Businesses (including distributors, dealers, builders and contractors) are reimagining what marketing means for their companies. This includes updating systems, strategies, and ways to connect with buyers.
As technologies become more advanced, buyers become better informed, and the desire to become a thought leader increases in our ever evolving digitally heavy world—so must our marketing plan. If you aren’t using digital marketing and insightful technologies as a method of promoting your products, brand, and relationships, you are falling behind the competition—and fast!
Luckily, there are many identified trends specifically for building material manufacturers that will help you stay ahead of the curve and be steps ahead of your competitors. Let’s focus on two of these strategies—if done right, these will set you as the industry standard every business leader wants to look to for new, innovative ideas.
1) Improving User Experience on Your Website
Websites are the face of your business. Building brand awareness, increasing lead conversion, providing product and program information, and giving distributors, builders, contractors, and homeowners useful tools to interact with your product are all areas your website plays a critical role in. Take the time and resources to invest in it.
If your team does not allow the bandwidth for these updates, consider outsourcing. You can outsource the entire project or use a third-party company who specializes in redesign to map your project out and get a blueprint.
My favorite resource ManoByte provides any company upon request is a free website analysis. Our team quite literally dives into the main components of your site, pulls out the areas that are working well, identifies areas holding you back, and follows up with clear, actionable insight on things you can do immediately for quick wins to make your website work even harder for you. Amazing right? Take advantage of these resources and grow from others’ expertise.
2) Marketing & Sales Automation Across Your Channel
Automated email marketing has one of the best ROIs in digital marketing. On average, companies can expect to earn $38 in revenue for every $1 spent on email marketing. Creating an authentic, valuable email campaign using an automation tool like Hubspot, Marketo, and Infusionsoft will enable your building materials company to create meaning for other businesses.
Remember wanting to become a thought leader? This is a huge component of accomplishing that. I will put an emphasis on “Authentic” and “Valuable”. Having anything but these standards will create a spammy, ineffective outreach campaign that turns your buyers away.
Did you know companies that the use of sales automation software has been able to achieve conversion rates of 53% or higher and an annual revenue growth rate of 3.1% or more? It’s no secret there is heavy reliance on sales employees in the building material manufacturing sector. Providing sales automation will streamline their many manual sales processes and increase revenue for manufacturers. An added bonus to this is creating greater visibility, data analytics, and insights for projections. Sales automation tools are a no-brainer in today’s digital world.
Imagine a world where no opportunities fall through the cracks. A world where you—the manufacturer—have complete insight into where opportunities are, who is engaging, what gaps need to be filled, and what your projections are. This world doesn’t have to be imaginary. Invest in the best tools and resources for your team. Equip your team with sales efficiency tools and they will reward you with more closed deals and shorter sales cycles.
None of these things are easily done right out of the gate. It’s important to:
- Do your research
- Partner with an industry expert
- Step out of your comfort zone
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