Natalia Yashenkova

Head of Marketing and PR at StarForce Technologies

Natalia Yashenkova has more than 15 years experience in software development and information security. Before StarForce Technologies she worked at Netris and Vimcom Optic.

Among our clients, there are often companies that have just created their products, as well as companies that decided to sell a product they have created for themselves. First, of course, they need to protect their software from copying, hacking and modification, but they want to tell the world about the new product and arrange product sales as well.

At StarForce Technologies, we focus on the tools to protect software from a wide range of threats. All StarForce products provide protection from reverse engineering and modification. We offer a C/C++ source code obfuscator that works as a syntax analyzer. StarForce Crypto allows you to prevent the hacking and unauthorized use of executable files. You can implement protection from copying and illegal distribution with the help of DRM. StarForce offers access activation with the help of a serial number through the Internet, as well as binding to USB or CD/DVD.

Besides, we have an economy version of protection, ASProtect. Every developer can choose the most suitable version of StarForce products and forget about the loss of profit.

StarForce has been in the market since 2000, which means we now have some experience in introducing and promoting software products all over the world. There is no universal solution, of course. In this post, I give some general recommendations.

Direction N1

Use search systems to attract potential customers to your website through current requests related to the product and its features

	Make a list of possible search queries. They will be your keywords. To avoid misunderstanding concerning the future traffic size, check it with Google Keyword Planner (need to have money on the Google AdWords) or with SEMrush.
	Write the text for the page with the product description taking into account the keywords and SEO recommendations. For better results, create several posts for the website with the keywords both in the header and in the contents. Make a post for each of the search queries. Be sure to provide a link to the trial version of the product on each page related to the product. Otherwise, you can add an order form so anyone who is interested can contact you.
	While the search engines are indexing your pages, you can buy contextual ads for the keywords. Be sure to check that the output is relevant so that you do not waste your money.

Direction N2

Direct sales

	Create a base of potential clients from the list of the most ‘interesting’ customers.
	Try to contact the customers and offer them the product.
	Keep record of the feedback. For example, the customer does not need the product because he/she is already using a competitor’s solution; the product is too expensive; or the customer is not satisfied with the features, etc.

Direction N3

Creating a demand

	Write articles that compare your product and your competitors’ products; articles with the product description, and publish them on dedicated websites (Reddit etc.) and blogs (arrange for paid publications). You can buy a corporate blog on professional web resources, but the contents you provide should be of high quality; otherwise, forum members deduct points from the articles’ ratings.
	Launch discussions on dedicated forums.
	Create videos with the examples on how to use the product, and publish the videos on YouTube.
	Arrange webinars and seminars.

To sum up, we can say that promotion consists of two parts, the mechanics and the creative entrepreneurship. The mechanics means the operations that correspond to certain algorithms, for example, creating a page with the product description and optimizing it for search queries. This requires consistency and systematic approach but usually little investment because you implement it yourself. However, this method only allows you to acquire ‘warm’ customers that have recognized the need for a solution and are already looking for the right one. To increase the customer base, you need to involve the creative entrepreneurship. This means looking for a way to approach target audiences, making a great impression and being in the black, not in the red. It is a much more complicated work that requires experience and intuition.

Another question that people ask is whether they should hire a person for the product promotion, or outsource the job to an agency or a freelancer. If the product has a limited scope of application, we recommend that you hire a specialist who can grasp the idea and understand the product features, on the one hand, and, on the other, broadcast the information in an easy-to-understand way. The employee should have a good connection with technical specialists so as to create the ‘right’ texts that the target audience can trust. If you have a member of staff who can create good quality content, you can hire an external specialist who could optimize the texts for search engines and publish the articles to the Web.