"Collaboration in the workplace across departments and geographies is driving the need to seamlessly communicate from varying locations and on multiple devices," reports The NPD Group’s U.S. B2B Distributor and Reseller Tracking Service. "This need for digitalization and visual data sharing is expected to increase demand for communication and conferencing solutions, contributing to growth in the Content and Collaboration software category in the U.S. B2B technology market." An effective marketing strategy for a startup software company offering these products should spotlight them.

The collaboration software product category has been growing over the last few years. In 2017, it experienced year-​over-​year growth of 7%, rising to 14% in 2018 and then to 15% between January and August of 2019.

"Overall U.S. B2B software market sales have been strong, up 8% in 2017, 11% in 2018 and 10% year to date," says The NPD Group. "Within this segment, Content and Collaboration software has been a growth leader as companies implement software to improve productivity, time management, file sharing, division of work, project tracking, and communication."

How to Create a Marketing Strategy for a Startup Software Company

In order to create a marketing strategy for a startup software company, you need to know which products in the collaboration software category are the most in demand. On-​premise content and collaboration software makes up 71% of the collaboration software market. Cloud enabled software's sales aren't to be overlooked, though. This software's sales rose by 11% year-​over-​year. "A shift to cloud-​based software is expected to continue, as it reduces infrastructure cost and offers a centralized management system," reports The NPD Group. Demand will only continue to increase as the trend of remote working continues to gain popularity.

Kate Roe-​Semyon, President, B2B Technology Practice, The NPD Group says that, "While cloud-​enablement is a key factor in growth, APIs integrating both cloud and on-​premise applications will be just as important, as they create seamless communication between systems and employees.”

What better way to advertise software than through digital advertisements? According to AudienceSCAN, within the last month, Executive Managers have used the internet to research a product they were considering, find coupons or discount codes and visit a local store/​business' website to research a product before buying. They're also 224% more likely than others to download and read a white paper. Additionally, last year, more than half took action after receiving email ads, with their favorite types of emails being those that contain coupons/​discount codes and limited-​time offers/​sales. Within the last year, these shoppers also took action after seeing TV commercials, receiving direct mail ads, finding ads on daily deals sites such as Groupon and seeing ads in both digital and print newspapers and magazines.

AudienceSCAN data is available for your applications and dashboards through the SalesFuel API. In addition, AdMall contains industry profiles on computer and software stores and software and application development, as well as lead lists at the local level. Media companies, sales reps and agencies can access this data with a subscription to AdMall from SalesFuel.