The Cloud CRM wars
Salesforce.com really seems to have taken the lion’s share of the market with their SaaS based CRM. Competitors companies that were once considered the leaders in the Enterprise Application world are scrambling to get back their share of the Cloud pie (whether its in CRM software or otherwise).
Microsoft in particular is carrying out a very interesting campaign to market their CRM software; Microsoft Dynamics. The messaging and strategy is a direct confrontation with Salesforce.com with taglines such as “Don’t get Forced get what fits”. They’ve also got case studies of companies that didn’t get ‘Forced’. Although some punch lines make no sense at all; for instance - Easy integration of Office Outlook and Dynamics whereas Salesforce.com – Outlook Integration: is not. We’re talking Cloud here and Microsoft, your missing the whole point! Anyhow, we’ll let that pass and its pretty much an effective campaign.
Some cleverly placed advertisements on popular blogs and online marketing magazines (where marketers generally hang around) are putting a smile on users’ and more importantly making them click on the banners. The landing page is the MS Dynamics home page.
Microsoft ad placement
You’ve got to hand it down to Microsoft this time. They’ve very tactfully singled out some of Salesforce.com’s shortcomings and some of their best kept secrets that customers were willing to put up with and of course with some good ol’ fashioned exaggeration managed to launch an attack against the Cloud CRM vendor. So far so good…a well executed campaign, existing Salesforce.com user start thinking for themselves, non-users and for those who are evaluating CRM solutions, Microsft Dynamics is back on their radar.
And then they mess it all up!
Microsoft decides to bundle in a special offer which promises users that are switching from Salesforce.com or Oracle CRM to Dynamics a $200 per user incentives!… BAD move!
The website copy reads as “Get incentives of $200 per user for services like data migration, customization and more!” but popular magazines like www.businessinsider.com are already reporting the move with headlines such as a “Microsoft Paying Customers To Switch From Salesforce.com”
Microsoft Brand Managers, what were you thinking?
This type of a gimmick completely puts an otherwise well crafted campaign off course, makes Microsoft look desperate and seriously affects their brand. It wouldn’t be surprising if Salesforce.com hits back with a campaign to make an utter mockery of Microsoft’s efforts to poach its customers.
Notes added on 08th Feb 2011:
Experienced when attempting to sign up for Beta version available to MS Partners:
The sign up form does not work with Firefox browsers. (works on IE)
The sign up form has the following note: Signing up for this offer will give you access to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. You will receive an email from Microsoft in a few weeks with the details on accessing your subscription.
