5 Strategies for Growing B2B Marketing

If you are a manufacturer or a wholesaler, you are already into B2B marketing for sure. It is rare for manufacturers to sell all their produce through their own retail outlets. In fact, manufacturers don’t like the very idea of retailing. It is usually a drain on their resources and conflict of interest ensues with retailers or wholesalers in terms of price and discounts offered. B2B marketing is a lot different from retailing and requires vastly different strategies to achieve sales turnover.

Here are some strategies that B2B marketers can emulate for improving their bottom line sales through B2B marketing . They are time tested and have proved their worth over a period of time.

Strategy # 1

Work with a New Framework – The usual way to deal in a B2B environment is to discuss prices, profit margins, timely delivery, incentives and the long-term benefits for the wholesaler or retailer. Do keep to this old style of marketing, but see that you concentrate on educating the wholesaler or retailer on how they can leverage your company experience, customer feedback and the financial information you have, and the solutions you can offer to them.

Strategy #2

Create More Opportunities to Interact – In the world of B2B marketing, keeping in touch with your wholesaler or retailer is paramount to improving sales figures. You need to constantly educate them on what your research department is discovering and how they can put the findings for improving the distribution system. Lack of day-to-day contact ultimately results in lower sales. The more opportunity you create to bring your wholesaler or retailer to your place, the better it is for your business.

Strategy # 3

Put yourself in their Position – Sales figures, saving on transportation and lowering expenses on commissions and margin may be your idea of improving profits for your manufacturing business, but for the wholesaler or retailer in B2B marketing relationship these are not their concern. Think about their needs and come out with a solution that will address their issues. They would like to hear about what you are doing in terms of advertising and promoting your products and services in tune with modern trends. You should also tell them more about your plans for promoting products using modern tools like social media networks for example.

Strategy # 4

Provide Training to Wholesalers & Retailers – Sometimes the reason for poor performance may not be the product or service itself in B2B marketing. Most often the malady may be poor product awareness of the wholesaler or the retailer. To combat issues like these organize workshops on a regular basis by inviting them to your manufacturing facilities and training their marketing personnel and salesmen. The better they are informed about your products, the greater enthusiasm they will show in pushing your products. You should remember that your wholesaler or retailer is not dealing only for you. You have competition here too, and you should prove how you are different.

Strategy # 5

Work With the Wholesaler & Retailer – The best feedback's are the ones that come from the end-users. So when you do market research take the wholesaler and retailers on board in confidence and associate them in doing research. The idea is you will be able to provide them with the much need insight very early in your relationship. It will help you grow B2B marketing relationship with wholesalers and retailers. For example, collaborating with Heritage Retail, one of the largest supermarket chains in South India with 70 stores spread across Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai. Their supermarkets have the distinction of receiving the highest footfall of customers, with over a million consumers pouring in every month. Here's  a chance for retailers to maximize their potential by using Heritage In Store Marketing program to their advantage. Increase your brand visibility with display options and boost your sales.

Do You Want promote your product in Retail Instore marketing, please click here to enquire now.

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Create a value chain demand with Business to Business marketing

What is Business to Business Marketing?

Business to Business Marketing also referred to as B2B marketing or simply, business marketing is about mostly meeting the demands of other businesses. In this type of marketing, businesses run by individuals or organizations, such as commercial or government businesses, facilitate the sale of their products to other businesses or services, which in turn will resell them to consumers, either directly or in the form of components in products, or as part of services they offer, or use them as support for the operations they perform.

For a long time Business to Business marketing took a back seat allowing its cousin, the Business to consumer marketing to be a front runner. However, over the past fifteen years, Business to Business marketing has emerged as a discipline in its own right and allowed for divergences in the marketing practices.

Let's try to understand Business to Business marketing with an example.  There is a value chain that starts with a customer demand and from which dozens of business services and products are required. Consider the example of the shirt that we buy form a store. They are not found on the shelves by accident. It involves a complex value chain of demands. It begins with the supply of cotton or some fiber that can be woven into cloth, which in turn is stitched into a garment, in this case a shirt, and finally packed and distributed to shops to be sold to consumers. 

