Marketing

In the busy market, there are shops selling similar items. Standing outside, our subconscious evaluates each shop and helps us choose one to visit. The filtration criteria could vary from person to person, based on their socio-economic background. It could be the shop's interior. It could be discount tags. It would be a welcoming and open design of the shop. It could be interesting samples.

The learning for us is, are you doing things which fulfils the criteria most of the customers apply which stand out?

The nature of business and services we offer as ERPNext service providers are B2B. This means, we don't have a shop, but do have virtual instances of shops, which become our gates and window to the world, from where we give a shout-out that, yes, we exist.

Hence, online marketing becomes a powerful tool that will help you highlight your accomplishments and convey your true potential to prospective customers. You can be as creative as you can while creating your marketing material so that you can connect with potential customers and build a solid bridge between their expectations and your offerings. Here are some of the suggestions which you can follow to create a strong online presence.

Website

Your website is your window to the business world. It should contain answers to the questions prospects with which prospect is visiting your website with. So, what are the questions generally a prospect needs an answer to?

Is there a reliable ERPNext partner who is an expert at ERPNext / Frappe?
Do they have relevant experience in my domain / industry?
Do they have a presence in my city/state?
What their existing customers are talking about them?
Can I approach them easily for further inquiry?

Just keep these questions in mind and review your website. Does it easily answer the questions listed above for a prospect? If not, it’s important for you to revamp your website, and ensure it contains some of the following elements.

Checklist	Description
Company Website	Should have a live website Containing relevant information
ERPNext Services Offered	Clear mention of ERPNext services being offered, esp. in headings
Indication Of Frappe Partnership	Frappe Partnership should be clearly specified along with the ‘Type’ (Bronze, Silver, Gold etc)
Link To Frappe Certificate	One should be able to access your Frappe Certificate for validation
Customer Success Stories	Write customer stories to pull attention of your potential customers
Contact Us to CRM	‘Contact Us’ should be easily reachable and working . Also, it should capture the inquiries in your CRM.
Measure Website Traffic	Implement tools to analyse the website traffic and set target to increase visitors:* Footfall on the website over the year

* Top landing pages and it’s trend * Pages from which visitors are bouncing back * Traction on the pages (like customer story and Industry page_ from where you are expecting on Call to Action button (like contact or sign-up) * Google analytics or any other equivalent service will answer most of the above. |

Here are some of the websites of Frappe and Community partners. The best part is, they are built using Frappe/ERPNext only, and hosted on FrappeCloud.

Tasker, Philippines

Navari, Kenya

Customer Stories

You can use a blog to list implementation stories on your customer. Here are some of the sub-pointers around which a story can be framed.

About customer (name, industry, domain)
Their problems (Stocks-outs, Receivables, approvals, delayed customer deliveries, unplanned production cycle, multiple SaaS)
How your team implemented ERPNext
How it impacted in solving the customer’s issues
Enter customer’s testimonial and add images of customer’s officer / factory

We are sure that the power of social media is not hidden from you and you have already experienced its benefits. It’s more so important in the ERP business, as businesses choose for an ERP solution by relying on the expert solution. This is because of the complexity of the product, that decision makers trust on an individual who has experienced the product earlier.

Further, since ERPs are mission critical, it’s important that you and your team also build credibility in the ecosystem. It boosts the confidence of the decision makers and allows them to reach you for their ERP needs. It’s all about being out there, standing the crowd, proudly wearing the batch of Frappe Partner and sharing your stories creatively.

Checklist	Description
Update company profiles on LinkedIn / twitter	Company profile is setup on LinkedIn containing relevant information
Update individual profiles on LinkedIn / twitter	Individual employee profiles specifying their role and responsibilities in the organisation pertaining to ERPNext
Publish periodic posts on social media	Posts on social media to keep market informed about your accomplishments, milestones and challenges

Here are some of the interesting examples on Linkedin and Twitter.

Profile Mentioning ERPNext / Frappe

Social Media Card on the Occasion of Valentine’s Day. Yes, when it comes to creativity, sky's the limit.

