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How To Get Your Program Professionally Marketed?
one-man orchestra writes "I'm the sole programmer of a small, multi-platform, commercial audio program (a spectrogram editor). After over 6 months on the market, I realized that the program would never just sell itself, and that I need some real marketing done for it. Being a one-man orchestra is becoming increasingly difficult; I only can devote so much time to marketing, my skills in that department are lacking, and I'd much rather spend more time coding. Despite my lackluster part-time marketing effort, I still manage to make a modest living out of the sales. My logical assumption is that with someone competent taking care of that part, revenue could greatly scale up. But what's the right way to go about doing this? What type of people/company do I need to contact? What to expect? What to look out for?"
"Program" and "commercial audio program" are two different beasts. Have you sent press releases/info to the bigger music software news sites? (KVRAudio, harmony central, etc). Or to technical forums? (Gearslutz, ProSoundWeb, etc). It's not like you're selling an anti-virus package or an MMO, this is kind of a specialized market...
To a degree, that's the price of doing business.
Don't give stuff away if you can't afford to (which is the beauty of selling software versus hardware).
Back in the day (which was pre-blog) I wouldn't give software to anyone who hadn't been published in a major trade publication. That kind of worked, and kept the guys looking for freebies in check to a degree, but you have to just accept that only a percentage of the people you contact will reply and only a percentage of the people who reply will actually write something. That's why it's a bit of a numbers game (lots of things in the funnel for a few things out).
For my book "Elevator Pitch Essentials" I have probably sent out 50 review copies and gotten 5 articles in return. That's kind of depressing, but it's the way it is.
I will say that the whole blog thing has changed the question of accreditation. I will send free copies (both PDF and hard copy) of my book to bloggers but I have had a very high success rate (80%) and it costs me nothing to send a PDF and only a few bucks to send a hard copy.
I always hated the phrase "You have to spend money to make money" when I was just starting out, but now I find myself telling it to people.
Hi omo, I run a recording studio and produce music so I guess I'm in your target market. I think it's really important not to alienate your potential customers, especially online. If you get in someones face, online, who might be able to help you it kills word of mouth marketing very quickly.
In other words, ask yourself if it's a problem with the program or if the problem could be you.
Running a recording studio is hard and producing music is extremely challenging. After setting up a room, miking up the musicians (and each band has it's own complexities just there), making sure no dumbass has brought a powered up mobile phone into the studio, doing the recording session and producing a mix for musicians who can't make up their mind about the final result the last thing you need is to rely on a production tool from someone who has an attitude and can be regarded as unhelpful.
You may have a good idea, exporting a sound file to a graphic image and then use photoshop or something to edit it but I question why a producer is going to use/learn a *visual* tool to do *sonic* work. I know of a lot of good producers that don't want to see their video monitors and hang towels over them while they listen to the mix on a four inch auratone. They don't want to engage their eyes because the visual cortex causes a distraction when setting up the 'ghosts' in the audio monitors. It's about sound and the illusion it creates, not about the illusion and the sound it creates.
Clearly, your program is used during the production phase and being a 50/50 proposition it very much comes down to how *you* come across to your market. If you are reasonable, they might give it a shot, if not word will spread very quickly. Be realistic and have some humility about your program. It's not essential or even revolutionary but it could have a place so make sure you don't come across as a buffoon and try to make out that it is. Leave the attitude behind, know when to say sorry when appropriate and, most important, try to make friends. Those things will gain you respect and credibility.
That said, it looks interesting and I wish you the best of luck.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.