5 Steps to Marketing a Software Development Company	1.3/5.0 (3 votes total) Rate: Select 1 - Terrible 2 - Poor 3 - Average 4 - Good 5 - Outstanding
Joe Peters March 25, 2019

While the principles of marketing will remain the same from business to business, each type of business will have some unique strategies that need to be addressed when building a website for that business.

For instance, a business that markets products for teens should have some very different features on their website versus a business that sells technology solutions to other businesses. Here are 5 steps to marketing a software development company.

1. Determine your target demographic

Even global corporate giants like Apple and Nike have a very specific market segment that they cater to almost relentlessly. While they may reach a broader audience than just their target demographic, there is a very small and select audience that they cater to very specifically and strategically

Defining your target demographic doesn't just mean a certain type of business or certain level, you want to narrow it all the way down to one very specific business. It may be an actual existing business, it may be a fictional business, but the more crystal clear you are about what your specific target is, the more successfully you will be able market the company.

2. Develop a marketing strategy that caters specifically and strategically to that demographic

If your target are large businesses, then you will design a website very differently then if your target were small businesses. This is why you need to get crystal clear about who that target is. You want to develop your entire marketing strategy - and subsequently your website - specifically for that audience.

When working with a client to develop a strategy (or developing one for yourself) visit the landing pages of several large corporations and ask yourself who their market is based on their landing page. Chances are good, it will be crystal clear just from that one page who they are targeting. You want to be just as crystal clear with yours.

3. Design the landing page and do the "teenager test"

A study conducted by Missouri University of Science and Technology found that it takes users less than two-tenths of a second to form a first impression when viewing a website. Your landing page needs to not only immediately grab and hold a visitor's attention but give them something to make them want to dig deeper. People are visual.

We process images 60,000 times faster than text, so your images need to tell users everything they need to know about your business, not your text. To find out how effectively you are doing this, grab a teenager that knows nothing about the business you are designing a landing page for.

Show them the landing page for 3 seconds, then ask them what the business is and what kind of product or service they offer. If the teenager can't tell you or they are wrong, then you have more work to do.

4. Build SEO into the framework of the site itself

A well-designed website will have SEO already built into the structure of the site itself. This including using keywords and even back linking within the basic web content. This is why it is so important to develop a marketing strategy before you build the site rather than after.

It will take time to build up a good catalogue of content on the site, which means you can't depend on your content to help raise visibility. You need to get your site linked to search engines from the start, which means building in the "keys" they use to find you and categorize you.

5. Build out your content

Once you have built-in SEO that helps search engines send searchers your way and a landing page that forms a great first impression, you want to start building the content they are looking for when they are compelled to search deeper. What content you offer is going to depend on who your target audience is. Before you start offering content, you need to find out what your target audience is looking for and then build around that.

Too often, businesses build a website and then develop a marketing strategy. This is a mistake. Considering that your website is and will always be your most powerful marketing tool, trying to build a website without a marketing strategy is like trying to build a house with no blueprints. You may be able to do it, but it will most likely need to be torn down and rebuilt properly at some time. In business, this is called "rebranding" and many businesses don't survive it.

Hosting Bookmarks