Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a suite of integrated applications, that covers product planning, service delivery, inventory management, shipping, and most important for this piece – marketing.
ERP was one of the drivers of management introducing computers to their businesses in the 1990s, but the advent of cloud computing means that the services on offer today can offer far more features and integrations than could ever have been available with on-premises solutions. This makes the suite much more powerful and integral to running any number of businesses, whether they have an online focus and ecommerce availability or not.
Salesforce was one of the early leaders in the software-as-a-service (SAAS) space for both ERP and CRM (customer relationship management), and continues to dominate the sector with a wealth of options at different price levels applicable for different sized businesses, but other large firms like SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics and Infor also hold large parts of the enterprise market.
The marketing side of ERP allows companies to plan and personalize customer journeys, combining customer data and behavior, to deliver a service that best suits their needs and as a result drive sales. Where previously a company may have needed a dedicated marketing team to keep their customers on track and funnel them towards purchases, marketing automation in the cloud can significantly bringing down costs.
The cloud solution can make use of a raft of messaging options, including email, mobile, and social to ease a customer’s journey towards purchase and provide a wealth of data about the customer from their actions that can be utilized in the future to measure business impact.
The cross channel marketing is and business intelligence is really where cloud solutions stand out from their traditional on premises alternatives, as these tools constantly evolve and offer integrations with new tools as they become available without the need for specialist in-house IT expertise and additional development costs.
Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn may still be the most important social platforms on which businesses need to manage their relationships today. However, Snapchat and WhatsApp are the growing social platforms of 2016, and no doubt new platforms will arise in the coming years that will also provide new avenues for relationship management and marketing. A marketing suite needs to be able to adapt quickly to integrate these new platforms, and that is where the cloud comes into its own.
These integrations, alongside content marketing, community management, and a wealth of data and analytics to provide ever increasing marketing automation make ERP cloud marketing a strong choice for firms looking to increase customer satisfaction and drive sales while reducing costs.
Photographs by Damien Pollet / jarmoluk