cow

If you find that the name that you’ve chosen is hurting you in the marketplace, Jack Trout explains, then fix the problem. Trout talks about getting around a bad name in his book “The New Positioning – The Latest on the World’s #1 Business Strategy.”

Two suggestions that Trout makes for fixing a bad name are:

• Revert back to another name that you’d used in the past, or
• Consider sub-branding.

By sub-branding, Trout means that you could use your tag line instead of your product name (or company name) as your brand.

Trout believes that the name that you choose is very important. If you don’t have a good company or product name, then get one.

On a personal note, I chose DP Directory, Inc. as my software marketing and press release company’s name back in the mid-1980s. At that time, DP (data processing) was the popular phrase for what is called today “information technology (IT)”.

When I re-launched my website a couple of years ago, I started putting a lot more emphasis on “Al Harberg” and a lot less emphasis on “DP Directory.” I’ve coined a couple of tag lines such as “Al Harberg, the Software Marketing Blog guy” and “Al Harberg, the Software Marketing Glossary guy.” As Trout recommends, more and more I’ll be using my tag lines as my brand.

Big companies are doing this, too. For example, you can visit Procter & Gamble’s Bounty Towels website – www.bountytowels.com – or you can use their tag line – Quicker Picker Upper – www.quickerpickerupper.com – to get to the same website.

Don’t live with a bad product or company name. Change it. It’s good software marketing.

Al Harberg Articles brand name, product names

Twenty-five percent of adult Americans own a tablet computer. Ownership percentages, however, vary greatly based on the level of education of the individual.

So says the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life study, as reported in the November 2, 2012 issue of Processor Magazine.

The study’s tablet ownership results are divided into four education groups -

•  7 percent of people who didn’t graduate from high school own a tablet
• 18 percent of high school graduates own a tablet
• 27 percent of adults who attended college own a tablet
• 41 percent of college graduates own one

On a personal note, I think tablet ownership will increase in the coming years. Lots. As Android tablets become more popular, and as Windows 8 tablets gain market share, the competition will drive prices down. And as overall tablet sales increase, manufacturing prices will go down, and market penetration will go up.

Conversations with my customers lead me to believe that the software development tools available to tablet developers are not nearly as powerful or sophisticated as the tools that they’ve used in the Windows environment. If you’re thinking about developing tablet (and smartphone) apps, you might want to start climbing the learning curve earlier rather than later.

    – by Al Harberg, the Software Marketing Blog guy

Al Harberg Articles education, tablet

“A romantic is a visionary without common sense.”

So say John L. Stanton and Richard J. George, the authors of “Success Leaves Clues – A Marketer’s Guide to Winning Strategy.”

“Leadership is an activity,” the authors explain, “not a position.”

A leader needs a vision. But leaders can’t be romantics.

Leaders take risks. But they’re not reckless.

    – by Al Harberg, the Software Marketing Blog guy

Al Harberg Articles leadership, romantics, visionaries

Kenneth Gronbach believes that Detroit’s economic woes are caused by the car manufacturers not paying attention to the demographics of buying cars.

Gronbach is the author of the 2008 book “The Age Curve – How to Profit from the Coming Demographic Storm.” The book looks at the marketplace from the perspective of demographics. And it provides some great insights that can help us in the software development industry.

Forty-three-year-old men buy cars. Well, men aged 33 to 53 are the heaviest buyers of vehicles. Generation X (the 69.5 million Americans born between 1965 and 1984) can’t buy cars at the same level as Baby Boomers (the 78.2 million Americans born between 1945 and 1964) bought cars because there are nine million fewer people in Generation X.

Toyota, Gronbach tells us, figured it out. Instead of mainly targeting traditional buyers, Toyota has created cars that attract the much larger, much younger Gen Y buyers. Apparently, Toyota studied the types of used cars that young adults are buying today. And they built new cars that are attractive to these buyers.

Gronbach cites an ad campaign from Porsche 20-or-so years ago. Porsche of America encouraged people to buy used Porsches. Even though this didn’t make the company any money, the company depended on the sale of used Porsches to sell new ones. By making the market for used Porsches robust, it increased the trade-in value of these older vehicles. Many people traded in their old Porsches for new ones.

