Successfully marketing your ERP software and technology solutions requires more than guesswork and shot-in-the-dark tactics.  You need tools and data that gauge the impact of your efforts and provide insight to make adjustments when needed.

In this article, we’ll take a peek at some of those tools … not surprisingly, many of them are provided free from Google.  After all, Google is still the king of search and search visibility is good for business.

1. Google Alerts

This is a free tool that marketers use to keep track of companies, competitors, and important keywords.  Google Alerts monitors the internet for news, blog posts, and new web content that’s related to your industry.  When an alert condition is triggered, you get an email summary of new content and online activity surrounding the keyword search phrases you specify.

You can specify the exact keyword phrases you want to monitor and the frequency of email notification.

For example, we’ve got Google Alerts set up for keywords like “Sage 100 ERP” and “Microsoft Dynamics GP” along with “Juice Marketing” to monitor our brand.

Go to www.Google.com/alerts to being monitoring industry keywords and competitors.

2. Google Keyword Tool

Another free service from Google, the keyword tool provides valuable data about keyword search volume and competition so that you can build a solid keyword strategy based on real data and research, not just guesswork.

Just plug your keyword phrase into the Google keyword tool to get data about monthly search volume, how competitive a given search term is, related keyword phrases that you might consider targeting, and how much you might expect to pay if you launched a pay-per-click campaign.  You can even enter the website address of a competitor and see what Google has to say about the keyword terms it associates with their company.

Go to www.googlekeywordtool.com and click Google Keyword Tool in the top Left corner to kick it around a bit and see what you discover.

3. Google Places

Geographic location has become an extremely important part of search and SEO strategy.  It can be difficult, time-consuming, and expensive to get a top listing for a broad term like “Accounting Software Provider” or even a product name like “Sage MAS 90.”

But adding a location to those search terms, like “Accounting Software Provider San Diego” or “Sage MAS 90 Chicago”, makes it a bit easier to rank for and can yield more targeted web traffic and better leads.  That’s where something like Google Places can play an important role.

If you haven’t already done so, be sure to set up a business listing on Google Places.  Fill out as many fields – both required and optional – as appropriate.  The more data that Google Places has about your business, the better chance you’ll show up in local search results.  That means you should include all local phone numbers (not just 800 listings), local office addresses, your website, industry categories.

It’s also important to make sure the data is consistent with the information listed on your website – if Google has trouble validating the details of your listing with information available on the web, you might encounter some problems.

Here are some great tips for optimizing your Google Places listing on the SEOMoz website:

Go to www.Google.com/places to add your listing.

4. Hubspot Marketing Grader

This is a free tool that runs a diagnostic check on your marketing presence across the web, including social media.  It takes a close look at important indicators such as SEO optimization of your website, the effectiveness (or lack of) your blog, whether your website and brand are being mentioned in social media, and how you stack up against competitors.

The marketing grader runs an automated check and spits out a number grade on a scale of 0 to 100.

Like any automated (and free) service, you should take the grade with a grain of salt and interject your own human intuition about the results you get.  But it can be a good way to identify critical holes in your online marketing approach that require some attention.

Check it out at http://marketing.grader.com

P.s.  In exchange for the free service, Hubspot will subtly try and sell you on their marketing platform.  Even still, it’s a useful diagnostic tool.

5. Google Webmaster Tools

This tool is a little more technical but highly important.  Simply put, Google Webmaster Tools allow you to monitor and adjust the technical aspects of your website in order to optimize for search visibility.  You can submit and manage your sitemap, check for Google spider crawl statistics and errors, determine how Google indexes your site, generate a list of inbound links, and a bunch of other metrics that are important for SEO.

Go to www.Google.com/Webmasters/tools or check out this short video that provides an overview of Google Webmaster Tools in layman’s terms.

Earlier today, I posted an update on our Juice Marketing page on Google+.  Then, out of curiosity, I did a quick search on “SEO Backlinks” using Google (the regular old search engine, without the +).  Lo and behold, the brand spankin’ new G+ post was instantly picked up and displayed as the #3 search engine result … in just 17 seconds!

Here’s the proof (image below):

Google+ content instantly available in search results after just 17 seconds

Important Note

It’s important to note that the displayed search was indeed set (by default) to include my personal search results … so I understand that it wasn’t truly / globally the #3 search result.

But it’s interesting to me that content posted on Google+ seems to be instantly indexed and available in Google search.  More evidence that social media is an increasingly important part of SEO – and perhaps a good reason that you should consider spending a bit more time on Google+.

