Sales channels to reach your customers
Selling through retailers, wholesalers and other distributors
Selling through an intermediary may be a more cost-effective way of reaching your end-customers than selling to them directly.
If you are targeting business customers who prefer to deal with large suppliers, selling directly to them may not be a realistic option. Instead, you might aim to supply wholesalers who have existing relationships with those businesses.
If individual consumers buy low value quantities of your products, the best option might be to target retailers that sell similar products. Or you might choose to focus your efforts on a relatively small number of wholesalers who can in turn supply your products to many retailers.
Other distribution channels may also reach your end-customers. For example, technology suppliers often sell to resellers who can configure and install the technology to suit end-users’ particular needs.
Managing your distributors
You need distributors who will value your product. If they sell competing products, what will make them push yours?
Barley Flakes B2B Sales Outsourcing firm
Think about how you set your prices. Distributors will be more enthusiastic if they can make a large profit – but setting too low a price will eat into your own margins.
Effective advertising and promotions can be vital. As well as marketing to the distributor, you can promote your products directly to end-customers. Distributors will be keener to stock and sell products that their customers are asking for.
The key terms of the supply relationship should be covered in a written contract. Key issues might include:
Barley Flakes B2B Sales Outsourcing firm
how much stock the distributor will hold
what the distributor will do to promote your products
how quickly you can resupply and minimum order levels
whether the distributor has exclusive rights to your product (for example, in a particular territory)
what happens if either you or the distributor want to end the relationship
Business ideas, Marketing and sales , promotions and advertising ideas , articles
Why Customers Buy
Why Customers Buy
brianoconn
Business Strategy, Business Tips, Social Media Marketing
March 6, 2015April 27, 2016
4 Minutes
Customers buy solutions to problems or solutions for outcomes they need to make their business or lives better. While pricing is important it usually ranks 3 or 4 on buyers criteria. Too many businesses rely on the assumption in the era of digital self-education that the most important thing to a customer is price. But buyers and consumers are moving away from the traditional purchasing funnel to a more enlightened decision journey that uses the Internet to change the way they research, value and buy products. If sales and marketing plans have not changed in response to the new buyer-driven decision journey, it better start soon.
So why do customers buy?
Before we answer that, the first thing to understand is that every customer has a decision journey. This journey has pre-purchase and post-purchase steps. The pre-purchase journey can be described as Awareness Consider Evaluate Buy. The post-purchase journey is Reflect Feel Decide.
In this article we will discuss the pre-purchase customer decision journey. Understanding the customer journey and its steps as to why customers buy can speed up the sales cycle improve conversation rates and drive revenue.
Awareness.
They say the goal of marketing is to reach potential customers within a specific market and influence their buying choices by making them aware of their brand or products. Today, buyers are so well informed and knowledgably thanks to the explosion of social media and digital channels, they can create a buyer consider list without the company ever having a sales conversation or contact. Marketing has to align itself to the awareness part of the decision journey. To raise awareness companies need to focus on buyer-driven marketing of which the internet is at the core. Pushing out brochures, advertisements or media buying as part of a company-driven marketing plan is still relevant but buyer-driven marketing is about creating digital properties that pull buyers towards the company, digital properties like whitepapers, product specific informational web sites, content marketing, customisable content, free product interactions, social selling, tools to engage people on social conversations about your industry and products, comment posting and world of mouth interactions, context marketing, etc. So buyer-driven marketing is about raising awareness to buyers who are already most likely engaged on the internet for your products and services.
Consider.
This is the part of the decision journey where consumers and buyers narrow down their buying funnel and start to consider what companies, brands or products they would contemplate purchasing from or not. Has the buyer-driven marketing plan got the business into the consideration phase of the journey? This can be measured by trigger events like web traffic, sales leads, inbound enquires, white paper downloads and via social media channels like twitter and Facebook. This is where marketing, sales, customer service have the tools to cover all the buyer touch points to make it easier for the buyer to move to the Evaluate step.
Evaluate.
This part of the decision journey is where buyers add and remove companies or brands as they further narrow (and qualify) their buying funnel. General evaluation leads on to active evaluation where information gathering, sales conversations, meetings, presentations, proposals come into the mix. Research shows during the evaluation phase buyers look for ease of use, ease of implementation, product offering and ease of connection to company (multiple touch points). This is also where buyer-driven marketing pays off as buyers now start to pull information from the internet, information like product reviews, white papers, and previous buyer ratings while also pulling insights into the company and product via free trials, proof of concept, face-to-face, phone or web interactions, customer references and company policies.
Buy.
Commitment to buy. Where the buyer selects a brand to do business with and makes the decision to purchase. This is where the company ensures all steps are kept to a minimum, whether its clicks, paperwork, compliance, set-up, downloads, configuration and payment.
Smarketing integrate all customer-facing activities
The shift in buyer-supplier selling process and the buyer decision journey means that marketers and sales leadership must adopt and view this change as an opportunity to be in the right place at the right time, giving buyers the information and support they need to make the decisions. Sales and marketing have to be one where every touch point from customer facing activities, web sites, PR, leads generation, customer awareness and sales is everyones responsibility.
Consider and Evaluate connect the dots for the buyer
What the buyer is looking for during these steps is Value. If a buyer cannot see the difference between two products, then price wins. If sales and marketing do not address the customer question How will I benefit from this product or service? in their buyer-driven and connect the dots for the buyer then the buyer will remove the company from the decision journey or go for lowest price solution.
Remember, people buy because they have needs, a problem needing solving, a goal that needs fulfilling, a situation that needs to be remedied, something that affects their life or business, and needs solutions. In the Consider and Evaluate steps buyer preferences usually fit into three main categories, known as PPI:
Productivity efficiency, ease of use, outputs
Profitability ROI, making money, increase revenue, improve profit margin
Image brand, style, reputation, approval, desirability (this is mainly consumers)
Buyer-driven marketing is focused on the buyer priorities with messaging on Productivity, Profitability or Image. Buyer-driven marketing also answers the question WWFM or what is in it for me? So why do customers buy?, most likely because a company and its people understand the customer decision journey, created an awareness link to the buyer and then sales, marketing, customer service and product working in unison took the buyer through the Consider and Evaluate steps with a systematic approach based on insights and relevant information
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Published by brianoconn
Online Sales training programs and online sales training courses via The Digital Sales Institute. Passion for helping salespeople succeed in their sales career.
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Published
March 6, 2015April 27, 2016
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