In the advertising of industrial products we have seen that most companies focus their strategies thinking about the companies that want to sell and think little about people just because they are B2B sales (business to business) but they forget very important points. These 5 tips are for you to improve your advertising from planning, execution and even continuous improvement, I hope you serve.
1 Remember that companies are made up of people
It is important to distinguish a series of things, first of all we are representing something bigger than ourselves, we are representing a company but at the end of the day we are people living with other people and this is how we reach companies through people, There is no company that makes decisions as an entity alien to people, there is necessarily a human being who feels and thinks taking decisions, that is why the most important thing when wanting to do industrial advertising is that you know perfectly who is this person, its demographic characteristics, the position it has, its concerns, goals and desires so that in this way you can empathize and can really offer what you need and what makes sense to help you in your day to day with your immediate problems. In short, make a buyer persona of your target audience.
The wrong approach would be to think that a company that occupies the screws that you produce, just for that reason must buy you, the correct approach is to think that there is a production manager who can not get the screws he needs (in condition, time or price) and that you can make your life easier and solve your problems because you have what he needs in the conditions that he needs, then this makes more sense for your company and the client.
Finally, forget about the person who purchases, 90% of the time the requisitions of materials or suppliers do not start with the purchase but with another department and the purchase is only responsible for processing the transaction and making sure it is receiving the best possible price, if they are difficult people to negotiate but in the majority of the cases if they already have instruction of the area of acquiring your product / services will receive little or null resistance. It is usually not advisable to direct your strategies to the purchasing department, they only process, think of the person to whom you solve the problem and focus on it.
2 Take into account the purchasing and decision-making processes
Now you know who is going to buy you and who is the person behind the decision, it’s time to learn what goes through his head when buying a product or service. How do he make the decision? What do he consider when buying? How does he look for solutions and alternatives?
In general, people go through 3 stages when making a purchase decision:
- Exploration. They do not know their problem, they just have symptoms of this and are looking to learn more.
- Consideration. They know what their problem is and they are looking for different alternatives to solve it.
- Decision. They have a couple of concrete options and are just looking for the best one to decide.
Depending on the stage in which your client prospect is located, it is the information that will be most relevant for him, for example, a person in the exploration stage is not looking to know your prices, at this moment he does not even know what he wants and that you can quote him he may only scare you away, but if you give him general information about the problems he may have and how he can solve them, this will be very useful.
A person in consideration does not need a quote either, but maybe a comparison of your solution with some similar ones will help you make a decision towards your product.
Finally a person in Decision are the ones who react best to discounts and promotions, basically you are helping them to make the decision by giving them a limited or exclusive offer, in this way you present yourself as the best option. At this stage you should seek to close the sale through incentives or information on why your company is the best option.
3 Generate prospects constantly
It is very common for industrial companies to survive only with a couple of clients, since these clients can mean millions a year but every company needs to become self-sustaining and depending on a couple of clients is never a good idea. If you are just beginning and you are in this situation, just make sure you are enrolled in the main directories of your sector, imagine a person who would look for your product or service, where will you be looking? and that’s where you should be.
It does not matter that you do not currently have the capacity to serve new clients, remember that these are the good problems, we all want to have more clients than we can attend but nobody wants to have fewer clients than you need to survive, right? Be sure to be present 24/7 and generate leads all the time, if you do not receive a call at least every week asking for reports of your services you may have a problem in the not too distant future, check your strategy and make sure you are present where they are your customers
4 Create your own content
Constantly write in a blog, create videos, tutorials, hold events, organize webinars and in a few words get yourself seen in the industry, in this way you will not only achieve a positioning as a leader, all this content are as valuable assets as any design or website , are potential points of contact that any future customer can see and in a very friendly way can learn more about your company and in this way you position yourself as a leader in your industry.
Remember that content is the best strategy for SEO positioning, on average a company that writes 2 articles a week receives 10x more visits than a company that does not write and up to 3x more prospects with the right strategy. If you have never heard of content marketing for the industry, it is convenient to investigate a little of the subject and how it is complemented with a complete methodology such as inbound marketing.
5 Measure and optimize constantly
It is not only about taking strategies or ideas one after another, it is of no use if you do not measure its effectiveness and constantly optimize to obtain better results with your resources. Constantly measure your key metrics, especially in digital this is very easy to do, usually the digital advertising systems already tell you their most important metrics but as a reference the main ones are: PPC (price per click), PPM (price per thousand impressions), CTR (click thru rate), CPL (cost per lead), CAC (acquisition cost). These metrics are the basics so you can compare one campaign against another and can make decisions to improve your strategies.
I hope these 5 advertising tips for industrial products are useful and you can apply them, they are only guides so you have a base, if you are looking for more concrete strategies I recommend you read the article «the 5 best industrial marketing strategies» and do not forget download our Inbound Marketing ebook for industry, all these ideas are based on the inbound methodology and will help you create better advertising strategies for your industrial products that you can complement with this ebook: