by tradesmeninsights | Jun 26, 2013 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools
We did a survey to marketing/sales folks in the manufacturing sector who sell through either industrial or construction distributors to see what their biggest challenges are.
From the manufacturer’s point of view, their biggest challenge is getting the distributor’s salespeople to focus on their products. Sound familiar?
Here’s another interesting note. The manufacturers biggest marketing challenge is getting in front of the ultimate end user (contractor or MRO professional).
So it seems that we are in a catch 22 scenario. Manufacturers sell through distribution for many reasons. One of the most important ones is that they have an active loyal customer base that we want to reach. The issue is how do we get more of the distributor’s salesman’s time and attention? I’ve been in this market for over 30 years and have been trying to address this on a regular basis. I feel like I’m in the movie Groundhog Day.
Here are some tips that we’ve initiated over the years that might help you:
- Training – over half of the folks we surveyed didn’t have a formal training. It’s hard to imagine anyone trying to sell something they don’t understand. While most people focus on products, don’t overlook the opportunity of how to sell and look for application opportunities when on a job site or in a plant. A good resource for training modules is BlueVolt. They focus on distributor training and focus on marketing and buying groups for the industrial/construction markets.
- Promotions – plan them well enough in advance so the distributor can incorporate it into their normal correspondence to their customers. So many times we give them too short of a lead time and we wonder why they don’t do well. SPIF programs work if they are easy to understand and manage. Note that you don’t have to have one for a promotion to be successful. What you need to do is communicate to their marketing and sales force.
- Inside Sales & Customer Service – we normally focus our efforts on the outside sales folks since those are the ones we usually ride along with. But in the real world, CSR’s and inside sales talk to 10 times as many customers a day than the outside guys. These are the people you want to train and incentivize. When taking an order, they have the ability in most cases to enter an order for the products they are most familiar with. Not often (although we’d like to think so) that someone calls in and says I want 10 Acme Widgets. They normally say I need 10 widgets and the person taking the order has the discretion of sending them yours instead.
The key is planning and communications. I’d like to hear what you’re doing to make your distributor relationships better.
If you like this post, you might want to read:
Trends in Distribution and What it Means to the Distributor/Supplier Relationship.
Podcast: Manufacturers and Distributors – What are you Doing to stay Relevant? New rules of Engagement
by tradesmeninsights | Jun 19, 2013 | Marketing Tools
Sonnhalter is deeply involved with the professional tradesmen. We recently updated our overview of the HVAC market. The purpose of the document is to give the reader a quick snapshot of the industry and its players for 2013.
Highlights include association and buying group contacts, training firms/certification organizations, franchisee organizations and consolidators, online resources, trade shows/meetings and media publications.
A free copy for download is available. Click here to sign up.
by tradesmeninsights | Jun 18, 2013 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
Over the past several years, marketers have been focusing more of their efforts (both time and money) on social media.
Especially in the manufacturing B-to-B space, social certainly has a place to help set you up as an expert in your field of expertise, but it won’t replace more traditional ways of communicating like email. If you really want a tradesman to read something from you, which would you use, social media or email? I’d be willing to bet email.
Let’s face it, the life blood of your business (both existing and potential) lies in the quality of your database. The question is, how do you increase the size and quality of that database and what’s the best way to use it? By using traditional methods like trade shows, PR and direct mail along with social tools like YouTube, SlideShare, Facebook and Twitter, you can start identifying potential customers and start gathering email addresses for your database.
Think about this – if you go to sign up for a new social site, what’s one of the first things you have to give them? Your email! Even they know the best way to communicate is using this tool.
Consider some of these facts:
- The fact of the matter is folks respond better to emails than they do to social channels
- Email also lets you personalize your message
- They are checked more often than social sites
- It’s easier to sell through email than social sites
I listened to a podcast recently on socialmediaexaminer.com where they interviewed DJ Waldow the co-author of The Rebel’s Guide to Email Marketing. He shares his thoughts on how to use social to support your email activities. I’d recommend you take the time to listen.
by tradesmeninsights | Jun 5, 2013 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Marketing Trends
I’m just back from one of the most intense 48 hours I’ve ever spent at a marketing event. The BMA’s International Conference, “BLAZE” just ended in Chicago where nearly 800 marketing professionals gathered to talk about and learn ways to deal with the ever-changing challenges facing all of us.
The overall theme was no matter what we do, we need to focus on our customers and their needs. B-to-B industry thought leaders gave us practical examples of what’s happening in the market and how we might deal with them. Of particular interest to me was a study just being released that was done by Forrester on industry trends. Here are some highlights:
- Marketing role continues to get broader
- New skills are needed by 97% of marketers
- 70% are concerned about brand integrity
- 45% can find people with the right skill sets
- 97% are doing things they’ve never done before
- Budgets are not keeping up with the demands that are being put on marketing
The general consensus was that we need better collaboration between marketing, sales and IT. We need to tear down the silos and have a common strategy, better integration and customer insights.