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It has been a busy few weeks here at Juice Marketing. We’ve been helping our clients achieve some pretty amazing things and creating fresh-squeezed marketing and content in the form of newsletters, press releases, success stories, and brochures.  Here are a few of the exciting projects we’ve completed recently for Sage partners.

Success Stories and Customer Testimonials

Infogrip - A Customer Buzz project we did for Walpole Information Technology Solutions.  Their customer (Infogrip) was struggling with Sage 100 ERP (formerly MAS 90).  The original implementation was botched (by another partner of course!), the staff was not adequately trained, and postings were out-of-balance leading to one massive headache. That’s when Infogrip turned to Walpole for a technology overhaul …

Click image below to read the Customer Buzz

Walpole - Infogrip Customer Buzz

Click image below to read the Success Story

Sygnvs - Submar Success Story

BlueCross of Kansas City – A Customer Buzz project we did for Paragon Systems – A Sage Fixed Assets (formerly FAS) partner in Illinois.  BlueCross of Kansas City provides health services to over 1 million people across 32 counties. But with multiple offices, hundreds of employees, and a mess of spreadsheets, managing fixed assets was a challenge. That’s when BlueCross of Kansas City called on Paragon to help.

Click image below to read the Success Story

Paragon - BlueCross BlueShield Customer Buzz

Christian Louboutin – A success story we did for Avalara – developer of popular sales tax automation solutions.  Calculating sales tax is always an issue for an e-commerce company. But for French-based high-end fashion provider Christian Louboutin, breaking into the American market came with a multitude of sales tax issues that they tackled with AvaTax..

Click image below to read the Success Story

Avalara - Christian Louboutin Success Story

Prospect and Customer Newsletters (ERP, CRM, HR, and Fixed Asset Software)

Oasis Solutions Group Newsletter – Kentucky-based Oasis Solutions Group works with Juice Marketing to stay top of mind with leads and prospects monthly.  Below is a sample email newsletter we developed that combines articles from our Content Vault and drives traffic to the Oasis blog.  Project included design, content development, and HTML testing.

Click image below to view the newsletter

Oasis Solutions Group - March Newsletter

Paragon Newsletter – To promote their March Madness special and keep in touch with prospects, Paragon International Inc. had the team at Juice Marketing design a customized HTML email newsletter to fit their needs.

Click image below to view the newsletter

Paragon Newsletter

Brochure Development and Design

HomeFrontCRM Brochure – HomeFront Software, an industry leader in home building and construction management software, called on Juice Marketing to develop a brochure highlighting the benefits of their newly-launched HomeFrontCRM software.

Click image below to view the brochure

HomeFront - BuilderCRM Brochure

Press Releases

SugarCRM Press Release – Oasis Solutions Group recently added SugarCRM to their product portfolio and trusted the writing and SEO experts at Juice Marketing to write up a keyword-optimized Press Release to announce the news.

Click image below to read the Press Release

Oasis - SugarCRM Press Release

Sage ERP X3 Press Release – When RKL eSolutions hired a well-respected Sage ERP X3 consultant (formerly worked for Sage), they called on Juice Marketing to develop a carefully crafted and keyword-optimized press release (including distribution to major newswire services).

Click image below to read the Press Release

RKL eSolutions - X3 Press Release

Content Vault (ERP, CRM, and Technology Articles)

SWK Technologies – SWK Technologies turned to the Juice Marketing Content Vault to stay top of mind with prospects and establish their position as a thought leader in the technology industry. We helped them spice things up by adding SWK branding to the articles for a finished product that looks great and is easy-to-read.

Click image below to view the article

SWK Technologies - Content Vault

The Juice Marketing Content Vault is loaded with articles that can be used in a multitude of marketing activities like prospect email, nurture marketing, communication with your current customers, and of course blogging.  Learn more about Content Vault articles and pricing.

… That Your Prospects Will Actually Read

Newsletters are the “swingman” of marketing (a basketball reference indicating someone who can play multiple positions).

This flexible piece of marketing communication appeals to multiple audiences and keeps you top-of-mind with customers, prospects and alliance partners.

By consistently providing timely and relevant information, newsletters can bolster your firm’s technological expertise, provide value to your existing customers, and keep your brand front-and-center until prospects are ready to buy software.

But your customers and prospects are inundated with email, junk mail, and just plain busy.  So here are a few tips for creating a killer newsletter that will rise to the top … and that your prospects will actually read.

1) Content is King

Creating great content is the single most time-consuming task in developing a newsletter.  Corporate blather, boring content, repurposed brochure features, or a poorly-disguised sales pitch is never a substitute for a good newsletter.

