4 Marketing Tips for ERP Software Companies

If you are an ERP developer or vendor, you know how vital marketing is to reaching new clients. Here are some tips to better market your ERP product both online and in-person.

How to Market ERP Software: 4 Steps

1 Know Your Audience

Before any marketing can begin, you have to know your audience. Start by using these questions to identify your ideal customer:

• What is the atypical organization size or number of users?
• How much scalability do they need?
• Do they work in a specific industry?
• Do they require any regulatory compliance?
• What are the budgetary restrictions?

Answer based on what your target market currently is and what you want it to be. Knowing your current customer base is important for proving why you’re a good fit for similar clients. And exploring who you want to work with early can help you shape future marketing campaigns.

There is another benefit to knowing your audience: knowing who it isn’t. Who you won’t serve will have a huge impact in how you advertise your ERP. Marketing too broadly can bring in leads that aren’t a good fit and a waste of your time.

2 Know Your Competitors

In order to stay competitive, you need to know what other ERP developers are doing. This shouldn’t be limited to just their marketing tactics, but how they’re developing their own software. See how many offer free trials, what add-ons are available, and, if possible, their pricing structure. If you find all your competitors are releasing annual updates for free, while you’re hiding new features behind a paywall, you might need to adapt your methods to keep customers from leaving.

If customers are coming to you because of dissatisfaction with a competitor’s ERP, you can use that information to further tailor your marketing strategy.

3 Use Online Promotion Methods

Use the following methods to promote ERP software through online means:

• Webinars In-depth webinars which showcase all the reasons why an ERP can help a business succeed are one way to reach prospective customers online. You can prerecord or live-stream interviews with business experts, share short tutorials of your software, and address other issues which are important to your buyers. The overall goal is to clearly demonstrate all your ERP has to offer business owners.

Live webinars are a great chance for interacting with potential customers. Hold a Q&A session at the end to address anything from the audience.

• Social Media Channels Social media is another easy way to expand your branding. LinkedIn and YouTube can be better avenues for reaching future leads. At the very least, you want to maintain a social media presence with regular activity so buyers know your company is responsive and up-to-date.

Don’t forget your company website when making social media posts. Share industry articles, case studies, or blogs on your own site to build a hub of information for prospective customers.

• Email Campaigns Email campaigns are a modern take on traditional mail marketing. Yet building a contact database is going to be difficult. To avoid being perceived as spam, it’s best to only reach out to those who have subscribed. This is where those contacts made through webinars and social media can come in handy.

Starting a company newsletter is another way to keep your email communication active. Share updates on upcoming developments, expansion to functionality, and other important news. For example, if there are regulatory changes coming to an industry, detail how the ERP meets the new compliance requirements.

• Online Demos Free trials are a great way to introduce your product to potential customers. Give your prospects a way to test out your ERP from your website. There are a variety of ways to present these trials. You can offer limited functionality, preload dummy data, or set a time limit on how long the software can be used. If your software is on-premise only, guided or pre-recorded video demos can showcase your software.

• Partner with a Lead Generation Service Websites like Software Connect can help you find leads based on your target market. These businesses help promote your product to new business on your behalf.

Learn more about Software Connect.

4 Try In-Person or Direct Outreach

Traditional, in-person outreach is another way to find potential customers for your ERP:

• Trade shows: Sometimes face-to-face is the way to go when winning over new customers. Get a booth at a trade show and let your prospects come to you. If you have an on-premise system, record a demo displaying a wide range of features.
• Seminars: Like webinars, in-person seminars cover general business topics but help get your company name out there. This is another chance to show users in person how your software works and can directly benefit them.
• Mailers: While not as popular as the other methods, there can still be some success in sending out old-fashioned mailers to prospective clients. In fact, this method can work best for business owners who are a little tech-shy and need a little more prompting to adapt their processes to software.

How to Measure Marketing Success

If your own ERP has a customer relationship management (CRM) system, use it yourself! And be sure to mention it to prospects. Otherwise, tracking your customers interactions with a third-party CRM to detail where leads originate, how many prospects become clients, and more.

By monitoring marketing campaign performance, you can see what’s working and what needs work. Analytics gathered by CRM programs can lead to data-driven marketing decisions. Real-time data collection lets you adapt to evolving market trends and customer behavior.

Other Tips for Selling ERP

Once the marketing draws in prospective buyers, it’s time to seal the deal with sales. An easy way to do this is by sharing success stories. Direct customer testimonials are ideal for showing how real users have excelled using your software. Video testimonials are particularly powerful ways to share success stories with prospects. And case studies can delve deeper into data on the measurable results from an ERP.