OK, here’s a fun little marketing test. Axosoft is selling its $495 project management software for only $5 and it’s donating that to the American Red Cross. I’m not getting a thing, they just emailed me and I thought this was cool. It’s only for three days. It’ll be interesting to see how many takers they get. I’m a sucker for innovative marketing approaches.
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Robert Scoble works at Fast Company.TV (title: Managing Director). Everything here, though, is his personal opinion and is not read or approved before it is posted. No warranties or other guarantees will be offered as to the quality of the opinions or anything else offered here.
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February 21st, 2006 at 6:57 pm
Pretty interesting.
However, Axosoft site describes the product as a bug tracking tool, not project management software:
“Axosoft’s OnTime is one of the most popular bug tracking solutions on the market today.”
February 21st, 2006 at 7:01 pm
themask: yeah, I see that. In his email he said it’s project management software. On their home page they say it’s both.
February 21st, 2006 at 7:14 pm
If Project Management, I am game. Thanks for tip. Good deal.
February 21st, 2006 at 8:03 pm
AxoSoft tries Social Marketing
February 21st, 2006 at 9:45 pm
[...] I got this from Robert Scoble: OnTime Bug Tracking, Issue/Defect Tracker and Project Management Software is selling their $495 product for $5 until the 24th: 100% of Proceeds Will be Donated to American Red Cross [...]
February 21st, 2006 at 9:48 pm
Since I’m in the Philippines, and they mentioned our mudslide, they got me. Spreading the meme onward.
February 21st, 2006 at 10:15 pm
Kinda reminds me of ole skueel Peregrine Asset Center with a dash of Remedy and a sprinkle of Vivid CRM…but gosh, like it thus far, tho still too ’server-based bug-defect finderish’, needs more on strict Project Management side. Been off my radar as seems developerese focused. Yah know, they could use this ‘promo’ for other ‘networks’ too. ;) Blogs aren’t the world always. But this is something that’s a natural to tag on blogs. They should host a big “junket” of sorts. I would if I was them.
As an aside question…things are either CRM/SFA/Contact Management or Projectish Pert and Gantt charting serious and Project Management software as advanced to do’s. Nothing really that sweeps CRM/SFA into a Project Managers role. Or maybe I just haven’t found it, or maybe no market. CRM/SFA/Project Timeline/Workflow/Project Management/Asset Management tracking as one, that exist (that doesn’t require a Fortune 500 to purchase)? Thinking Peregrine + MS Project + Salesforcey CRM + ACT/Goldmine + Project Management, something Suiteish like that, which hits all bases. Or that too tall of an order?
February 22nd, 2006 at 3:58 am
Any company trying to upsell installation services for $395.00 deserves to sell it’s software for $5. Can you imagine Microsoft giving away Visat for $5 then charging the poor schmucks $395 to make it work correctly? Nice try, but I won’t even part with $5 for this stuff.
February 22nd, 2006 at 6:15 am
I bought it for our team, even if there are installation issues, 5 bucks is easy enough to pass off on an experiment
February 22nd, 2006 at 7:40 am
Hey Guzzard, remember, this software doesn’t cost $5. It costs $495 for 5 users and for larger installations (such as 50 or 100 developers) the costs could be upwards of $10K or $20K. Therefore, a $395 optional installation service is well worth it to a lot of companies.
In fact, OnTime is one of the easiest applications to install. Most people have it up and running in less than 15 minutes. That service is really intended for the more complex installations for companies that don’t necessarily have their own IT expertise.
Finally, the intention of this experiment is not to “upsell” anything. As we’ve said before, we’re even donating the $5 from each sale to the American Red Cross, so rather than bashing the software without having ever even tried it, I encourage you to go install the free single-user version. For that, you don’t even have to pay a dime. You can get it here:
http://www.axosoft.com/Products/downloads.aspx
February 22nd, 2006 at 8:36 am
Axosoft OnTime
February 22nd, 2006 at 10:32 am
Okay, I bought it, now what? How dod I get it?
