14 min read
Eric Smith is the founder of SmithDigital, a revenue-focused growth partner that helps B2B companies generate qualified pipeline through a combination of SEO, AI discoverability, HubSpot optimization, outbound prospecting, and conversion-focused marketing. Over the past two decades, Eric has worked with software companies, ERP consulting firms, managed service providers, business brokers, technology consultants, and other B2B organizations looking to accelerate growth without building large inte...
ERP lead generation is harder in 2026 because several parts of the buying process have changed at the same time.
ERP buyers can now research pricing, implementation risks, platform comparisons, industry fit, and potential partners through Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity, review sites, vendor directories, and other sources before they ever speak with a salesperson. That gives buyers more ways to build an initial shortlist without directly engaging a VAR.
AI has added another layer to that research process. A prospect can ask an AI tool to compare ERP platforms, explain implementation challenges, identify providers for a specific industry, or summarize the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches. For ERP VARs, AI discoverability increasingly depends on whether their expertise, experience, and proof are easy to find and understand across both traditional search and AI-assisted research.
Vendor-generated pipeline can also be difficult to predict. ERP publishers still provide referrals and partner opportunities, but VARs have limited control over the volume, timing, and quality of those leads. Changes in vendor priorities, direct-sales strategies, territories, or partner programs can quickly affect pipeline. Building an independent ERP lead generation capability gives VARs more control over where new opportunities come from.
ERP projects are also competing for budget and executive attention. A company may have a legitimate reason to replace an aging ERP system but still prioritize AI initiatives, automation, cybersecurity, acquisitions, facility investments, or other capital projects first. Economic uncertainty, interest rates, trade policy, and broader business conditions can make leadership more cautious about approving large technology investments.
The buying process itself is complex. ERP decisions often involve finance, operations, IT, and executive leadership. Prospects may spend months evaluating software, implementation partners, integrations, migration requirements, costs, and project risk before they are ready to move forward.
Competition for attention has increased along with the amount of available information. Buyers can evaluate more providers, consume more content, and compare more options before starting a sales conversation. A VAR may have strong technical capabilities and still struggle to make the shortlist if its industry experience, implementation expertise, and customer proof are difficult to discover or validate. This is one reason SEO for ERP and NetSuite partners has become more important than simply publishing occasional blog content.
None of this means ERP demand has disappeared. It means VARs have less control over when a potential buyer becomes an active opportunity and more work to do before that opportunity reaches sales.
The rest of this article looks at the specific factors making ERP lead generation harder in 2026 and what VARs can do to build a more dependable pipeline.
ERP VARs are dealing with a different buying environment than they were several years ago. Some of the challenges are marketing-related. Others have more to do with how companies evaluate and fund large technology investments.
A company can have a legitimate ERP problem and still delay the project. That makes it harder to identify which accounts are truly in-market, create urgency, and predict when interest will turn into a sales opportunity.
ERP projects are expensive, disruptive, and difficult to approve. They compete with everything else leadership wants to fund.
In 2026, technology spending itself is still growing. Gartner expects worldwide IT spending to reach $6.37 trillion this year, up 14.2%. But much of that growth is being driven by AI infrastructure, cloud platforms, and other AI-related investments. See Gartner’s 2026 IT spending forecast.
That creates a very real prioritization problem for ERP projects.
A manufacturer may know its current ERP system is causing inventory problems, poor reporting, or too much manual work. The need is real. But the CFO may still choose to fund automation, cybersecurity, an acquisition, a plant expansion, or an AI initiative first.
There is also more caution around large investments. Forrester characterized 2026 as a year of cautious spending before business and technology leaders began looking toward larger budget increases in 2027. Read Forrester’s 2027 Budget Planning outlook.
ERP itself has not become unimportant. Gartner still describes ERP as one of the CIO’s most critical systems and reports that many organizations plan to increase application budgets. The challenge is getting an ERP modernization project high enough on the priority list to receive funding and executive attention.
