Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

Hi Lindy

I’m not surprised that radio wasn’t very effective for ERP leads. A software which does not lend itself to a one line description of what it achieves or what it’s benefits might be does not tend to be understood whilst your potential buyers slurp down their cereal or negotiate their drive to work. To a lesser extent, the same goes for telemarketing – there’s no easy way to introduce what you want to talk about from cold, so I can imagine that the “Effective Contact Call Rate” was fairly low. We experience the same for CRM software which is, in theory a little more straightforward.

Therein lays the problem. I think that you have to warm the prospect up a bit before they develop a level of interest which will make them bite when you propose having a sales meeting. At least that’s my definition of a decent lead – the prospect needs to have an interest in ERP software, needs to have an application whereby they will devote some time to evaluate your proposition and needs to have a budget to spend on it. Those conditions are unlikely to be met by cold calling or simple telemarketing to a list. Your % success rate simply falls off a cliff due to the hurdles you have set yourself.

One way to overcome this is to get the information to the prospects and to let them respond to you. They will only do so if they have a level of interest which motivates them to tick a box, send in a reply card, reply to an email or read your PR. The media you might therefore consider will be direct mail, emailing to a qualified list, advertising and specific Press Release activity.

The metrics on the first two have been covered on this site – typically a 1-2% enquiry rate within all classes of IT mailings, so only you can tell if that is likely to produce a return on your costs. Quality email lists are expensive and occasionally you’ll be offered the “Opportunity” to purchase a list where the contacts have already expressed an interest in ERP. No doubt this “Unique” purchasing opportunity will also have been presented to every ERP vendor in existence (And their granny).

I’d go down the trade vertical PR route. If you have in mind some typical customers in given industry categories, get a short press release written on your software as it applies to that industry. This is not an exercise to give a full blown account of all the features and benefits of your product as you might in a 2 page job for Management Week or Business PC World, but 300 to 400 words on some specific benefits which might apply to, say, Automated Woodworking or Instrumentation Manufacturers and so on.

Then release the PR to the specific journals which cover these specialities. You’re likely to be the only ERP specialist to do so in that magazine that month. The drawback of this is that by definition, the trade press is National and you will receive leads from outride your desired geography.

Once you’ve evaluated the quality of the lead, you can take the decision to hop on a plane or to seek out a business partner for your software more local to the end user. We do this for Maximizer CRM and even go so far as to hire ourselves out at “Inter-Company” rates for installation, configuration and training, whilst a local BP manages the project. If we are not involved on the ground, we’d negotiate a finder’s fee based on a % of the services provided and some recognition from the principal that the license sales came via ourselves.

Good luck

Steve Alker
Unimax Solutions

What relief you offer to your prospects Lindy?

If telemarketing does not produce enough prospects there might be some problems on your offering.

This is an opinion of marketer and buyer -recently selected a vendor for ERP

My qualification criteria was
+ capability to catch our wants and needs
+ reliability and flexibility of the software
+ reliability, competence and flexibilityof company
+ talents (people in team)
+ track record and future plans of the company
+ long term financial commitment

Offering should be combined to who you want to hit:
A. unaware they even have a need for ERP
B. know about ERP but not much else
C. know about ERP and possibilities
D. know about ERP and providers
E. know about ERP, providers and has determined their own needs
F. Evaluating providers

C-group requires totally different communication than D-F but my opinion in C and D lies also the biggest mass of potential. Your tagret is SME's, so these companies do not typically have high skilled professionals to execute ERP-process. You must be their most trusted companion in the process.

Few simple ideas:
To build awareness and traffic put banners to most popular sites where your target group uses (news, sports...) >>> competition on your website to gather names and addresses.

For C-group develop a "Do you need more process systematics" -evaluation tool on web. Simple results immediately and deeper for your sales people to get a meeting and present to prospects.
For D-group gather White papers, segmented success stories if possible.
For E-group create a ERP definition workshop concept to build trust to team.
From E to F transmission promise partial or total refund of workshop if they buy from you.