Instead, focus on how a given technology or concept helps to solve common business challenges.  When stating a benefit or feature, be sure to answer the question your reader is probably asking themselves … “What’s In It for Me?”

What does it mean to be scalable?  How, specifically, does it save time or cut costs?  It’s not enough to mention a product feature; you also need to explain what it means to your reader …  in plain English, not gobbledygook.

2) Newsletter Length and Format

When you consider how much detail should be provided in your articles, remember that your target audience likely includes multiple positions throughout a company -  IT folks, accounting personnel, warehouse managers, top level executives – that probably all have different preferences.  Striking a balance between an overly lengthy newsletter with too much detail and a format that’s too short (and leaves readers wanting more) is important.

At Juice Marketing, we’ve developed a format that gets very good results for the Sage Partners that subscribe to our newsletter marketing program.  It provides plenty of information to “C-Level” executives and managers who are busy and just want a quick overview to stay informed while also providing enough detail to IT personnel or accounting staff that tend to look for more detail, specific examples, or online video demonstrations.

At the end of the day, you’ll keep your readers interest by getting to the point quickly and providing easily digestible nuggets of information without going into excruciating detail.  Just the top level stuff with links to more detail … if they want it.

3) Email Newsletter Delivery

Most of our clients deliver their newsletters via email.  But as you know, it can be a challenge reaching the inbox of your intended recipients.  So here are a few email marketing best practices:

• Subject Line – Getting your email opened and read starts with the subject line. Be creative and make it compelling … but keep it relevant.  “March Newsletter from XYZ Reseller” is relevant but not very creative or exciting.  Why not try something like “4 Simple Tricks That Extend Your ERP Investment”?

Experiment with different subject lines, run some A/B split tests, and determine what your audience responds to.  Also, avoid using buzzwords (Limited Time, Free) or special characters ($, **, or !) that are certain to trigger a SPAM filter.

Check out Email Subject Lines That Won’t Be Ignored for some great tips from the folks at Copyblogger.

• CAN-SPAM Compliance – Don’t forget that CAN-SPAM law requires that an option to opt out is included in all subscriber-based communication.  The best way to ensure CAN-SPAM compliance is to use an Email Service Provider – like MailChimp, Constant Contact, or Swiftpage.

• Opt-in or White Listing – If you have customers or prospects that have opted-in to your newsletter, make sure to ask that the email address from which the newsletter will be sent is added to a Safe List or White List to ensure proper delivery to their inboxes.

4) Distribute it Widely

If you’re going to spend the time to write a newsletter or pay a newsletter marketing provider like Juice Marketing, make sure to leverage and distribute it widely … beyond just your current and active customer base.

Do you have prospects that you haven’t had an opportunity to communicate with in a while or leads that have gone dormant? Newsletter.

Do you have a referral network or alliance with CPA or IT firms?  Newsletter.

Do you attend industry events or trade shows?  Hand out newsletters.

Even within your existing customer base, send the newsletter to as many contacts and departments as possible.  One of our clients shared a story about someone on the accounting staff that read an article about Paperless Office, approached a supervisor, made a case for how much easier or efficient her job would be, and racked up a sale for that partner.  Those opportunities can be missed if the newsletter is only going to a single contact like the President or owner.  Take advantage of the strength of a newsletter … multi-use and multi-audience.

5) Be Consistent

As with any marketing activity, consistency is crucial.  Determine an appropriate interval for your newsletter and stick with it.  If your audience is receiving your newsletter on a regular basis and it contains great content, they will begin to expect it and even look forward to receiving it.

Newsletters are a fantastic marketing tool.  With the right content, a few best practices and consistent delivery, they will help position your firm as a technology thought leader and are an effective way to stat top-of-mind with your customers and prospects.

What are YOUR tips for a killer newsletter?

The post went on to say “I’m interested in finding out more about Sage Fundraising Online and Sage Millennium, so I need to find an authorized reseller in Canada. Feel free to message privately.”

And to my surprise …

There was just ONE response.

And it gets better …

The one response was from a Strategic Accounts Manager at Sage!

No Coverage in Canada, Lack of Social Engagement or Something Else?

Immediately, several thoughts came to mind.

Odd that there weren’t ANY responses from Sage Partners.  A customer asking for support and help with a potential software purchase is like dropping a bucket of bloody fish into shark-infested waters.  Yet, no sharks to be found.

Does it mean there aren’t many (if any) Sage Fund Accounting partners covering Canada (in this case, Toronto)?

Does it mean that Sage Nonprofit Partners simply aren’t engaged in social media … or at least, aren’t engaged in this particular LinkedIn group (which DOES only have 153 members and isn’t very active)?

