Bite-Sized Marketing Insights for Busy Distributors – Part 1

The business enterprise has two – and only two – basic functions: marketing and innovation. 

Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. 

– Peter Drucker – Father of Modern Management

This 2-part blog provides bite-sized insights on online marketing for busy distributors. These learnings were originally presented in Industrial Distribution Summit 2019.

Quick insights on Marketing for Distributors

Integrate Online and Offline

A study done by Smart Insights last year found that only six percent of companies thought their online and offline marketing strategies were effectively integrated.

Buyer Personas and Touchpoints

• Know your buyer personas
• Know your buyer’s journey (both online and offline)
• Know the moments of truth
• Know the touchpoints
• Maintain brand consistency at all touchpoints

(Read more about Buyer Personas and TouchPoints here)

Benefits of online-offline integration

• Online Marketing makes your offline events more visible
• Together, they build stronger relationships with your customers
• Online Marketing + Offline Marketing = an Omnichannel Approach
• It’s all about engaging your target audience

Key Drivers of Online Marketing

• Website
• SEO
• Content
• Email Marketing
• Landing Pages
• Google Analytics

Website

Think like an eCommerce company

• Distributors should continue to aim to grow their online presence
• Be customer-driven
• Track your customer’s activity
• Sell items online that are driven solely by customer’s needs
• Go through your transactions and find out a way to capitalize on sales that customers want to conduct online
• Have a good website, a good ERP, a good PIM, a middleware to connect multiple systems, a flexible pricing system, a competent IT staff or a vendor

Must have content on the website

Content lacking in B2B website

Tools

• https://website.grader.com/

SEO

The Art of SEO

Two powerful lessons for achieving top rankings in Google and staying there

• If you want to stay on top of Google, never rely on one tactic
• Always ensure your search engine strategies rely on SEO best practices

Three pillars of SEO

• Trust  – High-quality content, backlinks from reputable sources
• Authority  – Site’s overall strength in the market
• Relevance  – Having relevant content and use the on-page SEO tactics

Strongest factors contributing to high search rankings

• Word count
• Relevant keywords on the page
• User signals (Click-through-rate, time-on-site, bounce rate)
• Domain SEO visibility (how strong the domain is in terms of links and authority)
• Site speed
• Referring domains (No. of sites linking to your site)
• Keywords in internal links
• Content readability
• Number of images

Note:Plan your SEO before the website launch

Tools

• site: https://www..com/ (the links that are indexed in Google in Search Engine)
• https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/   (the test the health of your website – Free for 500 URLs)

Content

The content cycle

Content is king

Help buyers make an informed purchase

• Blogs
• Product videos
• eBooks
• Whitepapers
• High-quality product images
• Comprehensive, professional product descriptions
• Product listings not limited to the below items
  • CAD files
  • User guides
  • Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS)
  • Spec sheets
  • Comparison charts
  • Safety information and more

Tools

• Grammarly  – https://www.grammarly.com/
• Trello – https://trello.com
• Google Trends – https://trends.google.com/trends
• Evernote – https://evernote.com/
• Undraw – https://undraw.co/

Email Marketing, Landing Pages, and Google Analytics are integral parts of online marketing. Next week, we will have more bite-sized learnings on the same. Stay tuned.

References

Books