8:00am-5:00pm EDT
Monday - Friday
8:00am-5:00pm EDT
Monday - Friday
The industrial distribution business is about building and maintaining relationships. In the past, distributors would rely heavily on tactics like cold calling and setting appointments for face-to-face meetings for generating new leads and increased sales. However, as the times change, especially amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, distributors have realized that industrial buyers are no longer engaging with their salespeople like they used to. Rather, developing a solid marketing plan will be key for distributors to support their sales team moving forward. Below, we outlined a three-part marketing strategy to help distributors drive more revenue.
Business-to-business (B2B) audiences are increasingly relying on search engines to find and consume content. In fact, a study by Clutch found that some of the top reasons B2B audiences read content online are to either make a purchase decision or research products and services.
For industrial distributors, this means you will need to create engaging and optimized content materials to attract visitors to your website. When current and prospective customers go online to look for products, they may be looking for photos, videos, or in-depth information that goes beyond the basic summary they might normally get. Optimizing for those keywords, or search terms, can allow your website to rank organically in search engines.
Here are some content marketing ideas for distributors:
In a competitive marketplace, it’s important for distributors to find ways to stand out. While content marketing is a great tactic to gain visibility in search engines, it’s a tactic that may take some time before you start to see results.
Per-pay-click (PPC) advertising, is a modern advertising method that involves bidding on keywords to gain placement on search engine results pages. PPC ads contain just a sentence or two of copy with a link to your website, and, as the name suggests, you only pay for the ad when it’s clicked, not when it’s viewed.
PPC ads can yield very high returns on investment for distributors. Perhaps the biggest benefit is how instantaneous results can be. As soon as your ads are live, you can start driving qualified traffic to your website. These landing pages on your website should be optimized to convert visitors into leads by making it easy for them to contact you and/or enabling you to collect their information.
Now that you’ve begun to generate leads from digital advertising, content, or other avenues, it’s important to have a plan in place for what happens next. Essentially, you’ll need to ask yourself: where will those leads go?
Some leads may be ready to talk to your sales team and get a quote for, say, a hydraulic hose assembly right away. Others, however, will likely need to be nurtured before they’re ready to have that conversation. Funneling those leads into an email nurture campaign can be a great way to stay in front of those prospects and educate them about your products and services over time.
Additionally, email and marketing automation can also be used to maintain relationships with your current customers. Use email to showcase new products, highlight some of your value-add services, or even remind them when it’s time to reorder. This will help you stay top-of-mind, while also potentially driving more revenue from your existing customer base.
Keep in mind, marketing is not a replacement of your sales team. The best results often come from using a good mix of marketing, sales tactics, and having the right software systems in place.
Tribute, Inc. is a provider of ERP business management software for fluid power and motion control, hose, pump, and automation distributors. From quoting and purchase processing to managing inventory and vendor performance, our TrulinX software is specifically designed to help distributors effectively run their business. For more information on TrulinX, contact us today.
Leave a comment