All companies developing commercial software products offer support services. Even open source solutions benefit from this advantage. Be it promoted as free (included in the license price) or as subscription-based service, the technical assistance seems more of a must than an additional benefit.

However, the types of support services and their quality play an important role in buying decisions, both for end-users and savvy IT personnel. For end users, it’s a question of abilities and knowledge they lack. They buy software products to make their lives easier, not to spend hours and hours trying to debug them (unless that’s their hobby). For IT professionals, it’s a question of time and resource management. If you need to invest in a certain solution, why not save crucial time and resources by acquiring one with technical assistance included. If you’d like to know more on why it’s recommended to call support instead of toying with a product yourself, I recommend this article I wrote a while ago.

Given the high importance potential customers place on tech assistance, support services need to be designed so as to represent a strong competitive advantage. And there are a few aspects you can think of to sketch a strategy to tune what you offer your customers. Continue reading

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SMO, networking, sucessful comunities, we all hear these phrases every day. We also use them frequently, sometimes without having a quite clear view on what they actually entail. Therefore, I believe reading more into the core of social networks and community news can lead to a clearer image and to making informed decisions when it comes to marketing and PR strategies. Browse through the below list of information rich articles. A few comments and bringing your own links to get the conversation started wouldn’t hurt either!

• Let’s first stop by Drew’s Marketing Minute to find out more about what makes a vibrant community that’s alive non-stop from an guest article by Liz Strauss.
• If we’re playing a new game, we should first learn more about the rules. The Influential Marketing Blog brings you the 5 rules of social media optimization.
• After the rules, a little on the inside tricks would be nice. HubSpot decided to reveal 10 of these iside secretes of social news sites. And they spice it up with a list of carefully selected such sites and links to more in-depth info on each of them.
• Sticking to site lists, here doshdosh and TechCrunch bring you two different lists with their individual notes and details.
• FaceBook, although still reporting less traffic that MySpace, is still the spotlight sweetheart of social media communities. That’s why InsideCRM put up a list of 100 tools and tips to make the best out of FaceBook.
• If you’re not sure if you should get FaceBook featured in your marketing plan, take a look at it’s demographics, courtesy of MarketingHub.
• Just posting on a social news site is one issue to consider. Another extremely important side of the story is where to post your piece of news or article. Choosing the right category for a story means getting it through those actually interested in reading it. SEO 2.0 further explains how to work with categories on StumbleUpon.

Sit back, read and enjoy! Hopefully, this will also grant you a better week start tomorrow!

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Words of a Broken Mirror was created three years ago on a nice and pinkish (at that time) Blogger template. It then moved here, bit by bit, thanks to Trisi, who thought of this great gift for me on my name’s day, who developped the WOBM logo and then patiently put up with all my changes requests, thanks to Mig who got me this cool theme and tuned it, and of course to all of you who come to read my posts, comment and who support me.

When I got this domain, I first thought of keeping both blogs and trying to publish as often as possible. However, this endeavor turned to be far too time consuming, therefore I started thinking of a different approach. And what better day that today to stop posting on the old blog? A great occasion for a proper goodbye post!

This was not an easy move, as there were so many memories and people connected to my old blog. But I’m sured I took all the best of WOBM here with me, in our new blogging home. Three years of blogging is quite something in this world of dissapearing blogs. I’ve seen great pages being shut down, left for the ghosts to walk around. I still miss online friends that I no longer get to talk to. If I wish for something in my fourth year of blogging, it’s to see less of the blogs I love disappear!

Please join the party, have a piece of cake, drop a comment or an email and let’s have some fun!

Hugs,

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In my previous post I talked about how competition should never be feared. However, this in no way means we should ignore it. Because if we do, we’ll loose customers in the process. Market research involves knowing all that you can about your competition. What do they offer that you’re not offering? How important is it? Should you be offering it? Should you stop offering something that your competition will continue to provide potential customers with?

I will explain why thinking thoroughly before answering these questions is so important through a personal experience. I was thinking of changing my computer and after a chat with my dad who wanted to buy my notebook, I decided to buy a Sony Vaio. I checked the site of a local Sony Center shop, picked the model and went to get it after work. I had part of the amount in cash, the rest on a card. Continue reading

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If your business isn’t totally irrelevant or focused on such a tight niche no one would think of considering your business model, you do have to worry about the top players in your field. Those strong companies owning huge chunks of your market’s share and having dizzying budgets to play with in each department. While you choose field related events carefully, trying to maximize exposure and awareness and leads, they can go to all of them and be one of the big sponsors.

But is this reason enough for you to fear them? I’d say no and explain why based on an example. Company X is relatively a new comer in a certain segment of the software development market. An important partner of theirs tells them about this huge event they should take part in. Attendance isn’t cheap at all, but there are major benefits. They’ll have a nice presentation that can target one third of the even visitors, they have a nice booth and some promotion from the event organizers and a number of complimentary invitations that they can send out to their potential customers. Sounds like a plan! Continue reading

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