Yuri Ekhlakov – Professor, Vice-rector on Information Systems and Management, Head of Department of Data Processing Automation, Faculty of Management Systems, Tomsk State University of Control Systems and Radioelectronics (TUSUR).
Address: 40, Lenina pr., Tomsk, 634050, Russian Federation.  
E-mail: upe@tusur.ru

Dmitri Baraksanov – Head of Center of Web Technologies and Information Resources, Tomsk State University of Control Systems and Radioelectronics (TUSUR).
Address: 40, Lenina pr., Tomsk, 634050, Russian Federation.  
E-mail: bdn@tusur.ru

Today’s marketing cannot be imagined without the Internet. However, classic books and monographs on marketing fail to reflect special considerations about the application of Internet Marketing tools in promoting software products, and existing works on Internet Marketing are mainly limited to general provisions and do not provide relevant guidance material on promotion practices. At the same time, approaches to the promotion of software products using Internet Marketing tools should be clarified.

The object of this article is to make the process of promotion program development based on classic marketing theory more specific by taking into consideration specific features of software products and the use of the Internet as the main channel of communication with target audiences. This article provides structure and content of a program for software promotion in the Internet environment, highlights main steps in development of such a program and defines marketing and communication goals. It also discusses such important considerations as the process of defining the target audience, generating communication goals, choice of the structure, content and form of communication message, choice of the channel and tools for dissemination of communication messages in view of special considerations about implementation of an Internet promotion program. Software promotion programs may be viewed as an integrated set of media planning processes. 

The method for software product promotion program development using Internet Marketing tools presented here is based on the integration of key classic marketing concepts for promoting a product to a market and the Internet Marketing concept taking into consideration specific features of a software product. The mathematical model for selection of tools depending on the stage of generating responses from the target audience presented here allows for partial formalization of media planning process. Information from this article may be helpful to those who specialize in IT product commercialization and work to promote such products through the Internet.