For ERP VARs, that creates a frustrating sales reality: a prospect can be a great fit, clearly need a new system, and still be months away from an approved project.
Many ERP VARs have historically relied on software publishers for referrals and partner-generated opportunities.
Those leads can still be valuable, but VARs have limited control over how many they receive, when they arrive, or which partners receive them.
Vendor priorities also change. Publishers may put more emphasis on direct sales, specific industries, larger accounts, strategic partners, or different geographic markets.
That creates risk for firms that have not developed their own sources of demand. Inbound marketing for ERP resellers, outbound prospecting, search visibility, customer referrals, and other channels give VARs additional ways to create opportunities without waiting for the publisher.
A VAR that depends heavily on vendor referrals can see pipeline change quickly even when its own sales and delivery capabilities have not changed.
ERP buyers have access to far more information before they speak with a vendor or implementation partner.
They can research ERP pricing, implementation timelines, migration risks, integrations, industry requirements, platform comparisons, customer reviews, and potential partners without filling out a form or scheduling a meeting.
AI has accelerated this behavior. A buyer can ask ChatGPT or Perplexity to compare ERP platforms, explain implementation risks, recommend providers for a specific industry, or summarize the differences between potential partners.
That means an ERP VAR can be excluded from consideration before it ever knows a project exists.
Visibility during research matters because buyers may already be developing an initial shortlist before they engage sales.
ERP purchases rarely belong to one department.
Finance may focus on reporting, controls, total cost, and return on investment. Operations may care about inventory, production, fulfillment, or workflow efficiency. IT may evaluate integrations, security, data migration, and system architecture. Executives may focus on risk, scalability, and the business case.
Each stakeholder can introduce additional questions, requirements, and delays.
A project that begins with a CFO looking for better financial reporting may eventually require approval from operations, IT, ownership, and outside advisors. This is one reason lead generation for long sales cycles requires sustained visibility and follow-up rather than a single campaign or sales touch.
Getting one person's attention is often only the beginning of an ERP sale.
ERP firms tend to think about competition in terms of other implementation partners or competing ERP platforms. Buyers are also choosing between vendor content, comparison websites, review platforms, analyst material, webinars, consultants, AI-generated answers, and competing VARs during their research.
A technically capable ERP firm can still struggle if its expertise is difficult to find or validate.
Generic statements such as “we have decades of ERP experience” give a buyer little information about whether the firm has experience with their industry, business model, implementation complexity, or specific ERP problem.
Specific case studies can provide stronger evidence by showing the platform, industry, problem, scope of work, and documented outcome.
Many ERP VARs can define a large universe of companies that could become customers.
The harder question is which companies have a reason to make a change now.
A distributor running an older ERP system may be a good fit on paper but have no plans to replace it. Another company may have recently acquired several businesses, hired a new CFO, opened new locations, or started researching financial consolidation and ERP migration.
Those companies may look similar in a database but represent very different sales opportunities.
This creates a prioritization problem for sales teams. Buyer intent data, business triggers, technology information, and account research can help identify which otherwise qualified companies deserve more attention.
None of those signals proves that an ERP purchase is imminent. They provide additional context for deciding where sales teams should spend their time.
These issues tend to reinforce one another.
A VAR may receive fewer vendor referrals while buyers conduct more research independently. The buyers that do appear may face internal budget competition, involve several decision-makers, and take longer to approve a project.
At the same time, the VAR has to determine which accounts deserve sales attention while competing against more sources of information during the buyer's research process.
That combination makes ERP pipeline harder to predict, even for firms with strong implementation capabilities.
The challenges facing ERP VARs in 2026 do not point to one lead generation tactic. They point to the need for a more balanced system that gives the firm greater control over where pipeline comes from and how prospects are developed over time.
A VAR that relies mainly on vendor referrals will remain vulnerable to changes it cannot control. A firm that relies only on SEO may struggle to reach qualified companies that are not actively searching. A team that focuses only on outbound can waste time on accounts with no current reason to change.