This is a classic case of 'chain of derived demand' since a demand is created at every stage of creation of the product before it reaches its full final form. Business sell cotton or fiber to merchants, who in turn sell it to spinners, who sell it to weavers, who in turn sell it to garment manufacturers  and so on. None of the business buy products for pure indulgence, but rather to add value so that the product moves down the chain to finally reach us, the consumers.

Short term Strategies for a successful Business to Business Marketing:

1. Understand the market volume.

You have a goal set up, but does your team know what they need to do to achieve that goal? Many calculators exist to predict the amount of activity required to hit your revenue numbers. Study the volume of the marketing to assist your teams understand the how much of marketing performance they need to generate to hit the targets set. Use marketing funnel tools to run the numbers before the launch of a program.

2. Have a quality contact database.

Now that you have gathered a contact database, you need to know that not all contact data are valid. About 10 to 25 percent can contain critical errors. Make use of  a team to keep track of the data and ensure that your data quality is always in check, updating data regularly and clearing out invalid ones.

3. Take extra effort.

Go out of your way to qualify leads into opportunities. With tele-prospecting you could greatly improve your chances of converting leads into sales ready opportunities through Business to Business marketing.

4. Get feedback.

Encourage your team to engage and build relationships with sales , so that they can discuss their perception on the leads converted into successful opportunities. Doing so will expose them to good feedback about marketing and it's influence on selling process.

5) One of the best examples of Business to Business marketing is tying up with an established brand, such as Heritage Retail and market your products in their supermarket. Heritage Retail has the largest chain of supermarkets in Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad.

Do You Want promote your product in Retail In-store marketing, please click here to Inquire now.

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Brand Marketing Strategies you can Emulate

A brand name is the most valuable asset for any business. A well-promoted brand can instantly connect the product to the manufacturer, and nowadays brands are valued in financial terms. No doubt that is the reason why companies spend tons of money in brand marketing to increase their value. It also adds value to stock holders.

Brand marketing is for every business and it is important to invest money and resources into building it. It will give your business get a unique identity that will connect you with your existing customers as well as bring in prospective customers to your doorstep. The value of the brand also reflects the confidence that consumers repose on its products and its abilities to service their needs and expectations.

Here is how to do brand marketing.

• Provide impeccable service to consumers – Providing memorable service is a little more expensive than providing run off the mill services and products. The additional investment you make does not go waste; it accumulates to your account by way of superior brand image. You will see the value reflect in your company’s balance when it is evaluated for financial purposes. There are many agencies that can fix a fair value for your brand.

• You should think differently from the crowd - Not a day goes without someone coming up with a new product or service as a competition to yours. They too are vying in the same niche as you are. That makes your job doubly difficult to manage. By thinking and providing services and goods that are different, you will be standing out noticeably. Being unique is important to brand marketing, and it adds value immensely.

• A great brand marketing strategy is to collaborate with a well known brand and build upon mutual strength. You may want to build a brand from scratch and that undoubtedly is a honorable endeavor. But starting from scratch and going up the ladder is strewn with uncertainties and can eat up your budget. Big businesses choose this route, and the reasons for choosing this is that they save money and time.

• Rope in leaders who can talk for your brand. When a celebrity talks about your brand, it becomes viral, and people begin to talk about it too. They get discussed in multiple forums; social media networks for example. The money you pay for these ambassadors gets amortized and adds to your brand’s value in a very short time. However, the celebrity must have an image for himself.

• Bring in the crowd to endorse your brand. Well known brands do it almost daily by starting a dialogue with opinion makers. You can talk to review website owners, the product reviewing community and newspaper commentators. Be honest with what you expect from them by educating them about your products and what you are doing to give consumers good services. This is particularly important if you are into consumer product manufacturing.

• Keep your products exclusive at least in the beginning. When your brand is exclusive and you let consumers know about it, interest builds up rapidly. One of the best known brands to have used this strategy is Pinterest. Currently with over 10 million users in its staple, Pinterest originally offered its services only to very exclusive people.

• The last and most important aspect of brand marketing for Retailers and Clients is to collaborate with an established high-profile brand to boost their credibility and visibility. Case in point, Heritage Retail, the largest supermarket chain in South India with 70 stores across Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and the largest customer footfalls. Clients and retailers can use the supermarket display options to advertise their own products and services, goods and new arrival items.

Do You Want promote your product in Retail Instore marketing, please click here to enquire now.

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