What is the best way to get your new commercial software product some exposure?

Question

What is the best way to get your new commercial software product some exposure?

The products in questions are being added to an already huge market with a lot of other competing products:

i) FTP Client

ii) FTP Server

Answer 1

Really, it depends of your target market.

Look at this, if you are pretending to make a good software demo.

Answer 2

This is a pretty general question, and you'd probably get better responses if you told us a little more about your product.

Here's some general avenues:

• Make a good website about it and advertise it with Google AdWords
• Distribute a trial or limited-features free version of it on sites like Download.com
• If it's got any sort of "neat factor," you might be able to submit it to a social networking site like Digg, but that might be spamming...
• GIANT ribbon-cutting ceremony with novelty-sized scissors

Answer 3

Don't underestimate blogs. Put the word out to influential bloggers, send them free versions if you have to. Find blogs with lots of readers and you can get some huge exposure if they feature it for you. Depending on the platform, look at sites like MacApper etc.

This would be my approach.

Answer 4

There's a difference between launching a product when it's done, with big fanfare and ceremony, and the way Google did it for gmail.

Make it beta at first, to gain traction while you iron out the kinks and let your growing user-base dictate the direction you need to take with your product.

37Signals has a whole chapter in their book about this sort of launch. It worked well enough for Basecamp. I'd say take their advice.