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05.29.03

Eran Livneh Answers Software Marketing Questions

B2B software marketing has been Eran's area of expertise for over ten years, most of them spent in senior management positions with companies in this space. He now runs the MarketCapture consulting practice, helping software companies combine this kind of strategic awareness with hands-on approach to tactical execution of marketing programs.

Send your questions to elivneh@marketcapture.com.

By Eran Livneh

Hi Eran: You mention "target customer permissions" in your article and I'm just trying to understand this concept. Here's an example: I buy my target lists from companies and use them to conduct direct marketing. (Large AS/400 companies).

Now, gathering customer permissions - is this the ability to obtain information about a direst mail respondent and to now add them to my marketing contact 'mix'? - Do I need permission to add them to the mix?

Thanks for any help you can give me in clearing this up - I can't think of any other way to build on this list other than the actual customers or trial version interested people there are out there - am I missing something?

Shawn Harris
Marketing
http://www.patownsend.com

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Hi Shawn,

Thank you for the question. I can see how this question would come up, especially if you haven’t read some of the previously published articles (see links below). I can offer a short explanation and will be happy to follow up with more in-depth phone discussion.

The approach I’m referring to is based on the concept of permission marketing, which has been most popularized by Seth Godin (I would recommend you read his book if you haven’t). The idea is to build a database of your target customers and establish ongoing relationships with them. By doing so, you increase your brand awareness with the people you care about (your target customers) and the likelihood of them buying from you (people tend to buy from companies they know and trust). You also decrease your marketing cost, by avoiding the need to continuously purchase new lists and increasing your response rates (which we all know are directly related to list quality).

A number of things can help you do that. First and foremost, you have to provide your audience with value in order to keep them engaged in an ongoing dialog. Given your focus on the AS/400 market, I am sure you have a lot of knowledge that would be of value to your customers. For example, you can put together a newsletter (maybe you already do) that will provide your customers with valuable information about new applications, how others are using them, etc. Electronic communication can help you keep the cost down and fine tune your messages by accurately measuring response rates in real-time.

Permission comes to play on a number of fronts. First, regulations on any type of unsolicited marketing communications are getting tighter, so you want to be ahead of the curve and reduce your reliance on it as a marketing vehicle. Second, permission-based communications get much higher response rates. You can grow your permission list by posting some articles and white papers on your website and asking people to register in order to view them. Electronic newsletter is an excellent tool to maintain ongoing contact and grow your permission database.

This is the approach in a nutshell. I hope it helps. I’ll be happy to follow up with a phone conversation and learn some more about your marketing activities and challenges.

Here are some links to related articles:

Know Your Customers - By Name!
The Fallacy of Qualified Leads
A Framework for Sales and Marketing Collaboration

Best regards,
Eran Livneh
MarketCapture
elivneh@MarketCapture.com
http://www.marketcapture.com

About the Author:
Eran Livneh is the founder of MarketCapture (http://www.MarketCapture.com), helping software companies enter new markets, introduce new products, and increase market share. Eran is also the publisher of the MarketCapture Newsletter (see past issues and subscribe at http://newsletter.MarketCapture.com).

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