Connecting with community counterparts on a mass scale. Our community members are always excited to catch up with their counterparts wherever they go..

Partner Listing

For the Frappe Partners, this is an additional and awesome channel to generate more leads.

When we asked a partner about the most valued outcome from the Frappe Partner, they said Partner Listing! It helps them Stand out from the crowd of open-source service providers, help them build trust in the eyes of the prospect, and close deals faster, at a premium value. Here are some of the check-lists a partner must follow in order to ensure their partner listing is up to date.

Checklist	Description
Update Partner Listing	With the enhanced partner listing, you can ensure following credentials are updated about your company on your Partner Listing.* Company, logo and about the company

* Address, contact and web address * Referenciable customer |

Certification

We learnt above that credibility matters a lot when it comes to winning the trust of partners and customers. Certification is another smart way to establish it.

To vouch for your functional as well as technical knowledge pertaining to ERPNext, Frappe has introduced multiple Certification Programs for the partners and made it mandatory for them to complete relevant ones within the stipulated time in order to get listed on the website and receive leads.

Apart from the Company level certification, you can also consider getting each of your teammates offering services on ERPNext / Frappe to get certified. Here are some action items to start with.

Checklist	Description
Frappe Certification	Ensure to complete the company level certification, as specified in the Partner Forum above.The certificate is displayed on the website and its link is provided for validation
Developer Certification	Certified developers against the total strength of devs working on Frappe / ERPNext
Consultant Certification	Certified consultants against the total strength of consultants working on Frappe / ERPNext

Newsletters are a great way to say hello to your old contacts, and update them on what’s happening in your company. It’s absolutely worth doing this exercise once in a quarter. Through this medium, it’s very likely that you will activate some contact / old prospect who wants to close earlier, but in dire need of a business solution.

At Frappe, over the years, we have accumulated a list of more than 100,000 emails, with whom we touch-base every quarter. A newsletter often leads to reviving an old contact into an active lead. Here are some of the action items you could target on this front.

Checklist	Description
Email Groups Maintained	Start accumulating your contacts in the Email Group.* From website

* From Leads and Partner leads * Association database | | Guidelines For Newsletters | Here are the broad ideas around which you can write a newsletter.* Success and go-live stories * Business events attended by your team, and learnings * New teammates joined * Interesting learning experience, in the form of story * Pics of social activities / festivals celebrated at the company * Milestone achieved like certification * Highlight on the company’s culture, restructure etc. * Have someone to own this activities | | Periodic Newsletters | Use Newsletter functionality in your ERPNext account, or any other emailing tool you are comfortable with. |

Webinar

During the pandemic, we have seen lots of Frappe Partners (and business in general) using Webinars as a medium to expand their reach. Given the wide scope of ERPNext, you can easily pick an interesting topic and organise an educational webinar around it. Also, you can organise it around the expertise you have built in a particular domain or industry. It’s very likely to attract the generalist in that industry to learn about this new technology being presented by you. Detailed ideas for conducting a successful webinar are here.

Here are some of the todo and examples to drive it effectively.

Checklist	Description
Regular Webinars	Monthly webinar would be a good way to connect with the community. It could around:* Free Q&A

* Developer session on building the app * New hack you discovered and want to share with community * Conduct a training on unique use-case you delivered for the customer | | Webinar Announcement | Announce your webinar on the Company website, SM pages and through newsletter, if you feel that’s reasonable. | | Planned Webinars | Presentation, demo, customer talk (geoffrey example) | | Participant Feedback | Capturing participant feedback will help you check whether you are aligned with the expectations of participants. Appropriate enhancements can be made in the upcoming webinars based on the feedback | | Measurables | * No. of webinar organised in a year * No. of audience in each webinar * Subscription after the webinar on app / service |

Following is the post of the community member who organises regular webinars for the community and has garnered quite a few customers on FrappeCloud.

Another webinar organised from the community member over LinkedIn itself.

