January 8, 2008

Tips on jotting, online directories, and fixing your software

by Gordon Graham, Editor, SoftwareCEO

This first issue of 2008 has something for road warriors, CEOs looking for investors, marketing people, developers, and even tech writers.

If you do a lot of traveling, here's a fast, easy, and free way to make sure you never forget anything on the road.

If you're looking for investors or an exit strategy, you should know about this top-flight symposium coming to Boston in February.

For marketers, we found two online directories to help generate cost-effective leads: one for any enterprise software, the other just for SaaS products.

Developers, here are two cool blogs: one on software glitches and quality, the other about unprintable comments in source code.

And anyone producing documentation can likely benefit from the advice in this new book on how to streamline your review and editing process.

Quick hands-free reminders on the road.
If you're on the road a lot, here's a fast, easy, and free way to make sure you never forget anything.

With the services of Jott Networks, you can dictate e-mails or text messages through your cell phone, way faster than actually calling someone or thumb-typing a message.

The examples for sales people show how Jott is the soul of simplicity. You speed-dial Jott's toll-free number, it asks who to "jott," you give a name, then say your message. Using both machines and humans, Jott transcribes your message, and e-mails or texts it to whoever you named.

You can set up groups like "management team" or "Acme RFP." You can jott to folders, such as "Expenses." And you can jott a reminder to arrive 15 minutes before an appointment.

As you rush between meetings, you can use this service to clear out details you might forget, delegate action items quickly, or keep your whole team updated.

And you can do it from your humble non-iPhone for free... or as free as your cell phone plan gives you texting and airtime.

An online database enterprise software.
If you're offering any type of enterprise software, your firm really should be in the online directory from Capterra.

Here's a company that started in 1999 with an online marketplace that brings together software vendors and prospects doing their research. It survived the dot-com bust, and persisted to become a vast directory of software that includes 10,000 vendors. (No resellers or SIs are eligible to avoid cluttering up the listing.)

Despite its scope, the site is remarkably easy to navigate. Visitors can filter listings by features, and click through to a vendor's site. They seem to like it: In 2007, traffic hit two million unique visitors.

Capterra even found its way onto this year's Inc 500 list at spot #463. So founder and president Mike Ortner can relate to the growing software firms in his database.

"Every software company is eligible for a free listing," he says. Or you can sign up for enhanced listings and pay-per-lead or pay-per-click. "There's no setup fee, and no time commitment. We try to make it as easy as possible for a software company to give us a try."

Leads cost anywhere from $10 to $200, depending on the cost and target market for the software; the average is $50. But most firms go for PPC, with the options shown on this page.

An Enhanced listing gives you a link to your website and clicks at $2 each. Premium moves you up the listings, and a Sponsored listing puts you at the top of your category with a maximum of two other companies. Sponsored vendors bid for this placement starting at $3.25 per click.

Ortner says many firms start with a free listing, and then upgrade once they see what good leads they're getting from the site. He's got some happy customers that agree.

"Capterra has been part of Autotask Corporation's marketing strategy for more than two years," says Bob Vogel, CMO with Autotask, which provides web-based software for IT services management.

"We have been consistently pleased by the results of our campaign, and the quality of buyers who visit our website as a result of being listed with Capterra."

If you're not listed in Capterra yet, it's time to do it.

How to power up your website: six tips and five sample websites to study.
After eight years of working on his database, Ortner says he's surprised how many software firms do a poor job of marketing online.

"You'd think the software industry would be the best, because they're more technical people," he says, "but the majority of software companies we speak with don't do a good job of converting website visitors into leads, and they don't do a good job on tracking the originating campaign."

To help with these challenges, Ortner has just published a free e-book called "Click to Lead: The Website Challenge: How to Reach Business Software Buyers and Convert Them to Sales-Ready Leads."

In it, he notes that software marketers must excel at each of four critical steps:

1. Attract prospects to the company's website.
2. Convert these web visitors into leads.
3. Track the referring campaign for each lead.
4. Qualify and cultivate the leads.

"This may seem obvious and simple," he writes, "but based on my conversations with thousands of software companies, few appear to execute all four of these elements successfully."

For example, here are his six bottom-line most vital tips on making your website work harder:

Make your website work harder tip #1:
Highlight clear calls to action on every page of your website.

Make your website work harder tip #2:
Link each call to action to a brief online form where you request a prospect's name, email address, and phone number.

