SoftGram Bi-Weekly for 03.05.2006, Vol. 2, No. 5 SoftGram Spotlight: Building a Vertical Promotions Portal for Your Channel, Part II of II ______________________________________ SoftGram is a Softletter Publication and is published on the first and third weeks of each month. To Subscribe to SoftGram, please visit us at http://www.softletter.com/aspx/Profile.aspx ========================================================= To unsubscribe from SoftGram, please use the opt-out link below: http://www.softletter.com/aspx/optout.aspx?u=[[user_id]]&un=[[UserName]] To change your profile and various user options, please use the link below: http://www.softletter.com/aspx/Profile.aspx Before you can use this option, please login into your account. If you have not changed your profile, your username is the first letter of your first name and the first seven letters of your last name. Your password is "softletter." Once you have logged in, you can choose to stay logged in via a cookie exchange and revisit the site anytime without having to go through the login procedure. If you block all cookies, or specifically logout of the site, you will need to login to Softletter to participate in the forums and change your user options at this link: hhttp://www.softletter.com/aspx/login.aspx To ensure you continue to receive your copy of Softletter, please add SoftGram@ezine.softletter.com to your white list. If you have any questions or concerns, please E-mail RickChapman@softletter.com _________________________________________________________ The latest issue of SoftGram is brought to you by: **** The Product Marketing Handbook for Software **** The Product Marketing Marketing Handbook for Software, 4th Edition is the definitive guide to successful software marketing and sales. Completely up-to-date, the Hanbook's 16 chapters and appendices, 690 pages, over 2600 checklist items, 300 cost-of-marketing line items, 20 case studies, 30 illustrations and figures, sample forms, free spreadsheets, and product management forms make the The Product Marketing Handbook for Software absolutely indispensable for any software company looking to succeed in today’s ultracompetitive environment. Find out about the Handbook at: http://www.aegis-resources.com _________________________________________________________ What We Have Here Is a Failure to Communicate, Part II of II (Excerpted from the 02/28/2006 issue of Softletter) Throughout the purchasing cycle, 93% of business professionals reportedly use the Internet during some phase of research, and 37% do both researching and purchasing online. Most significantly, however, 64% of business professionals say they use search engines as a main resource to find products and services and these numbers are growing. (Source: www.navtej-kohli.com.) This high level of search activity creates a huge opportunity for business-to-business advertisers who are increasing online advertising spending as the burgeoning Internet ad industry continues to grow from an estimated $5.6 billion in 2005 to $11 billion by 2008. So what are the key indicators of a high-performing vertical search platform? * The particular audience targeted has unique needs not adequately served. Finding product and promotion information for price-sensitive proposals is an area of extreme frustration for resellers. General search engines and vendor-specific web sites don’t address the need and require the reseller to spend far too much time looking for specific results. Effective vertical search sites aggregate vendor-specific promotions, special offers and product information that allow the IT reseller to search one site quickly for the offers they need when they need them. * The search mission is both highly specific and success has a high value. BTB campaigns must target specific audiences likely to become both immediate and long-term customers. Conversion rates tracked across multiple search engines show that searchers who are ready to spend most often connect to sites from niche, or vertical, search engines. In most channel selling situations, particularly in low margin items, price is the compelling factor. The most effective vertical search sites removes current barriers to reach promotions by allowing IT resellers to search multiple vendors and product lines from one location instead of each vendor’s and distributor’s main site. * The vertical search platform morphs into something more: For instance, promotion search becomes a marketing tool (enabling personalization, target send involvement, user-generated rankings and loyalty). Most effective vertical search engines include the ability to evaluate results, including what promotions are most frequently viewed, E-mailed, and printed. In turn, these results can be formatted into marketing pieces and E-mailed to customers from within the engine itself. * A highly targeted audience of ready-to-purchase buyers that return to the platform. Business searchers turn to vertical engines as a main resource because they care more about the relevancy of search results than about the number of results returned. This makes vertical engines the most effective way to generate the highest conversion rates and ROI on marketing efforts. Vertical search engines can bring success to many marketing initiatives including promotions, product information dissemination, and name recognition. Just make sure that the one you choose can demonstrate the above and prove its ROI. _________________________________________________________ INFO POPS are sponsored by: License Technologies Group Since 1996, License Technologies Group (LTG) has been the established leader