— Products
Increasing Manufacturing Sales
Manufacturing is a wide and complex sector. This can mean often a deeper analysis is required to provide the foundation of your manufacturing business’s increased sales. Here we will look into the top 6 methods most frequently used.
At a top level, these include: inbound sales mindset, CRM choice, relationship with buyers, sales rep’s content and using your business’s website as a sales tool.
So, how exactly can I increase sales for my business in the manufacturing industry?
Audio 7.40 Minutes
— About
Your inbound sales mindset
Being truthful, sometimes salespeople can be considered pushy. Think about all the times you have bought something when you didn’t really want it… this sales tactic that is full of pressure is defined as ‘outbound selling’. It consists of professionals whose sole concern is to achieve a sale from you.
In the manufacturing industry, it is more than likely that some of your customers could face this product-focused selling persona. Whereby each of your sales team are emphasising the benefits and features of the product as opposed to understanding why it is suited to this customer specifically. This outbound selling technique is outdated and something that should be kept to a bare minimum. Just because it’s never been changed, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be.
Inbound selling takes a completely different approach. In a nutshell it is an improved and more effective way of selling. It is based on 4 key stages as follows:
Identification: of your target audience. Whilst it is tempting to attempt to sell to a wider audience, it is ineffective. Try and focus on the companies most suited to your brand, larger companies with permanent contracts for example.
Connection: building the customer relationship is crucial in converting a sale. Your sales people must develop a tailored approach to each individual customer based on their needs specifically. Your potential customer must be under the impression the sales person is trying to help them rather than sell to them.
Exploration: by engaging the correct portion of audience into your sales funnel, you can show them how to achieve a goal or solve a problem with your product or service directly. This highlights the importance of your sales team.
Advice giving: after you have built a meaningful rapport with a customer you can introduce your products or services, then provide your expert advice on how this item or service would solve their problem.
Manufacturing Sales Process Overview
Find Your Target Audience
Tap into a network of buyers in your industry. You can do this by reviewing existing clients, researching relevant linkedin groups and forums to join etc.
02.
Review Issues
Find out what issues buyers are facing such as delivery, volume, costs, quality etc. Review your historical data and speak to relevant personnel to determine their existing issues.
03.
Find Solutions
Deliver tailor-made journey that is cost effective and quality driven that will solve these problems for your buyers.
What to Expect
Steve ( Growthlytics) has dedicated his career to Digital Marketing and his knowledge and skills in this area are second to none. These skills married with a solid knowledge of lead generation make him a huge asset to any online business.
DAVID BROOKS
US DIRECTOR AT MONEVO.COM
How do you market a manufacturing company?
Who is responsible marketing?
How can a business increase sales?
How do you attract customers?
How do you increase sales?
— Increase Sales
Your CRM choice
If your business is at the stage where it can manage without a Customer Relationship Management system (CRM), then hopefully it will not be in this stage of infancy for much longer after following our advice. However, most companies would not be able to function without their CRM as spreadsheets are outdated.
Popular CRM systems come with different benefits and functionalities which in itself is fantastic, however, this can be overwhelming when looking into a CRM system for the first time. Basically, a CRM can transform the activity of your sales, in a number of ways, here are the main ones:
Distribution of important information: It’s not a secret that teams work better in a collaborative environment, but this applies even more so to sales teams. Mainly, it prevents multiple agents contacting the same lead or customer.
Sales deals can be tracked: Understanding and organising individual sales deals each salesperson has in the pipeline is easier to keep track of. By customising the platform you will be able to more efficiently follow your sales strategy.
Easy generation of sales reports: If your business is lacking basic tools such as ROI report generators, your company cannot grow, as it will not be running efficiently. Investing in an effective CRM system, you will be able to quickly and efficiently generate simple reports.
Sales process automation: Sometimes it is possible in inbound marketing to conduct a sales call with no prior contact. This is most typical from a free downloadable for example. This method is extremely efficient, however must be approached with caution to avoid sounding overly automated.
Your relationship with buyers
If your business is guilty of a product-first approach to selling as discussed earlier on this page, you risk not knowing your buyers. This means you have been less interested in the person buying the product and more focused on the product itself.
For manufacturers entering new markets, this can work if conducted correctly. However, most companies have found too heavily focused on a marketing trend or product-centric approach. This will not help increase your manufacturing sales. Remind your business that internal factors are just as important, if not more so. The right mix of internal factors is key to the success of your business and the generation of increased revenue.
— Contact Relations:
Your contact warming process
No one enjoys receiving cold calls or emails that they didn’t ask for, regarding a product or service they’re not interested in. In addition, it’s likely if you received this type of correspondence from a company, you’d be less likely to use said business in the future. Cold calls also feels unnatural as often the seller is reading from a script.
By changing your approach and adopting warmer means of contact, this often describes having made contact previously to a call. Methods of contact usually include newsletter emails or booking a meeting.
Making warm contact means that you should have alternative contact channels for your potential customers to interact with within your marketing strategy. This means initially investing in your wider marketing strategy and lead generation methods such as social media and a robust CRM that can hold personal information.
In any industry, but particularly manufacturing, content is an important part of marketing. However, content is also an extremely important aspect to most other businesses, especially your sales department. This can be tailored to your company specifically but in a nutshell describes the right information being distributed at the right points in time.
The benefits of your manufacturing product or service should be highlighted and the solutions they provide can be wrapped up and delivered to the potential customer by the sales team in a digestible form. This prevents over-complicating the solution and confusing the customer.
— Rep’s Content:
Your sales rep’s content
Your website as a sales tool
Overall your website is your greatest asset in gaining more manufacturing leads and sales. As your customers first touchpoint, your website crafts the first impression a lead will have of your products and services as well as brand as a whole.
When building a new website, three things should be considered: it’s design, then your website’s user experience then your marketing approach. Each aspect should be as highly regarded as the next:
- Design: An aesthetically pleasing website is more likely to generate interest.
- User experience: a streamlined content journey should be clear when user’s land on your website. A visitor is likely to bounce back off your website if this journey is confusing.
- Marketing: With enticing website content and clear action, visibility will increase and users will spend more time reading through your content.
With this advice and guidance you can begin increasing your manufacturing sales and leads today. Having patience is key… These changes won’t happen overnight but the principles can be applied to your entire marketing strategy for longevity.
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