There might be a lesson here for software authors. Give your software to college students for free. And to high school students. And teachers. Plant the seeds today with users who don’t have the funds to buy your application. And when they graduate and enter the world of work, they’ll remember how great your software was, and buy it. And encourage all of their colleagues to buy it.

   – by Al Harberg, the Software Marketing Blog guy

Al Harberg Articles Baby Boomers, demographics, demography, Generation X

Consider creating strategic relationships with all of your stakeholders.

This advice comes from Jay Conrad Levinson in his book “Guerrilla Marketing Excellence – The 50 Golden Rules for Small-Business Success.”

If Levinson were writing about the software development industry, his list of stakeholders would no doubt include suppliers, eCommerce companies, bankers, businesses who target the same audience with non-competing products or services, and employees.

Levinson advises that when we’re thinking about partnerships, “think profit, not marriage.” Cooperate with partners. Don’t compete with them. Create a network of people who are helping you succeed.

If you build effective alliances by following Levinson’s advice, you’ll have a significant edge over other software developers.

   – by Al Harberg, the Software Marketing Blog guy

Al Harberg Articles stakeholder relationships

If you use invisibility creatively, it will enhance your chances of success. So says Bill Russell, the only basketball player to win an NCAA Championship, an Olympic Gold Medal, and an NBA Championship in one year – and the author of the book “Russell Rules – 11 Lessons on Leadership from the Twentieth Century’s Greatest Winner.”

Bill Russell wasn’t particularly writing with the software development industry in mind. But his ideas apply very nicely to the world of microISVs. Here I’ve taken the liberty of translating his ideas into the software business.

We don’t have to be in our competitors’ faces to compete effectively with them, Russell tells us. We can quietly contact prospects, quietly develop better software, and quietly enhance our market share.

You can be subtle as you shape how you’re seen by competitors and by stakeholders in the industry. Create a powerful reputation – a powerful brand – and you’ll appear to be bigger than you really are in the marketplace.

But you don’t have to make every aspect of your business visible to your prospects, customers – or competitors. Describe what your software does, and how it benefits your customers. But don’t necessarily explain how you engineered the software to accomplish these goals. Keep that part of your business invisible.

Use your website and blog to talk about the benefits of using your applications. But don’t brag about how long it took you to develop specific parts of your software. Your prospects and customers don’t care. And your competitors don’t need to know. Keep that part of your software development company invisible.

Talk about the direction that you’re taking your company if it will help you with current and future sales. But don’t give your competitors insights into your plans for capturing additional market share. Keep that part of your strategy invisible.

Invisibility can help you sculpt the way that others perceive you, your company, and your products or services.

     – by Al Harberg, the Software Marketing Blog guy

Al Harberg Articles competition, invisibility, visibility

“If your target audience isn’t listening, it’s not their fault,” Seth Godin tells us in his 2006 book Small is the New Big. “It’s yours.”

If I could sum up Godin’s advice in three words, it would be “Start a blog!”

Before you launch your blog, there are some things that you can do that will help your blog succeed. Too many people in the software development industry dive in, create a blog, post up a storm for a few weeks, and then burn out. With proper preparation, you can create a blog that will last for years, and boost your software sales.

I started my Software Marketing Blog ten weeks ago, in late July of 2012. And I spent a long time working on it before I ever posted my first write-up. Here are some things that you should think about for your new blog – or for reviving your slumbering blog.

Fresh blog content

Blogs are best when they’re fresh and spontaneous. Actually, that’s not true. Blogs are best when they nudge your prospects closer to buying your software. Blogs are best when they get your customers to tell their friends and colleagues that your software is very nice. Blogs are best when they get last year’s buyers to upgrade from the single-user license to the family license.

Appearances matter. Blogs are best when they appear to be fresh and spontaneous. With some postings such as news items and stories that tie into current events that your readers have heard about on TV, the only way to make your article seem fresh is to write it in realtime. It’s ineffective to write a news-related posting, and then post it six months or twelve months later.

My new blog will have tips for software developers about differentiation, branding, line extensions, positioning, and hundreds of other software marketing topics. I’ll give advice on writing a powerful sales presentation, and illustrating it effectively. And I’ll be writing about these topics two or three times each week.

Other topics, however, cannot be handled effectively by sitting down with your text editor every week and trying to write something fresh. A perfect example of this is my new blog’s treatment of my favorite topic: increasing software sales by sending press releases. If I were to write an article on this topic every three weeks, I would be in good shape for a few months. After that, I’d forget which items I’d already written about. And I’d find myself writing overlapping articles, or articles that are missing important content.