February 22nd, 2006 at 11:55 am
The most significant feature of this blog thread is the nature of Axosoft’s marketing strategy. It’s word-of-mouth sales combined with traditional time-limited offer constraints. If blogging is to serve customers well, then perhaps buzz isn’t as important as descriptions of the features of the product and testimonials from actual users. See http://bringingclosure.blogspot.com/2006/02/marketing-at-speed-of-blog.html for more details.
February 22nd, 2006 at 12:57 pm
You can download the software at this location: http://www.axosoft.com/Products/downloads.aspx
February 22nd, 2006 at 2:54 pm
[...] that little marketing experiment we ran with Axosoft yesterday? Well, here’s the first day’s results: 530 sold, $2,650 donated to the American Red Cross. All cause of one paragraph here.One link. Wow. Filed under: Blog Stuff, Entrepreneurial @ 2:54 pm # [...]
February 22nd, 2006 at 3:34 pm
[...] AxoSoft says they are using the discount as a way to test “social marketing.” The sale is not linked to from any AxoSoft page, and was announced via emails sent to a number of bloggers, including Robert Scoble. Because their store isn’t set up for $0 transactions, they’re charging a nominal fee, and donating all of the proceeds to the Red Cross. $2650 raised so far. An interesting idea. blogs, memetracker, Red Cross [...]
February 22nd, 2006 at 3:39 pm
I think its great, installed it tonight and wrote a post about it as well, it says bug tracking, but its very easy to reconfigure it for project management!
You can read more on my blog http://steves.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2006/2/22/1778406.html
February 22nd, 2006 at 8:39 pm
[...] I read this from Scoble: Axosoft is selling its $495 project management software for only $5 and it’s donating that to the American Red Cross. I’m not getting a thing, they just emailed me and I thought this was cool. It’s only for three days. [...]
February 23rd, 2006 at 5:16 am
[...] While double checking my links on the previous post, I noticed Scoble talking about a social marketing experiment that has been pretty successful so far. Axosoft are offering a 5-user license of their software for $5, which is a $490 saving off the retail price. And that $5 is going to the Red Cross. [...]
February 23rd, 2006 at 8:57 am
I first saw this offer through Download Squad, but what really intrigued me was a post by Steve Richards on the David Allen GTD forum, linking to his blog. In that post (http://steves.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2006/2/22/1778406.html), he discusses how he configures a bug-tracking program into a project and task management tool. That alone was enough to get me to try it out. Unfortunately, the AxoSoft store seems to be down right at this particular moment.
February 24th, 2006 at 3:01 pm
[...] Bug tracking software for only $5, even Scoble linked to it. I admit I didn’t read the fine print, but it got me thinking, initial licensing costs for a bug tracking product would be the least of my concerns. Support, maintenance and upgrades are what I’d look at. The reality is it’s ugly and costly to migrate your data out of a bug tracker into a new product. So once the average customer is in, they’re in for the long haul. [...]
March 5th, 2006 at 6:45 pm
[...] Always looking for a better way to manage my business’ help desk queue, about two weeks ago I bought a copy of the AxoSoft OnTime 2006 software after a $495 to $5 price cut was posted via Robert Scoble. OnTime is designed as a bug tracking system, but Steve Richard’s OnTime 2006 review discussed how it is completely customizable. Both the interface and data store are so customizable that Steve reworked OnTime to manage his personal tasks according to the “Getting Things Done” organizational system. [...]
March 6th, 2006 at 3:00 am
[...] *The story was posted on Digg before Robert Scoble seeded the blogosphere with his post and yet the referrals to the offer don’t even register from Digg (see the graphic above). Receiving over 120 diggs in total and having more diggs that the top 3 stories on the front page on several occasions during the experiment, the story never made it to the front page. However, referrals from Scoble and Steve Richards have a visible impact, though not quite as large an impact as from DownloadSquad and the SlickDeals Forums. [...]
March 6th, 2006 at 1:52 pm
That marketing approach was too cool!
Who would have thought they would get 2300+ orders?
- Brandon Hopkins
March 8th, 2006 at 9:34 am
[...] Here’s an interesting experiment. I’ve already taken advantage of it and thought it was well worth passing along. Not that I represent much of a market relative to Scoble. Project Management Software Maker tries Memetracker approach. [...]
May 18th, 2006 at 9:32 am
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