Case Study: Design software go-to-market

The Challenge:
Autodesk, the world’s leading Computer Aided Design (CAD) software company, was diversifying its product portfolio and entering the home design market. This was a departure from its traditional architectural and engineering client base, and they needed to gain insight and expertise quickly. Autodesk bought Designer’s Vision software and acquired not only an established professional-level interior design rendering tool, but also a huge library of digitized design products that could be used in Autodesk’s planned consumer version of the software.

The problem was that Autodesk’s existing customers didn’t know about or appreciate the value of Designer’s Vision. They were used to working in a wire-frame CAD world with little realism in visualization or rendering.

The Solution:
Give Autodesk’s customers a free trial version that put the entire experience at their fingertips. Demo CD’s were distributed at trade events and design centers, and inserted into an issue of IIDA’s magazine, reaching 95% of the target designers.

The Results:
Autodesk created awareness with its customer base by distributing over 10,000 demo copies of Designer’s Vision. They added 750 new professional customers and a dozen new design product vendors to the library. The consumer home design product went on to become the biggest software title in its class.

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