Two years of postings about press releases

I’ve been writing and distributing press releases for software developers since 1984. Before I launched my new Software Marketing Blog, I gathered together everything that I’d written about press releases. I found the press release descriptions that I used to postal-mail to software developers in the 1980s and 1990s, the articles that were published in ASP’s and ESC’s newsletters, the press release articles from my Software Marketing Newsletter from years past, the FAQ’s and sales messages from my website, information from my Software Marketing Glossary, my presentation notes from the Software Industry Conference (SIC) seminars that I delivered, and every scrap of press release-related writing that I’d written.

I rewrote all of this material, brought it up to date, eliminated the duplicate items, and organized it into 37 separate blog postings. For the next two years, you’ll be able to read one of these press release articles every three weeks on my blog. And because I wrote the entire body of press release information in one sustained effort, I’ll never have to worry that I’m presenting duplicate material that I’d posted weeks or months earlier. Sure, I’ll be using my blog to talk about new developments regarding microISVs’ press releases. But the main body of microISVs’ press release information is ready for publication now.

Two years of book review postings

I’m going to be posting a review of a business, marketing, sales, or writing book every two weeks. Each book review will be written from the perspective of the software development industry. Before I launched my blog, I went through 50 of the hundreds of business books that I’d read and underlined in recent years, and I wrote enough book reviews to last for the next two years. Sure, I’ll be changing the schedule and including new books that I’m currently reading. But I have a huge cache of material that will help my readers sell more software. And I don’t have to worry at all about having enough postings for my blog.

Illustrating your blog postings

Illustrations are important in blogs. For most readers, large blocks of text are uninviting. Reading large clumps of text seems too much like work for many of your prospects and customers. Use photos and drawings to break up the space, and make your blog more inviting.

For my new blog, I created artwork for 20-or-so topics that I’ll be covering. For most of my blog’s shorter postings, I don’t have to worry about the artwork because it’s already been crafted. For longer articles, I’ll be going back to my favorite stock image site and searching for more artwork.

Tags are important

Plan today for how you will want prospects to search your blog two years from now, when there might be more than 100 postings on it. Choose the tags and categories today that will help you with both human visitors and the search engines. Plan for today’s and tomorrow’s searching needs.

Building a library of microISV blog postings

For me, building a library of blog postings means writing press release tips and tricks, writing about how to craft a powerful sales presentation, writing business book reviews, and delivering website design ideas.

Software developers can do something similar for their blogs. Depending upon the type of applications that you offer, you could create a topic page for each program. List the main features that your target audiences need to know about. And list the associated benefits.

Be sure to include everybody in your target audience. If you’re marketing educational software, for example, list each of your target markets – school kids, their parents, their teachers, homeschoolers, homeschooling parents, and corporate trainers. Talk about the specific benefits that each group will enjoy if they use your software. And write a blog posting for each feature/benefit combination. Depending upon the applications that you offer, we might be talking about five blog postings, or hundreds of them.

Similarly, create an exhaustive list of tips and tricks for using your applications. Write them all up in a single week, so you won’t have to worry about forgetting pieces of the puzzle, or about writing duplicate, overlapping messages.

With a large cache of articles ready to be posted, you’ll feel a lot more positive – and a lot more confident – about launching your blog. And you’ll be able to write about new ideas with more enthusiasm and spontaneity.

Reviving a tired blog

All of these ideas can help you revive a blog that you’ve created but not supported in recent months or years. So many microISVs have started blogs, realized how much work it takes to feed them each week, wondered if anybody is really reading them, and abandoned them.

Truth is, it’s never too late to reinvigorate your blog. Your new blog postings will get picked up by Google and the other search engines. And your human visitors will get back into the habit of reading your postings.

Launch your blog now

Don’t just jump in the blog pond and thrash about. But don’t procrastinate, either. A well-delivered blog can bring new traffic to your website, and increase your software sales. Plan ahead, and you’ll increase your chances of long-term blogging success.

Interested in more ideas for setting up your new blog? Visit my Software Marketing Blog for a feature-length posting about where to host your blog.

Al Harberg Articles blog, blogging, microISV blog