The ability to showcase your products to an increasing number of prospective buyers is important to any manufacturer. When done properly or optimized the internet opens up sales channels never before realized. As more and more manufacturers turn to the web they also realize it takes more than a static website with a picture of the plant, a contact phone number or a “contact us” form to really be effective. The manufacturers that use inbound marketing’s best practices have found great results with increased traffic, higher conversion rates and improved sales with a greater return on their investment.
Manufacturer’s that expand their reach get found online
How can the prospective customers find you? Are you making it easy for them? How do you get noticed? With an inbound marketing approach, you can optimize your visibility. Creating high-quality content that is relevant and up to date. By adding marketing assets that are focused on your target persona and speaks to their needs, will not only bring them to you, but keep them coming back for more quality info. You will grow your reach by expanding your followers, likes and contacts. You become a resource for them, as they build confidence in your company, the products you produce and as an industry leader.
- Content creation
- Product news/ guides
- Industry news/regulations etc.
- High level and detailed spec sheet /white papers
- Online catalog
- Online line-cards
- Manufactures’ index
- Business Blog- creating articles that speak to your buyers and provide insight that is valuable to them.
- Social media
- Link them too your site/business etc.
- Monitor and track industry/competitors/prospects for greater marketing intelligence
- Traffic generated from social media can produce higher conversion rates
Manufacturer’s find success with user friendly websites
The amount of traffic to your website is important if you want to really generate business from it. As important as traffic, is the user experience. The conversion of those visitors into leads is how many business websites, particularly manufacturer’s websites, fail. Manufacturer’s that do not optimize their website for conversion are missing out on a lot of opportunities.
Website designer Tips to improve user experience;
- Simplify navigation.
- Don’t make them have to overthink the visit.
- Is it direct.
- Is it on point.
- Does it have clear user path?
- Does it provide the information the visitor is there for in the most simplified way?
- Can the user find related information easily?
- Have you made it easy for them to share it?
- Have you made it easy for them to share their information with you?
When done correctly, an optimized website can give you an immediate boost to your conversion rate. MORE LEADS, MORE SALES!
What is an optimized website.
- Mobile responsive web design
- Improved visitor experience
- Simplified-direct-easy action and directions
- On page SEO
- website architecture or user path
- Content relevancy
Conversion optimization, capturing the lead info
- Marketing offers for each buyer persona
- Have offers for each persona at each level of interest to capture
- Create optimized landing pages and thank you pages
- Call to action buttons for ease of execution for the visitor
Online sales channel success
The benefits of maximizing your online sales channel are many. For one, it’s always open for business. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. No matter what time zone your potential customer may be in. Also, the data and intelligence that is available for both sales and marketing is priceless. Used properly, you can set up lead nurturing campaigns. The campaigns will improve the health of your sale pipeline or funnel. Moreover, providing your sales teams with lead intelligence will improve their customer conversion rates. For marketing, you will be able to identify the sources from which your leads are coming from. Analyze the marketing efforts that are working and test the ones that are not. To optimize all, deliver the greatest ROI and produce the sustainable marketing efforts that will last.
- Lead nurturing
- Lead intelligence
Manufacturers that have optimized their sales channels online are reaping the rewards.
- Higher conversion rates
- More customers
- Lower cost per lead
Being effective online should be an important part of your sales success. If you are not generating enough customers from your online sales channel, it’s not because your business is not the “type” of business that will be successful online. It is more likely that you are not generating enough traffic, your site is not designed to convert that traffic and/or you do not have the analytics in place to make good decisions about your online efforts. It may be some or all of these reasons. The good news is that you can do something about it and when you do the positive effects will be significant.
