March 13th, 2008
Sticky open source marketing
Most open source marketing is easy. You push to convert people who have already downloaded the product.
But as these easy sales are made, and folks find that increasing conversion rates becomes difficult, more and more open source companies are actually prospecting for customers.
What’s the best way forward? My own idea is you stick with what works.
A stick. Memory, that is. (Adsources makes theirs in the USA. No advertising here — I found them totally at random.)
Stick memory is the floppy disk of our time. It’s cheap and getting cheaper. At a recent trade show I got several press releases on 512 Megabyte stick memories.
So here’s the idea. You do just as you would with a press release. Only you load your software onto the stick.
Just take it off your Web site. Add some basic documentation.
Now you go to a non-tech trade show, the kind your prospects live at. You buy a booth. You talk to people. At the end of your conversation, instead of saying “go to the Web site,” you hand them a stick.
Get their card first. Make sure you note on the back that they got a stick. Then call a week or so later. See if the stick was used. See if they have any questions. Don’t make a sales pitch, make a use pitch.
My guess is this will open up a lot of large accounts that have, until now, resisted open source. Find a decision maker, give him the stick, follow up, and don’t ask for the order until they’re already a satisfied user.
This last is probably what you’re doing now.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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