Industry News and Insights

Manufacturing and other Industrial based companies have historically focused primarily on marketing their products through manufacturers reps and dealers. Recent data forecasts a major shift in how industrial companies plan to implement their B2B Business Development Strategy over the next five years.

I was meeting with a new client recently. The question I asked was, “What % of your B2B leads converted into sales for your company?” The answer was that after spending the time to research, capture the lead and quote, only around 10% of their leads converted to new business. We both agreed that a 90% failure rate was dragging down the sales team and was a major factor in missed growth opportunities.

 We all know what a bad sales lead feels like after 20 seconds of conversation. You have interrupted someone’s busy day, they don’t want to talk to you and simply want you to go away. Truth told, now that you are in this uncomfortable situation, you don’t enjoy talking to them either. Data shows that your sales team spends 25% of their time getting ready for this call with a 90% rejection rate to cold outreach. 

As a co-founder of Open Path Digital, I enjoy fascinating conversations with business owners and C-level marketing/sales professionals. Almost universally, those conversations evolve into focusing on boosting B2B lead generation for profitable growth. Secondly, as we dig a little deeper I hear success stories about how the company dominates a certain niche. Shouldn’t a company that dominates a niche with strong engineering product design, a strong corporate strategy in a rapidly growing market or sometimes just plain luck be awash with prospective clients knocking at the door? In the midst of their success, three major factors surrounding B2B lead generation continually come up that cause concern. 

In digital marketing services, the goal is to always be tracking, analyzing, and refining the B2B marketing strategy in place. No matter how polished a marketing system may be, there is always room for improvement. It is important to be able to notice and react to changes that will occur for the better or for the worse in the digital environment. Whether through an in-house marketing department or a digital marketing agency, here are three areas to monitor that will make the most of your marketing resources. 

Customer satisfaction sits at the core of key concepts in marketing, and yet many marketers still don’t give it enough attention. Digital marketing provides a cost efficient modern marketing approach that nurtures customer satisfaction, is easily tracked, and unprecedented opportunities to measure ROI. Here are six reasons your digital marketing agency should be working to help YOU maximize customers' satisfaction.

1. Repeat sales are valuable

It’s a simple concept—happy customers are likely to remain customers long term and are the best option for your next sales lead. Unhappy customers try out your competitors and in some situations, provide negative feedback. Digital marketing, especially through use of marketing automation software, makes it very easy to unobtrusively follow up on a sale and nurture follow on business. However, that only works if the first sale left the customer satisfied.

Many manufacturing companies find that bringing on an experienced manufacturers representative can stimulate sales rapidly in a new territory. Sales reps spend years building trust and relationships with companies that you would like to work with. With the fresh contacts and relationships that the new manufacturer representative brings to your sales team, their value is obvious.

As customers become better informed and more attentive to the products they buy and who they buy them from, customer engagement becomes increasingly important to maintaining a healthy, durable brand. To achieve a high level of customer engagement and push your brand to its upper limits, you need to take these four steps. 

One of the easiest ways to insure your business continues to grow and excel is to impress your repeat customers! Whether you are a digital marketing agency, a web development business, or a just a business that wants to grow; using these four simple steps on how to attract customers and keep repeat business will set your company up for success!

It’s easy to read a few marketing articles and understand that content targeting has quickly become dominant as the digital marketing service of choice. However, to truly succeed in generating leads and increasing B2B sales, you need to wield content with accuracy. 

That’s where content targeting comes into play; as you would with any other form of marketing or B2B sales, you need to view your prospects online according to their segment and deliver a message tailored to bringing those specific people to a specific end goal.