Make your website work harder tip #3:
Provide abundant, easy-to-access free information including product benefits, case studies, and a virtual tour.

Make your website work harder tip #4:
Use tracking codes and cookies for each of your paid online campaigns in order to track the source of your leads.

Make your website work harder tip #5:
Use marketing materials in conjunction with an e-mail marketing campaign to cultivate leads that are not ready to buy today.

Make your website work harder tip #6:
Test everything!

And here are some examples of sites that follow most or all of these pointers.

"I am constantly asked to reference software websites that put into practice the principles for converting visitors to leads. Here are the five that I usually point to. These websites are great examples of what is possible," Ortner says.

• Syberworks: Useful and abundant content in an easy to read format
• Autotask: Very professional; great "Try It Free" call to action
• BuildIT Systems: Easy to navigate, strong calls to action linked to a brief online form
• Intuit: Excellent, intuitive layout. Manages the display of many products very well
• Basecamp: Excellent virtual tours; easy to navigate

"These are generally clean, simple, content rich, and include clear calls to action. In other words, they get it," he notes.

If you're looking to refine your own website this year — and who isn't? — this e-book and these five sites would be good places to start.

And another directory just for SaaS offerings.
If you're a SaaS vendor, here's a free directory just for you.

The SaaS Showplace is an online directory that brings together vendors of on-demand applications with prospects searching for a SaaS offering. The site was created by industry writer/consultant Jeff Kaplan of THINKStrategies.

He says until recently, many SaaS vendors were complaining that it was hard to get noticed, since most mainstream journalists and analysts never paid any attention to them.

And there was no place for them to show off their wares to prospects.

"So a light went off, and I thought maybe I can put together a little clearinghouse," he says. "Maybe there's an opportunity to provide a vendor-independent showcase for SaaS solutions that would also make it easier for users to find what they were looking for."

The result is an easy-to-use directory that's growing fast, with about 500 SaaS vendors across 80 categories. Visitors can search by industry or software category.

It's well-designed and functional for business users. The site's now up to 250,000 hits a month and getting busier all the time.

A basic listing for a SaaS product is free, with a link to your website, and a thumbnail summary. Kaplan is starting to offer ways to boost your visibility by paying a few dollars, including showing your logo, and linking to collateral like white papers and case studies.

And that's not all. Kaplan also has a free SaaS newsletter you can subscribe to, and a growing resource center with white papers and other materials to help promote best practices among SaaS vendors.

If you're a SaaS vendor, you owe it to yourself to pay this site a visit, check out its content, and get listed in its directory right away.

Cool blog on software quality.
If you're pushing for better software testing or quality at your firm, here's a cool blog to watch.

"Software integrity: a blog about software quality & metrics" dishes up intriguing news like a brawl at Kmart sparked by a software bug that offered $4,000 in instant credit to any takers. (Attention, Kmart shoppers: Visit aisle 14 for free money?!)

This blog also has threads on coding standards, quality metrics, and some intriguing posts on the legal implications of software quality. It's sponsored by Enerjy Software, a division of Teamstudio that does tools for Java code QA.

Developers: Stop using cuss words in code comments.
Did you know that Google's Code Search can search through any CVS, TAR, or ZIP files exposed on the web?

"Granted access to billions of lines of code and the awesome power of Google's search technology, I did what any rational, thinking programmer would do," blogs developer Ben Ornstein. "I typed in some profanity, and hit Enter."

The results that popped up are a funny commentary on the foibles and frustration of developers.

But now this tool is available to anyone who can type, it's time to make sure you don't reflect badly on yourself, your product, or your employer with potty-mouthed comments.

Note to self: Stop using cuss words in my comments.

Note to self #2: Use Code Search to make sure I got rid of all the old cuss words I put in there.

Great resource for your documentation team.
Anyone who faces the challenge of reviewing and editing documentation — in print or online — will be interested in a unique new guide to this topic.

"Effective Onscreen Editing" is the work of long-time technical writer and editor Geoff Hart. This 711-page e-book is gorgeous to read on-screen, and filled with detailed and considered advice. It's clearly the fruit of many years of experience, and priced at only $20.

Anyone interested in online editing — or any kind of editing — could benefit from it.

And if you're a software exec who oversees documentation, you could use these tips to help set up a more efficient, less paper-bound review process... and save a little time and money in the process.