Software Marketing Without the Hard Work

Until recently, learning to market software was a costly trial-and-error process. But in February of 2009, the Educational Software Cooperative (ESC) introduced its Software Marketing Book Club. I've been an ESC member for more than a decade, and I lead the book club discussions. Each month, we talk about a sales, marketing, or business book in detail. The central theme of each discussion is helping software developers increase their sales.

ESC's Software Marketing Book Club is an easy, pleasant way to learn to market your software. Each month, we have fun going through one book, chapter by chapter, and sharing ideas about how we can make our businesses more prosperous by applying the ideas that we're learning.

Even ESC members who haven't had time to read the chapters that we'll be talking about can benefit from the discussions. Every day or two, I introduce more of the current book's major concepts, and I put the ideas into context. If you like the marketing articles that I've been writing for Tucows' Developers Newsletter this past year, you'll enjoy the discussions in ESC's Book Club.

I've been writing and posting about 4,000 words for each book. I translate the books' general principles into money-making ideas for the software development industry. Both experienced marketers and entrepreneurs who are new to marketing contribute to the conversations, and learn from them.

"Al turns lengthy marketing tomes into 'Reader's Digest' readable posts that cover the book's territory bit by bit over the course of a month," commented Harry Keller, president of Paracomp, Inc. - www.smartscience.net - and creator of Smart Science® education. "ESC members comment, often back and forth, on the material bringing different perspectives from a variety of educational software providers and some in other businesses too.

"My perspective," Harry continued, "like most members, is also different. As a PhD chemist, I tend to analyze scientifically, which doesn't help when you're doing persuasion, as marketers must do. Also, I'm one of a few ESC members who markets an SaaS service, and I really appreciate remarks by others doing the same.

"One of the more interesting aspects of the club is the international members. I'm beginning to get a much better feel for the day when I'll be selling in countries outside of North America.

"I wholeheartedly recommend that anyone interested in marketing software, educational or not, join ESC for the trivial yearly cost. The book club alone is worth the annual dues every month."

The discussions take place in ESC's members' newsgroup. Any ESC member can participate by using an ordinary NNTP newsgroup reader or by using ESC's online forums and their favorite browser. You don't have to market educational software to take advantage of ESC membership. The Book Club discussions are about software marketing in general, and not just about educational software marketing.

"The ESC Book Club is the most exciting new benefit of ESC membership to come along in years," said Kathy Salisbury, president of Great Mind Inc. - www.greatmindsoftware.com - a company that packages and retails computer software on amazon.com. "We have a lot of members reading this group, and small wonder! The regular contributors have years of experience in promoting educational software.

"You really won't find anything else like it anywhere, as far as I know. The leader of the discussions, Al Harberg, has seen it all, in his twenty plus years of software promotion. Al is an avid reader of business books, and picks the cream of the crop for the Book Club.

"My company, Great Mind Inc, works with independent software companies, featuring them in our Amazon.com store and other venues. I love to read the ESC Book Club when I need some inspiration and fresh ideas. Sometimes I even throw in a few ideas of my own. What a great think tank!"

ESC membership costs $35(US) for a one-year membership. If you join ESC - www.edu-soft.org - you can take advantage of this growing body of marketing knowledge that can help your software sales.

Here are the titles of the books that we've studied since the Club began fifteen months ago. All of these discussion postings are available to ESC members.

• The End of Marketing As We Know It by Sergio Zyman
• Why We Buy - The Science of Shopping by Paco Underhill
• Your Marketing Sucks by Mark Stevens
• Kotler On Marketing by Philip Kotler
• Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy
• The Invisible Touch - The Four Keys to Modern Marketing by Harry Beckwith
• Words Fail Me - What Everyone Who Writes Should Know About Writing by Patricia T. O'Conner
• Then We Set His Hair on Fire by Phil Dusenberry
• How to Become a Marketing Superstar by Jeffrey J. Fox
• The Age Curve - How to Profit from the Coming Demographic Storm by Kenneth W. Gronbach
• How to Close Every Sale by Joe Girard
• Brand Warfare - 10 Rules for Building the Killer Brand by David F. D'Alessandro
• Purple Cow - Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable by Seth Godin
• How to Win Customers and Keep Them for Life by Michael LeBoeuf
• Negotiate This! by Caring, But Not T-H-A-T Much by Herb Cohen

"The book club always gives me something to think about and stimulates some great discussions," said Rosemary West. A founding member and past president of ESC, Rosemary currently serves as its webmaster while pursuing educational interests. "It brings some real excitement to the newsgroup, and is a great complement to all the other benefits of ESC membership, like the mailed newsletter, the blog and newsfeeds, member listings and banner ads, and the download site."

Today's economy demands that we pay much more attention to marketing our applications and services. ESC's Software Marketing Book Club is an efficient and fun way to strengthen our companies. I hope to see you in ESC's Book Club!

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