How to make software for marketing
Jon Miller at Marketo writes a great blog called Modern B2B Marketing. He just posted some great thoughts on what it takes to create software for marketers. He talks about lead management software (Marketo’s area), but his thinking applies to any software for marketing, including collaborative review and approval for design.
The pain and expense of buying packaged software has meant that marketing teams have not automated as quickly as other business areas e.g. sales, accounting, supply chain management. Marketing departments have not historically had access to the large capital budgets needed to buy big-ticket software licenses and marketing agencies only spend what their clients give them. Added to that, the complexity of large IT projects does not fit with the way that marketing works, with short marketing cycles and a lifetime of looming deadlines. Finally, marketers are aesthetically aware and let’s face it, traditional enterprise software has not been pretty or easy to use.
The introduction of SaaS (software as a service) has helped make it easier for marketers to fund software purchases. SaaS usually offers monthly or annual subscriptions, which can be funded out of opex (operating expenses) rather than capex. SaaS licenses can also be scaled up or down quickly, so marketers have flexibility to deal with changing budgets. Web 2.0 has led to the improvement of software interface design, which has increased adoption by marketers.
Jon sums up seven attributes of successful B2B software as :
- Intuitive interface: Most marketers didn’t start their careers as programmers or project managers. Complex tools with Visio-like user interfaces and pseudo-code programming environments may be powerful, but they’re hard to learn and end up requiring dedicated resources and/or significant professional services. Marketers need an intuitive system they can learn quickly – think of how many marketers know how to use PowerPoint.
- Great design: Let’s face it – marketers are visual people, and how software looks and acts and feels matters. Just take a look at the iPhone.
- No upfront costs: Marketing departments typically have significant monthly or quarterly program budgets, but large one time payments can be hard – especially if it isn’t planned for months in advance. The same marketer that can commit to a $25,000 agency contract (paid monthly) without batting an eye needs CxO approval to justify a technology investment of similar size.
- Free trial: Seth Godin says that most businesses aren’t price sensitive; they are value and risk sensitive. They need to justify to the people they work with that they didn’t get ripped off, and they don’t want to have to apologize to their boss for buying the wrong thing. A trial is a great way to get comfortable that the solution really works and meets your needs. If a vendor can’t offer a free trial to serious prospects, it’s probably because their software takes too long to install or is too hard to learn without significant training.
- On-demand: Software as a Service is a godsend to IT-starved marketing departments. It means you don’t have to buy any hardware or install anything, the system maintains itself, and new upgrades are delivered automatically.
- Great support: A great solution is much more than just the software you get. To be successful, marketers need easy ways to get started, access to tips and best practices, and responsive customer support. Of course, success shouldn’t come with a price tag, so you shouldn’t have to pay extra for these services.
- Powerful and complete: Sophisticated problems require sophisticated solutions, and B2B marketers shouldn’t have to compromise functionality to get great design, usability, and fast implementations.
Erik Bower says:
Great post. I would just add to that list extensible. Marketing folks need a system that is flexible and allows them to accomodate for strategy changes.
January 19th, 2010 at 12:17 am