If you’re a software company, the industry is changing with the move to SaaS, mobile apps, outsourcing and other trends. It’s important to make sure you have a current business plan to make sure you’re positioned to take optimal advantage of these changes.

Check the links to the right, and take advantage of our SaaS business plan template, or the Software Company business plan template, and get started optimizing your business today!

Quest moved to a SaaS-based log management offering. Their SaaS case study shows how significant the impact of moving to SaaS can be across the entire software business.

If you can’t access the Gartner case study, Microsoft also published their own case study about Quest Software’s move to SaaS earlier this year.

They’re both worth a read, if you’re a software company considering the move to a Cloud solution. For additional reading, check out this article about the important considerations when moving to a SaaS business model.

Selling B2B software? Even if you sell to the enterprise, the fact is that B2B purchasers gather a lot of their initial research on potential solutions online. That’s why having an internet marketing strategy (inbound marketing) is so key. Take a look at this recent article on ChiefMarketer.com about “Adjusting to the Web-Influenced Buy Cycle.”

If you’re moving to an enterprise SaaS model, then how to update your sales compensation plan might be on your mind. In that case, this recent blog post by Joel York at Chaotic Flow on “SaaS Sales Compensation Made Easy” may come in handy. Just remember that for SaaS you really need to focus on keeping customer acquisition costs (including costly sales comp) as low as possible – only use direct sales force when you really need it.

You can check out this recent survey by Go-to-Market Strategies on what worked & what didn’t in online marketing in 2009, in their report “Online Marketing Trends: What Worked in 2009 and What to Expect in 2010″. They found the best bets were email marketing and optimized websites, followed by social media tools.

1. Focus on Inbound Marketing Online
2. Let Prospects Experience Your Software
3. Cultivate Existing Customers
4. Establish a Partner Ecosystem
5. Maintain a Customer Conversation
6. Develop a Channel Program
7. Offer Complementary Services or Products
8. Segment Your Market
9. Differentiate with Niche Marketing
10. Leverage Customer Case Studies

For more, read our latest article on Software Marketing Advisor: “Marketing Software Strategy for Software Product Companies”

The best competitive strategy is to try to re-invent or re-define your category so that you are the market leader… a lot of great examples of companies that are out there that have done that.

Copying competitors won’t get you there… but competitive analysis can help you determine the best way to really crystallize your target subsegment that has you as the de facto leader…

So, yes, if you are selling software products or services, do invest some time in software marketing research to better understand your competitors. But instead of trying to follow them, use that information to develop strategies that truly differentiate you within your target segment.

Why is that a good thing?

It means that the money you spend on marketing is more likely to produce the business results you’re looking for (more customers, larger market share, increased revenue… whatever your particular objective is).

When you do a SWOT analysis, you brainstorm and list out your company’s

• Strengths (what are the positive attributes of your company, product or service?),
• Weaknesses (what are the negative attributes of your company, product or service?),
• Opportunities (where are the market opportunities for your product or service?),
• Threats (what are the main threats to your company?).

The SWOT analysis can help you find a way to use your company or product strengths to take advantage of market opportunities, and identify and work on weaknesses that might inhibit your ability to take advantage of those opportunities.

To be successful, it’s important to always be on the alert for market threats. Leverage your strengths to either eliminate or reduce the impact of threats, and work to address any weaknesses that may increase the criticality of threats.

Finally, prioritize marketing activities and messaging that highlight your strengths, and help you take advantage of opportunities.

For more on doing a SWOT analysis, take a look at this article: “Doing a SWOT Analysis to Focus Your Marketing Strategy.”

SWOT analysis is also included as part of our Software Company Business Plan Package and the SaaS Business Planning Package.

Seems obvious, right?

But I see so many small technology and software companies that use their blog to discuss the trials and tribulations of being a startup rather than addressing the customer pain point that they designed their product to solve in the first place.

If you want to write about the experience of running your business, and share best practices with others, then by all means have a separate blog. But don’t think your customers could care less! Even worse, you don’t want them seeing your dirty laundry (why tell them about the firefighting you were doing yesterday to deal with the outage you had…?).

Make sure you have a customer-focused blog on your website, with posts that are of interest to your customer. Try to weave your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) through the blog, while making sure not to appear too salesy. Your blog should contain additional helpful information, tips, and product-related announcements that your customers and prospects will find useful.

If you’re a software company, the industry is changing with the move to SaaS, outsourcing and other trends. It’s important to make sure you have a current business plan to make sure you’re positioned to take optimal advantage of these changes.

Take advantage of our SaaS business plan template, or the Software Company business plan template, and get started optimizing your business today!

In one word: FOCUS…

As a startup, especially in the technology space, it’s too easy to start thinking up all the exciting new usage models using your technology. Before you know it, you’re running three businesses when you should be focused on getting one off the ground.

How to deal with all those cool ideas that come into your head at the most inopportune moments?

Keep a notebook… that way, when you’re ready to grow the business you have some seeds of ideas to use as a starting point. But when you’re just starting out, it’s key to just pick one and FOCUS on it until it’s a paying business.

How did they do it?

Basically, with a singular focus on quality and solving the customer pain point to the best ability, flexibility and easy customization, being really clear on their unique value, and making it as comprehensive as possible within the bounds of the single point of pain the application is solving.

I think we could all learn from these tips… bottom line:

• understand your customer and feel their pain
• know your unique value – what really distinguishes your solution from the competition
• be fanatically customer-focused