“How do I stand out in a sea of competition?” If you are a manufacturer who wants to increase your food and beverage equipment sales, then you may have found yourself asking this question on more than one occasion. The truth is, there is no catch-all answer. However, we have provided viable strategies that remove the guesswork from your sales and marketing processes.
Key Takeaways
- Videos are the most popular medium for marketers in the manufacturing industry. Research indicates that nearly 90% of manufacturers will continue to invest in this medium in 2022 and beyond.
- LinkedIn is the most effective social platform for B2B sales. The Sales Navigator feature allows businesses to connect with prospective clients easily.
- A personalized communication approach is a must. Research indicates that most consumers want to buy from businesses with a personalized marketing message.
Create a Visual Aid
In this era of digitalization, it is paramount for your business to have a visual identity. Video marketing is an effective strategy that can bolster your conventional marketing strategies and propel your brand’s visibility. Complex food and beverage equipment can serve as visual guides for exhibiting unique features and functions. You can create instructional videos that will walk potential buyers through the journey of safely handling and cleaning equipment.
You can leverage videos to increase awareness about your company’s mission and its leadership. They can serve as a tool for personalizing the customer experience before prospective clients ever contact your company. They can see your production facilities, manufacturing processes, and end products, creating rapport in a short amount of time.
From a video production standpoint, you can either record a video on a smartphone and edit it using mobile apps or hire production personnel to shoot content professionally. Next, you can upload them to social media accounts or your company website. Videos are the most popular medium for marketers in the manufacturing industry. By sharing video posts on social media, your business can connect with other manufacturing professionals, spread awareness about your food and beverage equipment, and offer transparency in the marketplace.
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Tailor to Your Target Audience
Your sales team doesn’t have to rely on cold calls or mass emailing their lead lists solely. Instead, they can approach lead generation with a personal touch backed by hard data. Additionally, team leaders should spend time training employees on how to employ personalization in their communication styles. Personalization allows your sales and marketing teams to build relationships with potential clients that go beyond the surface while allowing your company to better understand clients’ individual needs. A data-based approach can provide specific information. Some noteworthy data to consider includes:
- Tracking which emails your client/lead lists open
- Identifying what you have in common with the customer, such as preferences and relationships
- Understanding how clients and leads interact with your marketing materials. This includes video engagement, white paper downloads and webinar attendance, etc.
- Identifying the volume of traffic to your website and the webpages with the highest engagement
After you gauge buyer behavior, you can create a personal experience that will boost your food and beverage equipment sales. Statistically, most consumers state they only engage with marketing that has a personalized message. Manufacturers that leverage data can outlast the competition with organic communication with clients and a thorough understanding of their individual needs.
The Social Selling Strategy
Social selling is a strategy of developing trusted relationships through social media channels to increase sales. In many ways, this strategy goes hand in hand with personalized marketing because social media is a medium where many clients and leads share personal information. A platform such as LinkedIn is the most effective tool for B2B sales. Manufacturers who want to increase their food and beverage equipment sales should consider the following steps on LinkedIn:
- Search for leads on LinkedIn using the Sales Navigator feature
- Send them a personalized message with them detailing why you want to connect with them
- Create natural engagement with leads by sharing content, liking, and commenting on their posts
- After engaging, message them directly and provide solutions to problems or ask them how your product or service can benefit them
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This strategy allows your sales team to avoid spamming leads with messages or taking an approach that feels “sales-based” rather than “human-based.” This approach is rooted in behavioral research and problem solving first, rather than aggressive one-size-fits-all sales tactics. Data states that nearly one-third of sales professionals believe social selling allows them to develop deeper connections with leads, making it easier to move them along the sales funnel and avoid conversations that distract from the sales process.
Team leads should also encourage sales and marketing team members to curate professional social media profiles and post content that positions them as industry experts and thought leaders. This is an important strategy for creating audience engagement and brand awareness. There is a bevy of strategies for creating engaging social media content. It is simply a matter of identifying which of these are best suited for your brand and target audience.
Embrace Email Marketing
While social selling is an effective strategy that you should utilize, it is important to consider that not every client or lead uses social media. Additionally, selling on social media means that your content’s visibility is at the mercy of that platform’s algorithm and audience engagement. There is another form of marketing that can boost your food and beverage equipment sales outside of social platforms — email marketing.
Email marketing is a powerful tool. Almost 90% of marketers use email to deliver content to their audiences. Businesses that communicate with their audiences regularly via email stay visible to prospects and increase the likelihood of existing customers returning for repeat business. Businesses can keep audiences updated about their operations and industry news with periodic email newsletters, greet new clients with welcome letters, and trigger recurring business with re-engagement emails. Email marketing allows you to foster relationship growth over time and convert subscribers into clients.
Connect to Increase Food and Beverage Equipment Sales
Every manufacturer will need a unique strategy for engaging with their audience to increase their food and beverage equipment sales. Therefore, manufacturers in the food and beverage industries should attend SIAL America. It is an annual opportunity for manufacturers to meet with industry peers to strategize and learn how they can increase their marketing efforts to drive sales.
Contact us to learn about the next event.