Is it something else?  Perhaps partners are skeptical of web inquiries, don’t make much money implementing Sage Fundraising, or saw “Sage Millennium”  and decided to let Sage handle it?

Do the answers to any combination of the questions above relate to the fact that Sage decided it was time to start selling direct, beginning with the nonprofit solutions?

What are YOUR thoughts?  I’m curious to hear from Sage Nonprofit partners.

If you don’t have a company page or haven’t checked yours lately, you’ve probably missed some of the newer features that have been added.

Here are a few tips for using Company Pages on LinkedIn to improve visibility and prospective business opportunities…

Complete Your Company Profile

LinkedIn provides fields to include images, links to your website and blog, videos from YouTube, and a variety of other content.  Take advantage of this opportunity to drive LinkedIn users to your company and brand.

P.s. If you don’t already have a company profile set up, go to Companies > Add a Company (top Right)

Add Products and Services

This feature is WAY underutilized.  Be sure to add the individual products and services you offer on the appropriate tab on your company profile.  Check out the Juice Marketing products and services for an example:

http://www.linkedin.com/company/juice-marketing-llc/products

Request Recommendations

Once your products and services are set up, you can now request recommendations.  It’s a great way of collecting testimonials for your products and services in a way that’s different than the personal recommendations on your profile.

Here’s an example on the Juice Marketing Company Page …

Post Updates

A relatively new feature, you can now post updates through your company page which will be posted to the update pages of your followers.  It’s a great way to keep in touch with customers and prospects.  Here’s what it looks like:

Review Analytics

Available only to company administrators, the Analytics tab provides information about page views, unique visitors, clicks on your products and services, and the types of people and industries that are visiting your company page.  A nice tool and great source of insight.

These are just a few tips to get the ball rolling.  Contact us for if you’re interested in developing a personalized, one-on-one strategy for using LinkedIn Company Pages to engage followers and drive business.

Follow Juice Marketing on LinkedIn

But developing an effective success story is as much an art as it is a science.  At Juice Marketing, we’ve developed several best practices that enable us to deliver success stories to our clients that are compelling and resonate with their prospects.

So let’s take a look at 6 critical elements of an effective success story.

1 – Selecting the Right Customers

 There is a difference between a testimonial and a success story.  You may have a customer that absolutely loves working with you but has a difficult time articulating pains & benefits that were addressed or achieved with your solution.  If they simply say, “ABC Reseller is great to work with and the support has been wonderful,” you probably have the makings of a brief quote or testimonial that can complement your marketing collateral or grace your website.  On the other hand if your customer can articulate the efficiency gains and can quantify process improvements (i.e. Saved $$$, reduced labor by X%, etc.), you probably have the makings of an engaging story.

P.s. Shorter customer testimonials are a great marketing tool as well.  Check out our Customer Buzz program for VARs and channel partners.  It’s like a success story, but shorter.

2 – Conducting an Effective Interview

Asking the right questions during the customer interview is one of the most important elements of the process.  Remember that your customer is not in the business of providing success stories so they’ll need a lot of guidance in order to provide the ammunition you’ll need to develop an effective story.

Here are a few questions that we typically ask during an interview:

- Explain the challenges you faced using your old system?
- What are the business issues or pains that were addressed during the implementation?
- How have things improved today using the new system/solution?
- What benefits have been achieved?  How has it positively impacted your company?  Can you quantify those benefits?

3 – Quantify!!

Numbers (whether dollars, percentages or otherwise) are always compelling and lend credibility to claims being made in the story.  A statement such as “We saved money with our new system” is much less effective than “We eliminated $60,000 in legacy support costs of our old DOS-based system which resulted in a 7-month return on   investment.”  Getting your customer to quantify the benefits of your solution is probably the most challenging part of the interview process and is quite possibly an art form.

Rarely are efficiency gains and process improvements benchmarked before and after an implementation so it often requires a bit of creative thinking and resourceful questioning to extract the quantifiable data that will make the difference between a good and great success story.

4 – Creative Writing Skill

Here is where you make the interview come to life and add depth to the conversation.  Don’t look to your customers to provide you with eloquent quotes and statements that are absolute gems.  They are not in the business of marketing so most of the time you’ll have to take what they said during the interview and add a little character (also known as embellishment).  And don’t forget about the “story” part of the equation.  A boring statement of facts or something that reads like a transcript of the telephone interview probably won’t keep your readers engaged.  That’s where creative writing comes in!

