6. Communication Techniques (on marketing for programmers)

The promotional mix, which is the overall range of techniques available to the marketer, comprises many elements but I am going to focus here on Internet marketing: the distribution of products, information and promotional benefits to consumers and businesses through internet technologies. Internet promotion is very convenient for a developer on a low budget (global reach at relatively low cost, metrics, dialogue with users, avoiding the necessity for intermediary salespeople...). The main ways to go about it include:...

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5. Branding (on marketing for programmers)

What's the difference between products and brands? A product can be anything that has the capacity to satisfy customer needs whereas branding is the process in which companies distinguish their product offerings from the competition. the benefits of brands: Company value, because the financial value of companies can be greatly enhanced by the possession of strong brands. Consumer preference and loyalty: strong brand names can surely have positive effects on consumer perceptions and preferences. If we consider fan boys, like the Apple fan boys, who purchase nothing but what comes from Apple (Mac, Ipod, Iphone, Ipad, etc). Most of the time, their choice depends more on the brand than on the actual devices quality. Barrier to competition: the impact of the strong, positive perceptions held by consumers about top brands means it's difficult for new brands to compute. For example, Google has become very notorious as the best search engine on the Internet. Even if a competitor like DuckDuckGo, Microsoft Bing or Yahoo (or you) come up with better algorithms, most of the online users would probably still use Google, as they got the Google brand on their mind. High profits: Strong, marketing-leading brands are rarely the cheapest (Here again, think different, I mean, think Apple). A good brand name should...

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4. Market segmentation and targeting (on marketing for programmers)

Marketing segmentation is the identification of individuals and organizations with similar characteristics that have significant implications for the determination of marketing strategy. Therefore, market segmentation involves the division of a diverse market into a number of smaller submarkets that have common features. Consumer segmentation can be done according to many factors:...

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3. Research and Information Systems (on marketing for programmers)

Marketing research is extremely important. Truly market-led companies recognize that they need to always be in touch with what is happening in the marketplace (and so should you). Customer needs are continually changing, often in ways that are very subtle. If we consider the history of computing, where we went from enormous machines, to smaller ones, to reach the home personal computer; and from disconnect machines to the need to connect them as a network and then to the Internet. There were then so many resources online that there was a need to sort them(as Yahoo did), and them to search through them (as Google did). More recently, there were a need to take the physical life social experience online (as Facebook did) and now we can feel that the people need is to take the internet everywhere we go, and we are slowly going mobile. Many of the technological revolutions happen accidentally but most of them are the results of relevant research and observation. Online, there are many (cheap) ways a programmer can find out what people want:...

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2. Understanding the customer behaviour (on marketing for programmers)

It’s mostly about understanding how people spend their money, that is : who buys, how they buy and what the choice criteria are. who buys? And more importantly, who is important in the buying decision? That’s not always the same thing, the person that conducts the transaction is often different from the person that’s going to use the product. Both can be different from the person with the power and the financial authority to make the ultimate choice regarding which product to buy (parents?). And of course, there may be some other persons influencing the outcome of the decision or even trying to impose their choice criteria on the decision. As you see, there may be many actors that you would need to convince that your product is the right one. how do they buy?...

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1. React to the global and local marketing environment (on marketing for programmers)

Whether you are an independant developer or a company, you can't just do your own thing and make programs that you find cool. You have to consider the microenvironment and the macroenvironment in which you operate, to adapt and take advantages of emerging opportunities and to minimize potential threats. Your microenvironment consists of actors that affect your ability to produce effectively in your chosen markets. Those actors are...

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Marketing For Programmers (or what I learned from my marketing classes)

I had to take a marketing class in my last year. At first, I didn't see the point for a software developer to learn those things, but then I realised that it's very important. I am sharing here, the key points I am keeping, regarding how marketing applies to the software business. I hope this note would be of some interest to both (aspiring) programmers and marketers. Now there is a lot that could be said on that topic, here I just try to stick to the key points, and as it’s still a lot of information, I would rather not send it all at once. Instead I would spread that as small blog articles. Let's first define "Marketing". It can be defined in many ways but it's basically the achievement of corporate goals through meeting and exceeding customer needs better than the competition. Indeed, the marketing concept is a philosophy of business that puts the customer and customer satisfaction at the center of things. Why should developers care about it?...

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