Networking

One of the core reasons why Tally has an adoption it actually has, huge credit goes to CA and the auditing community. The companies trust their words the most when it comes to accounting applications. Similarly, there are industry chambers and business associations which come together with the networking agenda and operate better with shared learning. If you are catering ERPNext to a specific domain or region, it is important to also join the community of business owners within that group. Slowly and steadily, you can build credibility for yourself, and later start consulting other business owners on what you are good at.

One nice example I would like to share is of Wahni Solution, Kerala, India. Since ERPNext is known for one of the best open-source software, it often finds support from the FOSS community. In Kerala, the group ICFOSS community offers their support to other entrepreneurs who are promoting open-source. Wahni Solution initiated as an incubator project at ICFOSS. Being associated with ICFOSS helped in getting projection and few initial projects through the ICFOSS network itself.

Similarly, we have seen partners who are partners of their industry association, organising sessions on ERPNext to create awareness. Here is a video where our partner from Surat, Hard n Soft organised an event and promoted ERPNext as a brand.

Checklist	Description
Join Professional Groups	Identify a group / industry association / regional business community which aligns best with your offerings. Join the community and try to spread awareness about Frappe/ERPNext in the community.
Referral Mechanism	To incentivise people to refer you to prospects, you should also have some referral mechanism in place.* Referral through connects

* Referral through customers (connecting with existing customer, asking for referrals) | | Participation In Expos | Target one corporate event or an expo where you participate* No. of exhibitions / events participated at * No. of footfall and lead generated (track via Campaign) * No. of opportunity * No. of conversion * Value of conversion from that event / source |

Tele-Marketing

First thing first, Frappe’s code of conduct does not support spamming and wasting people’s time for getting business. However, there are ethical ways to approach an individual and propose our offerings to them. Speaking to some partners, we realised they are getting good 20%-30% of their business through calling. Hence, we have included this marketing approach, which can be driven respecting people’s time.

Checklist	Description
Market Database	There are several ways through which you can collect the contact information of prospects.* References from the existing customers and your personal contacts

* Allows people to register from your website, with their contact details * Collect contact information of association members * Contacts of people who visited your stall in the industry exhibitions | | Pitch-Deck | Here is the simple script. Do ensure to mention the reference through which you approach them. You can iterate the pitch based on the profile and needs of the customer. | | Tracking Logs | You can capture this in the Lead form of CRM, or create a separate doctype for it. | | Tracking Feedback | Within the calling log, capture the next contact date, next action and feedback of the prospect. | | Measurables | * No. of contact nos. Generated * Average no. of calls per agent * No. of leads generated over months * No. of conversions over the month

Reports can be generated easily by tracking Lead, and updating Tele-maketing as a “Campaign”. |

Checklist	Description
Regular Webinars	Monthly webinar would be a good way to connect with the community. It could around: Free Q&A Developer session on building the app New hack you discovered and want to share with community Conduct a training on unique use-case you delivered for the customer
Webinar Announcement	Announce your webinar on the Company website, SM pages and through newsletter, if you feel that’s reasonable.
Planned Webinars	Presentation, demo, customer talk (geoffrey example)
Participant Feedback	Capturing participant feedback will help you check whether you are aligned with the expectations of participants. Appropriate enhancements can be made in the upcoming webinars based on the feedback
Measurables	No. of webinar organised in a year No. of audience in each webinar Subscription after the webinar on app / service

Checklist	Description
Market Database	There are several ways through which you can collect the contact information of prospects. References from the existing customers and your personal contacts Allows people to register from your website, with their contact details Collect contact information of association members Contacts of people who visited your stall in the industry exhibitions
Pitch-Deck	Here is the simple script. Do ensure to mention the reference through which you approach them. You can iterate the pitch based on the profile and needs of the customer.
Tracking Logs	You can capture this in the Lead form of CRM, or create a separate doctype for it.
Tracking Feedback	Within the calling log, capture the next contact date, next action and feedback of the prospect.
Measurables	No. of contact nos. Generated Average no. of calls per agent No. of leads generated over months No. of conversions over the month Reports can be generated easily by tracking Lead, and updating Tele-maketing as a “Campaign”.