Difference between revisions of "Marketing Plan"

Revision as of 04:41, 23 March 2011

Bear with me while I fill in this page. The process to adopt this idea needs to be determined. At this point, it is just an idea. Comments and contributions welcome. MJMcKay 03:44, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

ADempiere and the community that supports it needs a clear marketing strategy and plan that will

• brand - ensure a distinct brand message is communicated to all stakeholders and customers,
• build - attract and foster a strong community of people and companies who contribute to and benefit from ADempiere,
• sell - attract customers and refer them to partner companies through established rules, processes and methods by which contributions to the community are rewarded, and
• support - develop a platform on which contributors can build and leverage strategic partnerships targeting enterprise sales

The ADempiere Brand

The ADempiere brand is not a logo, its the sum of every interaction anyone has ever had with ADempiere. All the good times and bad times, all the successes and failures and every exchange on the forums. The brand exists in peoples minds and despite our best efforts to control a message, we will not control their perceptions. The best we can do is give them every opportunity to hear the correct story and form the correct perceptions. Consistency is critical. Consistency of message and consistency over time. The brand message has to be evident at every touch point of interaction. The brand will become a summary of the organization and has to be based on something real like the core values and purpose of the organization.

Who are We?

ADempiere is a great software application. But more than that, it is an open collaboration - the voluntary and collective efforts of a community of people who share a common interest in Free Open Source Enterprise Resource Planning software. The ADempiere community is made up of various categories of people, and we are sure you must fit into at least one of them. There are contributors, developers, testers, writers, users, as well as businesses, authorities, experts, newbies and students. There is also a Council of trustees to be responsible for this community and the project's well-being.

Core Purpose - Why do we exist

Each community has its own history and culture. This particular community has its roots within the Compiere SourceForge project back in 2003. We started as users and implementers of this great software project, and began to progress in leaps and bounds in our own capability to master it and even extend it for various end-users.

The community was generally grateful to Compiere's creator, Jorg Janke, and tolerated his business model of charging users for priority support, training and the user manual. Many of us contributed code, bug reports, fixes and recommendations on how this premiere Open Source ERP/CRM solution could continue to expand. And though Jorg Janke hardly responded to the forums' messages (even those that were directly aimed at him) the Compiere community enjoyed ample support and encouragement from other community seniors on a voluntary and vigilant basis.

Trouble set in soon after ComPiere Inc, USA, the commercial entity behind this project, purportedly obtained some USD6 million funding from an "angel" investor who soon joined its Board of Directors. Many among the paying partners of Compiere began to question new policy directions, this led to the Forking Debate, and eventually sparked off the Adempiere community.

Forkings are expected in Open Source, and for Compiere, this is probably the 4th or 5th fork, as stated by Jorg Janke, its creator in the private Partner's Forum.

But for this latest fork, we regard ourselves to be the Last Fork as we conduct ourselves from the onset in an open and unabated manner, as can be clearly seen here red1.org/forum thread. This thread is now refered and linked worldwide by many online news and regarded to as the Famous Forking Debate by the Compiere community.

The core purpose of the community, expressed in the forking debate and re-iterated over time in the forums, are as follows:

1. a stable, high-quality software application that can be provided to our customers
2. a place to contribute where the contributions will be valued and leveraged for mutual benefits
3. a place to be heard where ideas and requests will be respectfully considered and support will be provided

Vision - Where are we going?

ADempiere will be a major competitor and will compete in the marketplace with SAP and other large enterprise software applications. We will know we have arrived when we are routinely compared with SAP in the media and when companies in the $500 million revenue range and up are running on ADempiere.

Mission - What we do every day to get there?

Create the best free open-source software we can.

Work collaboratively in the community.

Contribute where the contributions will be most appreciated.

Focus on quality, innovation and support.

Values - What we believe in; our principles

To fullfil towards completion, with respect and honor.

The name "Adempiere" is an Italian word related to "Compiere" (which means "to deliver or fulfill"), but also semantically reflects the core ideal of this community: "to fulfill towards completion, with respect and honor".

As a community, we value the bazaar over the cathedral. We understand and respect the power of unfettered open collaboration. We are smarter together than each of us is alone. Our openness and sharing is in recognition that collaboration adds more to the social good than proprietary competition. We all benefit when we all share and work together.

Adempiere seeks to demonstrate the best such a community can offer - in terms not only of world class open applications, but also selfless community support. We are voluntary and believe in sharing all information about our work, providing the latest source codes, tutorials, and forum support freely with no commercial hooks or developer lock-in.

The benefit people receive from their involvement in the community comes from the ability to contribute to a cause they feel is worthy, recognition for that involvement and monetary rewards from the savings in using ADempiere or in contracting services to others based on ADempiere. We recognize and respect that many in the community depend on the capabilities and quality of the software for their livelihood. Further, the community actively supports members to do so.