5 – Format and Design

An appealing graphical layout will make the story more inviting to read.  Section headlines, featured customer quotes, and carefully placed graphical elements will also help break up text into “bite-sized” pieces and make it easy on the eye.  And while there is no standard length (it can be as short as 1-page, while others are 4+ pages), a 2-page format seems to provide enough space to convey important details without drawing the story out unnecessarily.

6 – Make it about YOU

Overall, the success story should convey YOUR capability as a technology solution provider and valued business advisor.  Avoid the temptation to focus on software and product features as this approach does very little to “brand” your company’s expertise nor differentiate your implementation technique from the reseller down the street.  If it’s all about the product, your solution becomes commoditized and the unique experience & implementation method that you bring to the table is devalued.

Success Stories that Sizzle

If you don’t have the time, resources, or are just too busy to develop success stories for your business, take a look at our Success Story program for Sage, Microsoft, and SAP channel partners.  Or mozy on over to our creative portfolio to check out a few sample success stories that we’ve created for VARs and technology providers just like you.

P.s. You might also be interested in reading “Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your Existing Success Stories“

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Take it With You!  Download this Article in PDF format (Click Image Below)

6 Simple Steps to an Effective Success Story

This new Sage ERP MAS 90 and 200 newsletter issue features:

- National Accounts … Managing Large Customers with Multiple Locations

- Is MAS 200 SQL Right for Me?

- FRx Data Conversion Utility… It’s Almost Ready for Primetime

- Building Customer Loyalty with Sage CRM

Click below to check out the sample issue

Be sure to contact us if you’d like a copy of this newsletter to send to YOUR customers and prospects. We’ll personalize it with your logo and company colors and provide you with a formatted PDF, HTML email, and article content with each issue.

Sample Issue (Click Image Below)

Sage ERP MAS 90 200 Newsletter

If your PDFs aren’t created properly, search engines will have a difficult time indexing the document which can render all that great content totally invisible (yes, PDFs can and DO show up in search results).

Here are 7 useful tips for optimizing PDFs to ensure SEO benefit and search engine visibility.

1) Add Document Properties and Metadata

Document Properties act like a table of contents, providing search engines with the title, subject, and keywords within a PDF.  Search engines use this information to quickly asses how strongly a PDF relates to a queried keyword without having to scan the entire document.

To assign document properties, go to File >> Document Properties and the following window pops up:

In this example, one of our keywords is “Sage ERP Support” which is included in the title, file name, and listing of keywords.

Things to Note:

The Title you specify in the Document Properties will displayed as the heading of a search result.  Be sure to include your primary keyword phrase in the title.

The Subject field acts like a meta description in search results. So create something description and compelling which will improve click through / conversion.

2) Keywords in Your File Name

As you can see in the example above, your file name should also include keywords.  In this case, the file name is “Sage-ERP-Customer-Support.pdf”

3) Use Hyperlinks and Anchor Text

Web crawlers can read the hyperlinks within your PDF document so be sure to include links to other pages of your website, your blog, other PDFs, etc.  Ideally, these hyperlinks also contain keyword anchor text.  In other words, use “Sage ERP Support” as clickable anchor text within the document rather than “Click Here” for more info.

These links also create more dynamic PDF documents.  After all, don’t forget that your PDF may be passed on to someone else who is not familiar with your company. Embedded links will make it easier for this unexpected reader to find their way to your website.

4) Use Text-Based Program to Create the PDF

Your PDF should originate from a text-based application like MS Word or other text-based publishing software. Using something like Photoshop (image-based) or scanning a printed document and then converting to PDF actually creates a big image file (not a true “readable” PDF) … that means there is no text for a search engine to “read.”

5) Make Sure Your Sitemap Includes PDFs

It’s a good idea to include links to PDF documents on your Sitemap page.

6) Size Matters

Do what you can to keep the PDF file size on the smaller side to minimize download time.  Not only has Google incorporated site speed in the SEO equation, it also spares your website visitors the hassle of lengthy downloads.  In fact if your PDF takes a while to download, a web crawler may just quit and move on to the next job.

Adobe provides a PDF Optimizer tool that allows you to “Optimize for Fast Web View” (as opposed to a “Print Quality” high resolution PDF that’s larger and takes longer to load).

7) Follow the Same Rules as Web Page Optimization

At the end of the day, here’s the thing to remember … when creating PDF documents, you should follow the same SEO Best Practices that you would in creating any other content in a web page.  That means using relevant keywords in the title tags, H1 headers, and body text along with many of the tips discussed above related to file size, links, and anchor text.

By creating better PDFs and implementing a few SEO best practices, you can improve organic search results and get better mileage out of all the content that’s on your website in PDF format.

Let’s hear your feedback … do you take the time to optimize PDF documents for search visibility?