What is Distribution Marketing?

It took a little longer for B2B companies to shift towards the largely online marketing and purchasing platforms that B2C businesses were quicker to adapt to. Now, B2B companies may be overlooked because so much of the content creation is focused on the consumer and B2C marketing strategies. But distributors can improve sales through digital marketing as well. Improving distributor marketing ensures wholesale goods can sell at premium prices.

What is Distributor Marketing?

As a distributor, you may feel you have no true link to the products you sell. It may seem like you simply list products and connect them to buyers, and wholesale orders tend to be large and may not be packaged in the most appealing ways. Distributor marketing helps B2B companies (or wholesale distributors) increase the appeal of products and drive sales. In the same way marketing currently creates funnels for B2C companies, distributor marketing draws in retailers or institutional buyers to increase your sales as a distributor.

Approaching marketing with a strategy and a plan can lead to great success for you and improve your reputation and relationships with manufacturers. Successful wholesale distributors must provide:

• Valuable Product
• Competitive Pricing
• Quality Service

Marketing tactics should center around those basic elements. Presenting your distribution company, product offerings and services in the best light will increase relevant leads and sales.

How Can You Invest in Distributor Marketing?

Understanding your buyer’s research process is a key part of increasing those leads and sales. Google surveyed 3,000 B2B decision makers and 13 months of clickstream data, reporting:

• The B2B buyer has changed. Nearly half of B2B researchers are millennials and approach the market differently with a focus on technology.
• 71% of B2B researchers start with a simple online search and are more than halfway towards a purchase decision before they will perform any action on your site.
• The average B2B researcher will perform at least 12 search queries before engaging on any specific brand’s site.
• The majority of B2B buyers and researchers are doing at least some of their research on mobile.

Investing in marketing strategies for your retailer or institutional buyer should focus on increasing your search index and ensuring your content is mobile friendly. Distributor’s should recognize that their buyer audience is going to be searching online to discover product solutions, pricing and options before ever reaching out. Investing in good content and intuitive site designs are a good first step for improving your online presence for distributor buyers.

Tips for Improving Your Distributor Marketing

If you understand the importance of marketing to B2B buyers, then you are ready to start improving your process. As a distributor, you will market to your audience differently than that buyer is going to market to consumers.

Start with Consumer and Product Data

Your buyer is going to need resources to help convince and support their consumer base. While some of your content marketing should go towards answering your buyer’s questions and solving their pain, a key pain is going to be supportive content they can use for increasing sales.

• Create consistent product photos that clearly show the product angles and details
• Produce dynamic videos for helpful tutorials or product demonstrations
• Consider common pain points that your buyers are going to face in regards to buying or selling your products

Focus on Improving SEO

If researchers are looking for solutions online, then you need to be popping up in those search results. Start by focusing on creating content centered around keywords and common search queries that your audience will be using. Creating a lot of content is one way to increase the search index of your website with search engine optimization, allowing your pages to pop up for a wider variety of queries.

Segment Your Lists

Approaching your buyers with a one-size-fits-all marketing strategy can be a turnoff. You probably have buyers that have been with you for years and fill large orders regularly. You have new buyers that have never made a purchase, but are doing their research on some of your products for their consumers. Understanding the differences in your contacts and approaching them accordingly with marketing strategies will help your content be more effective.

Utilize Email Marketing

With segmented lists, you can send targeted offers to the right potential buyers. Focus on creating the kind of emails that are appealing to those various buyer types that are at different stages, have different relationships with your company, and have different pains or audiences.

Focus on the Numbers

Analytics and outcomes should be very important to you. Know the numbers that matter to your buyer and prove the value of your products as they compete for budget dollars. Take time to grasp those key statistics and accounting issues that will matter to researchers as they consider their options.

Distribution marketing is an essential component of a distribution company that is well worth the investment. As you build stronger content, marketing channels, and marketing strategies, you will improve your relationships and reputation with both your buyers and manufacturers.

Are you ready to get started? ManoByte can help you with inbound marketing and content geared towards the needs of your target buyers. Contact us today to see how we can help you with distribution marketing.