The rules / credo:

• Information is free - you have to know
• People aren't - you have to pay
• Contributors are priceless - you have to be

Position - How we differentiate

• No productization - its messy but fast and flexible
• Built for implementors - rapid development, scripting, migration and production upgrades (pack in/out)
• Multi-national, multi-lingual, multi-currency, multi-schema

Positioning Statement - How we say we are different

• need a core message people will easily remember and that summarizes the position. Like "Safety" does for Volvo.

Character - How we act

This is about the tone and behavior we project. Do we have polish or wrinkles? Are customers greeted with "Good day Sir." or "Hey Dude!". Do we want business suave or hacker chic? Ties, t-shirts or pajamas.

Red1 has a great sense of humor in his writing that adds character to the brand. Personally, I can't duplicate this - I've learned the hard way that I'm not a comedian. Whatever we choose, the style will have to be consistent on all the high-level documents.

We also have to recognize the open nature of the bazaar - its noisy and messy with lots of activity and sometimes not very politically correct. We shouldn't hide it - its part of the character.

The Brand Master

Controlling the message. Red1 has been doing this for years now.

Brand Usage Rules

To protect the ADempiere brand and ensure it is properly used and communicated, the community has developed a set of Brand Usage Rules. These rules describe how community members may use the ADempiere brand.

Building an Eco-System

The true power of an open source product is in its ability to create and enable an economic system (eco-system) for other value added services that can generate money. ADempiere is an excellent example of such a product. At the core the ADempiere application is free software but it is surrounded by a community of people and companies who contribute to the software by supporting and extending the software capabilities. These people and the companies they work for can sell consulting services based on the software by offering training courses, implementation advice and support, customization of the software and other services that are directly related to the capabilities of the application. Companies that join this group to implement ADempiere for their own use gain value in the efficiencies and capabilities of the software. Value is added again when these companies, either alone or in partnership, provide services in business process improvement and automation. Partnerships with other verticals in strategic consulting extend the offerings into the realm of strategic capabilities where alignment of IT capabilities with strategic goals is important. Each layer adds value to the eco-system.

The value of the eco-system comes from the economic interdependence of the people and companies involved. People and companies are willing to contribute vast amounts of time and skill, for free, because they receive so much in return from the the eco-system. Certainly, not all of the "value" is monetary. Being able to contribute to an important project and having the contribution recognition and respected is highly motivating to some people. But it is the ability to access a capability that can not be bought, that would take years and billions of dollars of R&D to develop and that can be leveraged for sales that is highly valued by companies. As the eco-system grows, so does the general knowledge base and the contributions back to the core software, which, in turn enriches everyone.

To enable this platform, the ADempiere brand will encourage the collaboration and partnerships of companies which make use of the software to sell value added services at ever higher levels. This will be done through:

• development of software that permits extension and integration of other best-of-brand software packages and tools that are useful in a broad business context
• marketing messages which go beyond the capabilities of the software and address the strategic advantages the software can provide
• marketing targeted at drawing in customers who need strategic capabilities
• creating a marketplace for services and support where community members can come together and partner to respond to requests for quotes from customers
• fostering a community of people and business from software developers to strategic thinkers

Building Partnerships

Marketing and Sales

Goals and Targets

• Attract contributors and community members
• Foster partnerships and build the eco-system
• Attract and encourage customers
• Foster sales in the community
• Perform high-level marketing for very little money using volunteer effort.

Where to Market

• Web sites
  • Adempiere.com
  • Adempiere.org
  • Source Forge
• Social Media
  • the usual suspects

Building the Brand

• Stories, Blogs and Testimonials
• White Papers and marketing material
• Conversations - forums and the wiki
• multi-national multi-lingual

Search Engine Optimization

Goals:

• ADempiere.com in top ten for the following search terms:
  • ERP software - currently around #250. I lost count.
  • ...

• ADempiere.com page rank > 7/10

Partner Advertising

No free advertising. No advertising in the wiki.

Partner Advertising could be a set of web pages that advertise services from partners. These pages can be searched by customers looking for consulting support by location or type of service. Only community approved advertising would be included. The goal would be to use ADempiere.com to drive traffic to the partner site. The customer would choose based on the partner page info. Co-branding and reverse linking would increase the importance and relevance of ADempiere.com and make the whole approach more effective.

We need:

• Rules and prerequisites for becoming a community recognized "partner" able to add a partner page. May include:
  • Monetary contributions (membership)
  • A contribution history
  • A quality standard for the partner web site
  • Return links on the partner website
  • Customer recommendations, testimonials
• Rules that permit a partner page to be removed (i.e. the company is insolvent)
• A process for requests and recognition - who decides
• Possible levels of recognition - formula based perhaps or by vote - providing priority listings
• Support for co-branding where this is beneficial.
• Rules for paid advertising - at what point/amount does this override all the above?

Limitations and Constraints

Partner advertising limited to the above or the user pages in the wiki. Everything else needs to appear as the brand - in other words a true community contribution with no corporate flag waving. Recognition of the contributions does not require special mention - its evident in the logs and history.