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How To Enhance Your Marketing Strategy Once ICC Certified
Congratulations! You have just been officially certified through SAP Integration and Certification Center (ICC). So the real question is, WHAT SHOULD YOU DO NEXT? In this blog, I will help you create a checklist of marketing tasks to complete that may help increase customer engagement and generate future leads. Let’s start with the basics. As soon as you have completed certification, you will have access to four marketing pieces to take advantage of:
Issued Certified Logo-
The certified logo may be the most significant marketing piece that many fail to take advantage of. Once received, immediately update your company website. All future content related to your certification solution including; blogs, newsletter, images, etc. should include the newly issued SAP Certified Logo. This is a critical. However, we can take this a step further. If you’re planning on attending any tradeshows or events, add your certified logo to your brochures, handouts, PowerPoints, and any other marketing material that you may use at these shows.
Certified Solution Directory-
The partner directory is another benefit SAP ICC provides, but partners rarely take full advantage of this tool. According to SAP Goggle Analytics, there is over 33,000 annual visitors who explore the partner directory. Which tells us SAP customers are actively looking for certified partners. First, make sure your profile has a clear cut message that appeals to your existing and future customers. Take your time on creating something unique with proper keywords that will catch the customer’s attention. Second, double check all your hyperlinks and contact information is correctly inputted. Third, properly format your company logo. Nothing turns a customer off more than a pixelated or unformatted logo. Lastly, take some time to familiarize yourself with the directory. To further your knowledge, perform a competitive analysis and discover if your competitors may also be certified. If your competitors are not certified, you then have the ability to make it a competitive advantage! This becomes a valuable selling point if you’re the only company in your space with an SAP Certified solution.
Press Release-
The press release is something most partners do a decent job of taking advantage of. SAP ICC provides you the perfectly formatted template. All you need to do is insert your company’s missing content. Again, let’s take it step further, one of the most overlooked aspects of any press release, is not providing access to more information. You must limit your press release to one page (or two, if you must), but that doesn’t mean you can’t show people how to learn more. Providing relevant links to your company’s website, where prospective customers can learn more about your mission and what you’ve already accomplished, is a crucial element to the release. Don’t make customers search on their own for more information — guide them as quickly as possible to your website, and keep their interest piqued.
Partner Meetup Events-
The SAP ICC Quarterly Partner Meetup Events are another great benefit to take advantage of once becoming certified. In addition to networking and connecting with one another, these quarterly events are geared towards providing certified partners with relevant product updates from SAP. Additionally, this is the ideal event to provide the SAP ICC team with your feedback on how they can improve the certification process and related services.
Don’t forget to acknowledge your companies presence at any SAP event via newsletter or social media posts. It’s important to let your current customers know you’re staying up-to-date with the latest news from SAP. Please contact your local Partner Recruitment Lead to learn more about the next SAP ICC Partner Meetup Event.
These are the basic marketing tasks to complete that may help increase customer engagement and generate future leads. However, you’d be surprised how many partners fail to take advantage of these easy to complete tasks and don’t receive the full value of the certification program. In part two of this blog, I will take you through SEO (key wording), social media, and video / written testimonials marketing strategies in more detail. These tasks may require additional marketing resources, but is worth the time and effort to maximize your return on investment (ROI) from your certification.
SAP Integration and Certification Center (SAP ICC)
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