Marketing Plan

This Wiki is read-only for reference purposes to avoid broken links.

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

"Brand: It ain't the Logo - Its what people think of you.(tm)" [1]

Most important part of brand marketing - having a consistent and clear message that doesn't change over time.

The Brand Master

Controlling the message.

Brand Usage Rules

Add a link to the rules.

Building a Platform

An onion - a layered model with ADempiere at the core surrounded by the community and value added support and services. At the center, the software is free. As you move to higher layers, the value added increases, the size of the customers increase and the size of the contracts increase. Partnerships and collaboration become more important the higher you go.

Marketing and Sales

Goals and Targets

• Attract contributors and community members
• Foster partnerships
• Attract and encourage customers
• Foster sales in the community

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.

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.