They also challenged us on where to find growth over the next five years. How do you compete with the likes of Amazon (who’s growing 25% a year)? 40% of all online sales are coming from mobile devices. What are you doing in this area?
If you’re not familiar with the BMA, you should look into it. They are the only game in town that focuses on B-to-B. Along with their international conference, they have 10 regional events and those cities that have chapters hold monthly meetings.
by tradesmeninsights | Jun 4, 2013 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Marketing Trends, Social Marketing
Are you looking for ways to get in front of tradesmen? If you’re a manufacturer and don’t have anything on YouTube, you’re missing a great opportunity. What better way to show a customer or prospect how to use your product, highlight features and benefits or even have a customer testimonial.
Next to Google (who by the way owns YouTube), YouTube is the highest searched. The numbers are staggering:
- YouTube has 1 Billion unique visitors each month and sees four billion video views every day.
- 1 hour of video is uploaded every second – that’s 60 hours a minute!
- Users on YouTube spend a total of 2.9 billion hours per month (326,294 years) watching video.
- integrated into Google Results.
When considering content, here are some suggestions. Tell the story first and don’t worry about the length. Shorter is always better and you should focus on the first 15 seconds. If you get their attention, you have a better chance of them viewing the entire video. They need to determine up front that the video will help them. When telling a story, your goals are:
- Engage the customer
- Educate the customer
- Make points of differentiation
- Entertain customers
- Be different
Rich Brooks in Social Media Explorer explored ways to maximize your YouTube presence. Here are some of the highlights:
- Create compelling content – Address the needs of your customers.
- Make it findable – both in and out of YouTube. Your Title, Description and Tags are important.
- Brand your channel – Create a custom background that goes along with your branding . Use “Player View” as your layout and select autoplay feature.
- Post a bulletin and alert your friends and subscribers – Create a link and put it on your home pages.
- Leverage other social media platforms – Blog about it, Tweet it, post it on Facebook and submit it to StumbleUpon.
What are you doing to leverage your YouTube videos?
by tradesmeninsights | May 28, 2013 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Marketing Trends, Traditional Marketing
Most of the manufacturers we deal with sell through various distribution channels. The relationships range from true partnerships to a necessary evil. Most manufacturers have missed an opportunity to build relationships by not utilizing an old technique called a distributor council. We did a survey to a group of manufacturers who sell through distribution and 85% of them haven’t used this marketing tool.
I think with the market changes after 2008 and the rise of social media, that some of the old traditional ways of building relationships were put on the back burner. If your goal is to build lasting relationships with key distribution partners, you might want to consider a distributor council.
The group has several purposes:
▪ Reinforce your commitment to the industry
▪ Discuss industry trends
▪ Identify ways you can better serve them
▪ Identify new product opportunities
It’s a great way to say thanks to those who have been loyal to you and a way to build loyalty with some distributors that have you on as a supplier but is splitting the business with one of your competitors. I can’t tell you the number of times that I’ve seen those kinds of distributors come to a meeting like this, and after hearing stories from your brand-loyal distributors on how you really bring value to the table that orders start increasing.
Here are the basic items for you to consider for a distributor council:
- Identify 10-12 key distributors. Ask them for a 3-year commitment (rotating 3 off each year to be replaced by new ones). Make sure they know this just isn’t a social event.
- Have two meetings a year. One at your facility so they can interact with other members of your team, and one somewhere nice and warm in the winter.
- You pick up all expenses.
- During the course of the year, if a new opportunity surfaces or you want feedback on a possible new product, get their input.
Possible Topic Areas to cover in meetings:
1. Product Training
▪ What kind of training are they looking for?
▪ What are other manufacturers doing?
2. Sales Force
▪ How can they help you sell more product?
▪ How do you rate our salesmen (weak/strong points)?
3. EDI
▪ How important is it to you?
▪ What systems are you currently working on?
▪ How many of your other manufacturers offer EDI?
4. Marketing Support
▪ What can we do to help you sell more products?
▪ What kind of support do your other manufacturers offer?
▪ Review and evaluate marketing support we currently have.
▪ How important is the Web in your sales operation?
▪ Would you use direct mail programs targeted at end users if we supply them?
▪ What do other manufacturers do that work well for you?
5. New Products
▪ Ideas on new products?
▪ Ideas on improvements to current products?
6. Pricing/Service
▪ How do we stack up against the competitor?
▪ What are our strengths and weaknesses?
▪ What are our competitor’s strengths and weaknesses?
The key is to put together an action item list coming out of the meeting and get back to them on items you will be taking action on. This will show them that their input has been heard and is valuable. Let them know upfront that anything can be on the table, but that doesn’t mean that all items will be acted upon.
Distributor council meetings can be worth their weight in gold if handled properly. Have you had an opportunity to participate in any? I’d like to hear your thoughts.
