If your company sells equipment or machinery, marketing isn’t quite as simple as it can sometimes be for companies that market directly to consumers. Instead of only having to appeal to one specific person, your marketing tactics often have to resound with an entire team of decision makers. Many business to business, or B2B, marketers face this challenge, but it certainly isn’t impossible to do. To effectively market your vendor business, you need a well-though-out plan that includes digital strategies and tactics to achieve the desired results. This requires an investment in time and money to do it right. This blog post from Union Commercial Capital discusses 5 equipment vendor marketing strategies for you to consider.
Develop A Marketing Plan
A marketing plan is a roadmap to your vendor business’s marketing and advertising efforts. It is a comprehensive document that outlines how you will reach your marketing objectives and equipment sales goals. To be complete and effective, your marketing plan should include an analysis of the current market situation and your target audience and a budget for implementing the strategies and tactics outlined in the plan.
Put Your Plan In Action
Once your marketing plan is finished and contains all the components listed in the section above, it is time to put it into action. With careful planning, creating an effective marketing campaign can reach a broad audience while staying within budget is possible. Typical marketing strategies for equipment vendors are website marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), video marketing, and outbound efforts such as targeted emails to business owners and decision-makers.
1) Website Marketing
Your vendor business serves customers in a specific area, but you can still expand your reach. A website opens the door to more brand awareness and leads outside your city or town. Your website’s home page and landing pages should have copywriting and messaging that resonate with your intended audience and feature keywords that are highly searched. A content writer can conduct a keyword analysis for your vendor business and write original web copy or update your existing website pages, which can drive users to landing pages on your website.
Enhance your website by adding pages with easy-to-use search functionality for users so they can see your inventory. Detailed equipment listings with photographs, prices, and information can create interest and help you and your team close more deals.
2) Optimize Your Site For Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization is the process of making your site easier to read and organize for search engines. Then, once search engines can read it, they can show your site to users who want to become customers.
Your Google My Business profile is an effective tool to reach customers in organic search results and maps. Information from your GMB profile populates the Google Knowledge Graph and Google Maps, enabling customers to contact you, get directions, and see customer reviews. If you haven't done so already, claim a Google My Business profile for each location. Fill out the company name, address, phone, website, and categories, as well as any additional information you can provide. Complete the verification process to access your complete profile and ensure it's eligible to show up in search results.
On an ongoing basis, you should manage the content submitted by the general public. Report any spam reviews and be sure to upload your own photography. We've seen more than one equipment dealer account with a picture of a driveway as their primary business image!
3) Email Marketing
Email marketing is a powerful tool for your equipment vendor business to reach and build relationships with existing and potential customers. Emails can nurture leads, increase engagement and sales, promote special offers and new inventory, and drive customer loyalty.
Many email marketing platforms are designed for small businesses with contact lists in the hundreds or thousands. They are cost-effective, too. Email services for small companies typically charge a monthly fee and additional costs based on the number of contacts you send emails to and the volume of emails.
Developing a successful email marketing campaign for your equipment vendor business can be challenging, so consider hiring an email marketing specialist to write your sales and follow-up emails. To be effective, you must consider various factors such as the subject line, message, design, timing, etc. You will also need to measure the effectiveness of your email campaigns. Most email marketing platforms provide analytics information such as email open rate (the percentage of recipients who click to open a given email) and clickthrough rate (the percentage of recipients who click on one or more links in your email).
4) Sales Based Geo-Targeting
In general, it is recommended limiting geotargeting for new equipment, rentals, and parts & service campaigns to 60-80 miles around each location. For used equipment campaigns, you can push geotargeting out to 80+ miles, especially if you're bidding on inventory specific terms and see results.
Geotargeting is one of the few components in a digital advertising strategy that can make or break your success, and you should combine these general best practices with your own sales data. Using a combination of historic sales-by-zip code date and OEM territory boundaries, you can create a targeting strategy that's custom-fit to your customer base.
5) Start a YouTube Channel
Your prospective customers want to invest in the equipment, vehicles, or technology you sell, and naturally, they want to see it before moving forward. Business product videos are a great way to showcase these items and provide an inside look at your showroom and lot. Videos can also create an emotional connection with customers, increasing sales and customer loyalty.
Unlike years past, creating videos to promote your equipment vendor business does not require a big production or lots of fancy equipment. They can be made with a smartphone or tablet with a built-in video camera. Or, you can use a digital video camera to make videos. Some ideas include a video tour of your showroom and lot and a video of your available inventory. Plus, you can feature video footage of you and your sales team to add a human element.
If you're planning to add any videos to your website, it's wise to create a YouTube channel. A channel is the perfect platform for you to clearly illustrate what your equipment is capable of, and can be much more interesting than images.
You can show videos of your equipment in action, post video testimonials from happy customers, and share basically any other kind of content in video format. Not only will this allow you to address important aspects of your equipment, as well as educate consumers, but YouTube is a convenient platform for hosting the videos you want to share on your site and social media accounts.
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