Do you find it hard to believe that marketing can make a difference and improve the sales figures of your SME or engineering firm? This article should give you some explanations!
👉 The mission of industrial marketing is to help salespeople sell better: sell more / increase average basket size / find new markets, etc. 👈
Here's how...
Personas in the industry
What?! Yes, it's another piece of jargon from our dear marketers... Explanation: "In marketing, a persona is a fictional person representing a segment or target group, and more specifically, ideal customers."(source: e-marketing.fr)
To put it simply, it's a detailed portrait of your ideal customer. You give them a name, an age, a job title. You assign them a company, determine whether they manage a team, etc. The goal is to visualize them as much as possible, then list the challenges they face on a daily basis, the issues they deal with... All this information is then formatted to reflect their purchasing journey and potential obstacles.
❓ What's the point? Creating these personas allows you to gain considerable insight into your customers. As a result, your communication, prospecting, and negotiation efforts become more effective.
Generating qualified B2B leads
🚨 If you had to remember just one thing about the benefits of industrial marketing, it would be this: an effective B2B marketing strategy must have an impact on sales and, ideally, generate qualified leads!
Of course, in order to generate relevant and regular incoming requests, certain upfront investments are necessary (a high-performance website, some premium content, regular communication, etc.). However, this does not mean spending hundreds of thousands of dollars (although we won't stop you if you want to!).
Even with a tight budget, if the strategy you develop is effective, you can increase your number of incoming requests by 10 to 15% within the first few months. This will save your sales representatives hours of unnecessary cold calling. They will finally be able to focus on tasks with higher added value!
Pre-sale content
Marketing levers, particularly those used to create the personas we just mentioned, are extremely useful for feeding content used in pre-sales. A general company brochure is no longer enough! You need to work on your differentiating factors and offer an original, customer-focused message. This will enable you to shorten decision-making cycles, reduce the importance of price as a criterion, make a lasting impression on your prospects, and more.
The mission of industrial marketing is therefore to create compelling pre-sales content. Here is a summary of the steps involved:
- Clearly define the sales process, or sales pipeline
- Identify strategic communication priorities (differentiate media based on industry verticals, types of companies, target professions, etc.)
- Ensure that the materials created reach and appeal to the target audience.
- Regularly review this process and continuously improve it, with the help of sales representatives in the field.
👉 The benefit is therefore simple: sell more and, above all, sell better!
Support materials for cross-selling and up-selling
On the sales side, marketing also has a significant benefit: creating strategies to improve cross-selling and up-selling.
Cross-selling = Cross-selling involves offering, at the time of sale or later, a product that complements the one purchased.
Up selling = The practice of offering a product or service that is slightly superior and more expensive than the one the prospect is interested in.
In industry, it is not uncommonto be confined to a very specificfield of activity by clients (or buyers), even though your area of expertise is much broader.
Close collaboration between marketing and sales helps to break down these barriers. The goal is to offer more comprehensive solutions to existing customers (adding a maintenance service, for example) or to move them upmarket. This involves creating dedicated content, optimizing sales pitches, and analyzing customer data to better identify potential opportunities.
