Marketing strategy of the Firefox web browser - a good web browser will sell itself
The advertisement and promotional strategy of the Firefox web browsing software application has become a topic of study for marketing and management experts. More and more people are very curious to find out how a web browsing software application that was competing against Microsoft’s Internet Explorer succeeded in tapping the web browsing market and succeeded in convincing millions and millions of end users to switch over to the Firefox web browsing software application from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and other web browsing software applications.
This achievement of the Firefox web browsing software application assumes greater significance in face of the fact that the Firefox web browsing software application was not marketed as all other web browsing software application were marketed. Considering the fact that the Firefox web browsing software application is a free software application and an open source software application at that and considering the fact that free software applications and open source software applications often suffered the disadvantage of being labeled as bad quality and geeky software applications, the achievement of the Firefox web browsing software application in capturing a significant portion of the web browsing market seems nothing short of a miracle.
The marketing and promotional strategy of the Firefox web browsing software application can be explained as below. The marketing strategy of the Firefox of browsing software application, as I see it, was based on two assumptions The end users were desperate for a good web browsing software application If the end users are convinced that the Firefox web browsing software application is the alternative that they have been searching for, the people will download the Firefox web browsing software application irrespective of all other factors
The first assumption was based on facts. Despite the fact that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer had succeeded in capturing close to ninety percent of the web browser market, it still did not enjoy it a high level of popularity among all its end users. More and more people were talking about the various disadvantages offered by Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Many end users had gone to the extent of calling the Internet Explorer as the Internet Exploder.
More and more people were upset with the fact that they were being forced to use a web browsing software application that was Not safe Not secured Not easy to use and Not fun to use. The knowledge that people were using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and other web browsing software applications because they did not have an alternative played a very significant role in determining the marketing strategy of the Firefox web browser.
Since most of the consumers in the market were desperately waiting for an alternative to be made available to them, it was obvious that any new web browsing software application entering the market had a good chance of succeeding if it catered to the requirements of the end users. That is exactly what the Firefox web browser did.
Tags: Firefox Browser, Mozilla