The better approach is to build multiple sources of demand and use better signals to decide where sales and marketing should focus.
ERP vendor referrals can still be a good source of opportunities. They just should not be the only source.
The problem with relying too heavily on publisher-generated leads is control. You do not control how many leads you get, when you get them, which accounts are routed your way, or whether the vendor changes its priorities six months from now.
ERP VARs are in a better position when they have several ways to create demand on their own. That can include inbound marketing for ERP resellers, outbound sales development, events, paid media, customer referrals, and partner relationships.
This gives the firm more control over the type of business it wants to pursue.
For example, if a VAR wants to grow its manufacturing practice or expand into a new geography, it can build campaigns around those specific markets rather than waiting for the ERP publisher to send the right opportunity.
The goal is not to stop taking vendor leads. It is to make sure the pipeline does not rise and fall based on a channel the VAR does not control.
A large part of ERP evaluation now happens before a prospect is ready to speak with sales.
VARs should create content that answers the questions buyers are researching during that period. That includes implementation cost, timelines, migration, integrations, industry fit, platform comparisons, common project risks, and how to choose an implementation partner.
An article explaining the cost factors involved in a multi-entity NetSuite implementation is more useful than a general post about the benefits of ERP. A case study showing how a distributor handled inventory, data migration, and multiple locations gives a buyer more evidence than a broad statement about implementation experience.
This is where SEO and AI discoverability can help a VAR appear earlier in the buying process and make its expertise easier to find and understand.
The content should also be useful beyond search. A salesperson should be able to send it to a prospect who raises the same question during a sales conversation.
Buyers need evidence that a VAR has handled situations similar to theirs.
Case studies, customer reviews, partner certifications, industry-specific pages, implementation examples, customer references, and third-party mentions all help the buyer understand where the firm has real experience.
The strongest proof is usually specific.
Instead of saying a firm has “extensive manufacturing experience,” show the ERP platform involved, the type of manufacturer, the business problem, the implementation scope, and the result when that information can be shared.
Detailed ERP lead generation case studies can also help buyers understand how another ERP firm approached growth, pipeline, and market visibility.
Proof has another job during a long ERP sale: it gives the internal champion something concrete to take back to finance, operations, IT, or executive leadership when they are trying to justify a vendor or implementation decision.
A strong ideal customer profile tells the sales team which companies could be good customers. It does not tell them which accounts deserve attention today.
That is where buyer intent data, first-party engagement, and business triggers can help.
Third-party intent data can surface companies showing increased research activity around ERP platforms, implementation issues, financial management, inventory, competing systems, or related business problems. That does not mean the company is actively buying ERP, but it can give the sales team a reason to prioritize one account over another.
First-party intent signals come from activity on your own website and owned channels. A company that repeatedly visits ERP pricing, implementation, comparison, case study, or industry pages is giving you a different kind of signal than a company that has never interacted with your brand. Tools such as ZoomInfo WebSights, RB2B, Leadfeeder, and HubSpot can help identify and organize this account-level engagement.
The value comes from what happens next. A visit to a pricing, comparison, implementation, or case-study page can trigger account research, a BDR task, sales outreach, retargeting, or a different nurture path inside HubSpot.
Business changes can also create useful reasons to investigate an account. ZoomInfo “Scoops,” for example, can surface events such as acquisitions, geographic expansion, executive hiring, headcount growth, technology initiatives, facility changes, or other operational developments.
Those events matter because ERP projects are often triggered by change.
A company that just acquired two businesses may suddenly have a financial consolidation problem. A new CFO may be more willing to question an aging ERP system. Rapid headcount growth or geographic expansion can expose reporting, inventory, workflow, or integration problems that were manageable when the company was smaller.
The strongest signal is usually a combination of factors.
A distributor researching ERP migration becomes more interesting when it also fits the VAR’s target industry and revenue range, has recently hired a new CFO, and has visited implementation or pricing content on the VAR’s website.
