The best of these companies have experienced meteoric growth, not just because of their products, but because of the innovative strategies they incorporate into their sales processes.
When it comes to marketing functional but not particularly exciting products, there is no point trying to pull the wool over people's eyes with buzzwords and sparkle; rather share how it makes their life better.
If you measure the cost of acquisition against customer lifetime value, you'll discover that the revenue earned per customer is less than you'd expected.