5 Comprehensive Digital Marketing and Sales Tips for the Software Industry

In the age of digital transformation, software companies must structure their marketing strategies properly to gain a competitive edge and achieve sustainable growth. Digital marketing in particular is vital for companies in the software industry.

In this article, we look at tips and the most effective methods for software companies to optimize their digital marketing strategies. Covering stronger websites, the importance of social media, building the customer journey, involving customers and employees in digital marketing, and partner programs, we detail the steps software companies need to take to succeed in the digital world.

1. Stronger Websites

Just as a software company’s salespeople convey emotion and information when explaining services or products to customers, the company’s website should convey the same emotion and information.

In this section, we’ll cover building the right website architecture, producing the right website content and taking a lead generation-focused approach.

One of the biggest mistakes software companies make is that their websites don’t explain the product properly or give accurate details of sub-services. An integration, feature or service that seems very simple to a software company can be a prospect’s reason for choosing that software. That’s why software companies should build the websites for their products or services on a sound information architecture.

How to Build the Right Website Architecture for the Software Industry

Website information architecture is work every company should do at the start of building a website. When you map out the architecture, you also create the list of pages the site should have. Below, you can see a sample information architecture we prepared for software companies.

After creating the information architecture, the content needs to be produced. A common mistake is producing only text and supporting it with a few images. As we wrote at the beginning, your website should give an impression close to the one your team members who sell or market your products in the field give.

How to Produce the Right Website Content

The content that explains your products or services on each page shouldn’t be just text. So how can you enrich your web pages?

• A. Video: On whichever page visitors are on, you can add a video that explains its features or services in detail. If you don’t have the time or budget for a professionally edited video, filming one of your team members explaining it will also work.
• B. Podcast or Audio: You can add audio recordings explaining each product or service to its page. If you’ve shot a video, you can take its audio separately and publish it on Spotify. If that would take too much time, you can use text-to-speech to create voiceovers in Turkish or other languages.
• C. Appropriate Visuals: Use screenshots showing how you solve the problem your product or service addresses, along with images of your target audience. If your audience is doctors, you shouldn’t use an irrelevant image. You can also create short infographics showing your benefits step by step and add them to the relevant page.

A Lead Generation-Focused Approach

Since software companies don’t sell a product the way an e-commerce site does, they first need data on customers interested in their products or services. Name, surname, phone, email and company information are the ideal data for turning leads into sales.

To collect customer data, add contact forms, or banners that lead to a contact form, to product, service, blog and other pages so customers can leave their information.

2. Strong Social Media Use for the Software Industry

When promoting their products or services on social media, software companies should know their target customers well and create personas for them. Persona work reveals why the audience needs the products or services a software company makes. For strong social media use, define the types of content to share and create a social media calendar.

Before defining the content types, develop a content strategy for social media and build ideas. Social media has three main processes:

• Send
• Receive
• Report

The send process starts with finding ideas that will persuade your audience and catch their attention on social media. These ideas are then turned into content. One idea can become many pieces of content. For example, an idea can become:

• A YouTube video
• A podcast series
• Visual content.

The receive process is when you see comments and feedback from your audience and engage with them. The report process is when you report on both of these processes and see the results.

3. Building the Customer Journey

Although this process falls more under CRM, it uses digital marketing tools such as email, SMS and notifications. The customer journey starts on the website, and social media channels are the tools that drive people to it.

When a customer arrives on the website and fills out a form or requests a demo to learn about your products or services, that’s the start of the process. What comes next needs to be built smartly.

When building the customer journey, you need to define the steps you, as a software company, will take in response to each step the customer takes.

For example, what communication path should you follow for a customer who requests a demo?

• What should the email sent after the customer creates a demo say?
• Should a second welcome email be sent after the demo request?
• How many reminders should be sent as the demo period ends?
• Should the email include a link to the support center and the support phone number?

In the infographic below, we’ve tried to build a simple process. Of course, it can vary by product and customer type, and different actions can be taken for B2B and B2C.

4. Involving Customers and Employees in Digital Marketing

Software companies need to express themselves better and involve their happy customers in their marketing. The classic way is to add testimonials to the website. Today, as video consumption keeps growing, producing videos through platforms like YouTube is a far more useful and powerful way to manage this.

Many software companies manage a serious talent pool but struggle to show it. Holding up a digital mirror to your company’s talent and showcasing it through digital channels makes it easier to persuade your target customers.

In addition, webinars, livestreams and YouTube videos about the services or products you provide, made together with your customers, are very effective. Customers talking about you and the services you specialize in is many times more powerful than you talking about yourself.

One of the best examples of this is the YouTube project we did with Fabrikod. In this project, where we managed the entire YouTube process, we produced a series of fun and useful videos.

5. Building a Partner Program

In the four points above, we covered the steps for finding customers through digital marketing and turning them into sales. Many SaaS or software companies may not have their own sales team. Even if they do, more data means more sales. So partnering with companies that share your target audience can give you a significant flow of customer data.

To build a good partner program:

Identify companies that serve the same or similar audiences as you.
Set a commission. Create a partner page on your website and provide detailed information there.
Create a simple panel where partners can enter leads, so incoming customer data doesn’t get mixed up.
Support your partners with documentation, badges, printed materials and visuals to share online.
Get in touch regularly to keep their enthusiasm fresh.

Digital marketing is essential for software companies to maintain their competitive edge and reach their audiences effectively. The stronger websites, social media use, customer journey building, involvement of customers and employees in digital marketing, and partner programs we covered in this article are critical for software companies to succeed in the digital world.

With the right strategies and effective execution, software companies can both expand their existing customer base and sustain growth by reaching new customers. Continuously updating and adapting digital marketing methods will play a key role in software companies’ future success. Using this guide, you can take your digital marketing strategies to the next level and stand out in your industry.

For digital marketing services tailored to the software industry, get in touch with us.