Over 2 decades ago, Corum's founder, Bruce Milne, wrote "Software Company Guerilla Marketing: How to Succeed in the Software Wars with a Carefully Targeted, Low/No Budget Marketing and Sales Campaign." These are hands-on, practical ways to get the biggest bang for your sales buck. While some of the means are outdated, the message and methodology are still true today. Selections of this document will be posted here for your action (or amusement). Following is the introduction - and large company or small, you may recognize yourself...
Your product is complete and ready for release.The first installations have gone well and everyone you talk to is enthusiastic about the product. There's just one catch: you have little or no cash for promotion and advertising.
It's called "bootstrapping", "guerilla marketing", "creative selling", or many similar names. But the principal is clear... you need a method of using your scarce financial resources to leverage your company for maximum marketing and sales clout.
The following methods have worked well for many software companies (both start-ups and larger, mature firms) over the years. In fact, there are many reports that guerilla marketing out performs the more traditional, often much more expensive methods.
[More to follow! ~ Pat]