in providing solutions specifically designed for software publishers to more efficiently manage their software licensing business. Our systems and services support software license management, renewals management, eCommerce, Digital Rights Management, Partner Relationship Management and global fulfillment. We understand all of the nuances and best practices necessary to harness the power and profitability volume license and compliance programs can provide. Our experience in providing these solutions helps softwa practices and gain a strategic advantage on their competition. Smart Tools. Big Savings. http://www.licensetech.com ******************************* INFO POPS "To understand why this deal is Pearl Harbor for Microsoft, and a declaration of all out war for Google, I think one has to make a leap and consider that this isn't about applications," OpenWave's Gary Edwards writes. "It's about the quality of the information experience one can find at Google, or, through the costly nightmare of maintaining a similar experience through revolving MS shrinkware. ... Writely lives on the Internet, in the same space as Google information, enabling mankind to collaboratively work with Wiki and Blog information. The collaboration is both human and machine in that when someone logs into a Writely document space, they do so riding high on their computational machines. Okay, so now we have Writely able to bridge the traditional desktop productivity environment with the Wiki, Blog and eMail collaboration tools. Because of the space it occupies, Writely is also in flow of all that Google information and information organization services. ... The killer for Microsoft is that they now face an open stack of highly structured, Internet ready information services that with the flick of the download switch could easily stretch across the over 450 million desktops that make up the mighty Windows monopoly base, over every Linux, OSX, and Solaris desktop, up through Writely collaboration services, through the Google mash of services and information and out across the Open Internet, and back again." Excerpted from: Good Morning Silicon Valley, 03/10/2006 ******************************* "Some people, of course, claim that desktop Linux is a stealth success, The invincible ignorance of the non-technical decision maker… but two years ago Wal-Mart offered a sub $500 PC with Linux pre-installed, now they have a Microsoft Store and offer Windows NT 4.0 Professional on refurbished 900Mhz P3 Thinkpads for $482" Excerpted from: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Murphy/?p=547&tag=nl.e539 ******************************* You may never have even considered how the popular GPL open-source license might interact with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, but embedded systems seller Wasabi Systems claims that Sarbanes-Oxley has made "GPL violations a federal crime." Excerpted from: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1935590,00.asp?kc=ewnws030906dtx1k0000599 ******************************* Yesterday it was reported that the company had mistakenly released online documents about a potential online storage service referred to as GDrive. "With infinite storage, we can house all user files, including emails, web history, pictures, bookmarks, etc and make it accessible from anywhere (any device, any platform, etc.)," said the notes from a presentation that was removed from the company Web site after the usual pack of bloggers circulated them. A Microsoft-like explanation was offered by a Google spokeswoman who declined to comment on any specific service, but confirmed that a presentation containing the notes had been mistakenly released on the Web, adding "We have nothing to announce at this time." In reality, the announcement--or, more likely, trial balloon--has already been launched. It was strikingly similar to a "slip" in February, when Microsoft mistakenly posted a Web page listing a variety of Vista versions, then later explained: "This page has since been removed as it was posted prematurely and was for testing purposes only." These incidents seem less a case of mistaken Web posting and more an orchestrated effort to gauge user and customer feedback. In Google's case, perhaps it wanted to find out if GDrive--and the specter of the company having access to more of individuals' data--would create anything like the privacy debate that accompanied the recent Google Desktop announcement. For years, Microsoft has gotten loads of mileage and visibility from these types of tactics. But Google was supposed to be different. Perhaps it's just poor public relations and marketing management--following closely on the CFO's disastrous comments about an expected slowdown in the company's growth rate--or perhaps Google is finding that to compete against the likes of Microsoft, it must adopt some of the business practices it has found so distasteful in the past. Excerpted from: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1935590,00.asp?kc=ewnws030906dtx1k0000599 ________________________________________________________ CHANGE YOUR SOFTGRAM SUBSCRIPTION : To unsubscribe from SoftGram, please use the opt-out link below: http://www.softletter.com/aspx/optout.aspx?u=[[user_id]]&un=[[UserName]] To change your profile and various user options, please use the link below: http://www.softletter.com/aspx/Profile.aspx Before you can use this option, please login into your account. If you have not changed your profile, your username is the first letter of your first name and the first seven letters of your last name. 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