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Using Digital Marketing to Keep Your Pipeline Full in the Material Handling Industry: Video Short

Using Digital Marketing to Keep Your Pipeline Full in the Material Handling Industry: Video Short

by | Mar 21, 2019 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Manufacturing & Distribution, Marketing, Supply Chain

When it comes to growing your material handling business, digital marketing can set your company apart, capture quality leads, and keep your sales pipeline full.

 

Highlights:

  • Material handling is extremely competitive and faces challenges like rising interest rates, trade policies that are increasingly inhospitable, and a scarcity of skilled labor, among others.
  • Blog posts, e-books, tip sheets, guides, case studies, videos, and other forms of content go a long way toward attracting prospects to your digital assets.
  • Arming your sales rep with targeted content to share with prospects during specific moments of the purchasing process advances their reputation as a knowledge source.

Last year, the MAPI Foundation predicted an average of 2.8% growth in manufacturing over the next three years, as well as an increase in capital equipment expenditure by over twice that. For makers of material handling equipment like conveyers, lift-trucks, and handling structures, MAPI’s forecast is good news.

As with all aspects of the supply chain industry, material handling is extremely competitive and faces challenges like rising interest rates, trade policies that are increasingly inhospitable, and a scarcity of skilled labor, among others.

For your business to participate in the forecasted global growth, your best bet is a sales funnel that’s consistently filled with quality prospects. But how do you make that happen?

Here’s where content marketing can help.

Digital marketing keeps you visible to your highest quality prospects

In the fiercely competitive material handling landscape, in which potential customers have a wide array of options, marketers face the challenge of visibility within the industry. Setting your business apart from your competition is obviously crucial to cultivating and captivating leads.

[bctt tweet=”Blog posts, e-books, tip sheets, guides, case studies, videos — all these forms of content go a long way toward attracting prospects to your digital assets, building trust, growing your reputation, and, ultimately, converting leads.” username=”Fronetics”]

Perhaps your best strategy for achieving this kind of visibility is content. Blog posts, e-books, tip sheets, guides, case studies, videos — all these forms of content go a long way toward attracting prospects to your digital assets, building trust, growing your reputation, and, ultimately, converting leads.

Generating leads with content

A content-rich site has great advantages in terms of SEO (for more on this, check out our four-part series on writing for SEO), which is key to visibility. Creating quality content and structuring your site effectively will help capture leads. As developing and sharing content attracts prospects to your site, effective calls-to-action (CTAs) drive prospects to share their contact information in exchange for information that has value for them.

Keep in mind when planning and creating your content that your goal is not to push your products — a mistake many material handling marketers make. Instead, use your content to demonstrate to prospects that you have a deep understanding of their business and the unique needs and challenges they face. Offer useful information for each stage of the buyer’s journey. Remember, the most valuable asset you have to offer is your knowledge and expertise.

Align content with sales

Keeping your sales pipeline full is your goal when it comes to competing in the material handling marketplace. Arming your sales rep with targeted content to share with prospects during specific moments of the purchasing process advances their reputation as a knowledge source. That can be the key to getting a foot in the door, advancing through the final stages of a purchasers’ decision, or closing the deal.

When digital marketing and sales work together, you’ll see the results hit your bottom line. Curating and creating great content will generate quality leads for your company. And it also empowers your sales force to build relationships with potential customers — and close the sale.

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Three Ways Content Marketing Should Change How You Sell

Three Ways Content Marketing Should Change How You Sell

by | Dec 5, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Supply Chain

Content marketing is reshaping the sales process. Here’s what this strategic resource can do for you.

We’ve said it before, and we’ll probably say it again: content marketing is not about making a sales pitch. Nor is it a substitute or replacement for an expert sales staff. However, with the right strategy, and with a closely aligned sales and marketing team, this inbound approach to marketing can revolutionize the way supply chain businesses approach sales.

There’s no question that content marketing has changed the sales process. Thanks to the content and resources available to them, potential customers are more informed as they enter the buyer’s journey. Content marketing helps generate a steady flow of quality leads and provides targeted information to usher prospects down the sales funnel.

[bctt tweet=”Content marketing helps generate a steady flow of quality leads and provides targeted information to usher prospects down the sales funnel.” username=”Fronetics”]

In this new environment, marketing and sales need to work in tandem to be at their most effective. This way they can help each other generate leads, nurture current leads more effectively, and close more deals. Here are three important ways content marketing is changing the way businesses accomplish these goals:

1) Inbound over outbound

Old school marketing was all about outbound — a marketing approach that pushes a message onto a buyer. Traditional advertising — tv and radio ads, telemarketing, banner and display ads — are all examples of outbound marketing. Content marketing takes the opposite approach: inbound marketing.

Inbound marketing focuses on audiences finding you. Instead of pushing a message onto buyers, inbound marketing allows you to establish your brand as an industry leader and let interested audiences come to you. This type of marketing attempts to draw in potential customers through interesting and engaging content.

When it comes to sales, inbound marketing is a game-changer. Content marketing is all about creating a relationship with prospects and paving the way for the sales team to nurture and develop that relationship. Your sales staff is empowered to nurture more leads through to conversion when they are armed with effective, targeted content.

2) Providing information

Once your prospect is ushered into the sales funnel, content marketing can help your sales team continue the conversation. The content you share with prospects at this stage of the buyer’s journey should be designed to answer informed questions and demonstrate that your products and services are there to meet their needs.

Quality content is your sales staff’s best friend. As sales personnel answer questions from prospects and help guide them toward conversion, email, blog, and other types of content are key to keeping prospects interested and moving them down the funnel.

3) Cultivate loyalty

Converting leads is important, but it’s only half the battle. Cultivating loyal customers for your business is crucial to success. Content marketing can not only help you do this, but it can turn those loyal customers into ambassadors for your brand.

Your sales staff should use the high-quality content and guidance provided by your marketing team to engage with satisfied customers on social channels like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Rather than trying to push products, they can use these social spaces to share expert information and foster conversations that will lead other prospects to your business.

Content marketing and sales are a match made in heaven. Curating and creating great content will generate quality leads for your company. It also empowers your sales force to build relationships with potential customers — and close the sale.

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