None of these signals proves that an ERP project exists. They help the sales team decide where to spend limited prospecting time and which accounts deserve deeper research.
ERP markets are often a good fit for focused outbound sales development because the target universe can usually be narrowed down.
A VAR may know that its best opportunities come from manufacturers between $25 million and $150 million in revenue, distributors running an aging ERP, or multi-entity companies struggling with financial consolidation.
Once the market is defined that clearly, the sales team does not need to prospect randomly.
It can build a targeted account list, identify the right finance, operations, IT, and executive contacts, and use outbound sales development to reach those accounts through phone, email, LinkedIn, and other appropriate channels.
The buyer signals discussed above make that outreach more useful.
A company that fits the ICP, has recently hired a CFO, is expanding into new locations, and is showing research activity around ERP migration is a much stronger account to work than a company selected only because it falls within the right revenue range.
The messaging should reflect those differences as well. A distributor struggling with inventory visibility may need a different conversation than a manufacturer dealing with production planning or a business that has just acquired several subsidiaries.
ERP outbound tends to work better when the goal is to start relevant conversations with a defined set of accounts rather than maximize the number of calls or emails sent.
For VARs trying to reduce dependence on referrals, enter a new vertical, expand geographically, or support additional sales capacity, outbound gives the firm a way to create opportunities proactively instead of waiting for buyers to find them.
ERP conferences, user groups, trade shows, and industry events can also create useful prospecting windows.
A company attending an ERP conference, industry trade show, or vendor event may already be thinking about systems, operations, technology priorities, or upcoming projects.
VARs can use those events to build focused account lists before the event, reach relevant prospects with timely messaging, and follow up afterward while the issues discussed at the event are still fresh.
The outreach should connect the event to a real business issue rather than simply say, “I saw you were attending.”
This can be especially useful for VARs targeting narrow industries or ERP ecosystems where a small number of conferences bring a large portion of the market together.
Not every qualified ERP buyer is ready to schedule a meeting when they first encounter the firm.
A prospect may read an article, attend a webinar, speak with a BDR, or visit implementation pages months before budget and internal alignment come together.
The website and follow-up process should support buyers who are still evaluating options.
Pricing guides, implementation checklists, readiness assessments, case studies, webinars, comparison content, and industry-specific resources can give prospects useful next steps without forcing an immediate sales conversation.
A high-converting B2B website should make those next steps easy to find and appropriate to where the buyer is in the evaluation process.
Consistent follow-up matters as well. Email nurture, newsletters, relevant content, webinars, and occasional sales outreach can help the VAR stay familiar without turning every interaction into a pitch.
When the project moves from “something we should address” to “something we are funding,” the VAR should still be part of the conversation.
Marketing and sales should be working from the same information.
Website visits, content engagement, buyer intent, company changes, search performance, and campaign activity can help sales teams decide where to focus.
Sales conversations can also improve marketing.
If prospects repeatedly ask about migrating from a specific ERP, integrating a particular system, or handling a certain industry requirement, those questions should influence future content.
For longer ERP sales cycles, this type of sales and marketing alignment helps keep the same accounts visible across both inbound and outbound activity.
That creates a practical feedback loop. Marketing helps sales identify and educate accounts, while sales helps marketing understand what buyers are actually asking about.
ERP lead generation should ultimately be judged by the quality of the opportunities it creates.
Traffic, rankings, calls, emails, form submissions, and meetings are useful indicators, but they do not tell the whole story.
A VAR should pay close attention to which channels and campaigns produce qualified opportunities, how those opportunities progress, and whether they become revenue.
That is particularly important in ERP, where a channel generating fewer leads may still be more valuable if those leads fit the target market and convert into larger projects.
The goal is a pipeline the firm can understand, influence, and improve over time.
ERP lead generation is harder because buyers conduct more research before contacting sales, vendor-generated leads are less predictable, ERP projects face greater competition for budget, and buying committees are more complex.
