Effectiveness of marketing strategies of software developers in Tanzania: A case of Software developers in Dar es salaam

This research aims to add knowledge of the software industry in Tanzania. Previous studies show that the software industry is under developed and there is little development of software products and services. The researcher thought that one of the reasons of underdeveloped software industry is ineffective marketing strategies of software developers. This research aims to evaluate the effectiveness of marketing strategies of software developers in Tanzania taking software developers based in Dar es salaam as a case specifically on the influence of their product strategies, promotion strategies, distribution strategies and marketing expenditure on their sales performance. The research used methodology which was based on positivism and used quantitative approach and survey method to collect data from software developers. The researcher used simple random sampling to select 60 software developers based in Dar es salaam of which 50 software developers responded positively. The research included five research variables which are the product, promotion and distribution strategies, marketing expenditure and sales performance which were measured by adopting generic performance measurement models. The researcher used multiple regression model to determine the effectiveness of marketing strategies of software developers. The research found that the product, promotion and distribution strategies of the software developers interviewed were not effective and only marketing expenditure was effective. The research also found that software developers interviewed largely deal with both software products and services, half of them at least import their software products and services and one third of them export their software product and services. These results show that marketing strategies of software developers interviewed were not effective and it can be concluded that the lack of effective marketing strategies of software developers in Tanzania is one of the reasons of underdeveloped software industry. The research recommends that academicians to make further research on the software business and investigation of major challenges facing software developers, government to increase its support to the sector including research and development and developers to find and implement knowledge and principles that will result into effective marketing strategies.