I am trying to find out what the different opinions are on marketing new software.

my stratagy has always been give it away for free.. i've had a few projects bought up by larger companies.. also i've had a few projects being supported with donations.

We are actually trying to market our new software. I think the biggest issue is to get the attention of as many people as possible. Get them to your website! Of course giving away evaluation copies for free is a part of the action after that.

It depends on what kind of software are we talking about.

If it's a popup blocker then give away free trials, if it's a mailserver then set up some demos and send the product info to some companies, etc.

Please specify what kind of program are you going to promote.

Welcome to the forums jluna & BluePolar.

I have not checked these links out in awhile, but they might give you some ideas:


http://www.softwaremarketsolution.com/
http://www.graceleads.com/
http://www.sellso.com/
http://www.esellerate.com


You also might considering registering at online software vendors such as Tucows.

Make the product a good companion website, use the website as a promotional tool as follows:
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Publish your benchmark tests
Sell advertising
Promote downloads
Do impression counts
Build a database of email addresses of clients who download the product and email them when updates are available
Get the product known in the IT industry first
Register with search engines and partners
[/list=1]
Your first releases may need to be free, but you can sell banners etc to create some revenue. It is a good idea to include added functionality for users who purchase and register the full product.

Get the correct information about where to market the product, you may want to run an ad on another site or two. To do this effectively research the marketing strategies of you competitors. Get hold of their products and see what they have included. When the product becomes know and is the choice of professionals then you can sell it as a package, many products such as Ultraedit32 and Nero started out free but are no longer. Just remember for the product to catch it could take time, but if it is good people will use it and it will grow in popularity.