AI has also changed how buyers research ERP platforms and implementation partners. Prospects can compare vendors, costs, implementation risks, and industry experience without visiting a provider’s website or speaking with sales.
For ERP VARs, that means qualified demand can exist long before the firm knows an opportunity is forming.
Yes, but a legitimate ERP need does not always translate into an immediate project.
ERP investments compete with AI, automation, cybersecurity, acquisitions, facility investments, hiring, and other strategic priorities. Economic uncertainty can also cause companies to delay large technology projects even when the business case for ERP remains strong.
This creates a common sales challenge: a prospect can have a real operational problem and still be months away from approving an ERP project.
There is no single timeline because inbound and outbound channels behave differently.
SEO and content usually require sustained investment before they create consistent inbound opportunities. Outbound can generate conversations sooner, but ERP opportunities may still take months to develop because buyers need to align budget, stakeholders, technical requirements, and project timing.
For that reason, ERP VARs should distinguish between generating initial interest and creating a sales-ready opportunity.
ERP VARs can build their own pipeline through search visibility, useful content, outbound sales development, buyer intent data, paid media, events, partner relationships, and customer referrals.
The objective is not necessarily to replace vendor-generated leads. It is to avoid having one outside source determine whether the firm has enough pipeline.
Independent demand generation also gives the VAR more control over which industries, geographies, company sizes, and project types it pursues.
It can, particularly when the VAR has a clearly defined target market.
ERP firms often know which industries they serve, the company sizes they prefer, the systems they commonly replace, and the buyer roles involved in an ERP decision. That makes it possible to focus outreach on a relatively specific group of accounts.
Outbound becomes less effective when the strategy is simply to contact large numbers of companies with generic ERP messaging.
Buyer intent data helps sales teams prioritize accounts that are showing increased research activity around relevant topics.
A VAR might look for research related to ERP software, a competing platform, inventory management, financial consolidation, ERP migration, or another problem connected to its services.
Intent data does not mean a company is ready to buy. It becomes useful when it is combined with ICP fit, business changes, technology information, and account research.
AI affects ERP lead generation in two important ways.
First, buyers increasingly use AI tools to research ERP platforms, compare providers, understand implementation costs, and evaluate potential risks before contacting sales.
Second, AI projects are competing for technology budgets and executive attention. In some organizations, ERP modernization may have to compete with AI, automation, cybersecurity, or other digital initiatives for funding.
For VARs, AI therefore affects both how buyers discover providers and how ERP projects are prioritized internally.
The most useful content tends to answer questions connected to an actual ERP decision.
That includes implementation costs, timelines, platform comparisons, migration issues, integration requirements, industry-specific needs, implementation risks, partner selection, and documented project examples.
Broad educational content can still have value, but content tied to a specific decision or business problem is more likely to attract a buyer who is actively evaluating ERP options.
ERP lead generation is harder in 2026 because the buying environment has changed.
Buyers are researching more before they contact sales. AI is influencing how firms are discovered and evaluated. ERP projects are competing with other technology and capital priorities. Buying committees are larger, sales cycles are longer, and vendor-generated pipeline is less predictable.
For ERP VARs, that makes pipeline development less about finding one winning channel and more about reducing dependence on any single source of demand.
The firms in the strongest position are building visibility during buyer research, creating useful proof around their ERP experience, using buyer signals to focus sales activity, and combining inbound and outbound efforts around the same target market.
ERP projects will still move forward. The challenge is identifying the right companies early enough, earning a place in the evaluation process, and staying relevant until the buyer is ready to act.
SmithDigital works with ERP VARs, implementation partners, and enterprise software firms that want to generate more pipeline independently of vendor referrals.
Our programs can combine SEO and AI discoverability, buyer intent data, outbound BDR support, HubSpot, content, and conversion optimization based on the client’s market and sales process.
If you want to review where your current ERP lead generation program is working, where it is overly dependent on one channel, and where additional pipeline could come from, we can help.
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