Introduction

The world of wholesaling is vastly different than the retail industry. Fancy marketing tactics, like creative advertising and a website with all the bells and whistle are usually reserved for retail-oriented brands.

This has left many owners, managers and other influencers in wholesaling industries to focus more on running an efficient business operation for their success, while giving limited consideration to marketing their goods and services.

We’re here to make a case against that line of thinking. While we won’t dismiss the fact that certain marketing elements are better reserved for consumer-facing industries, that doesn’t mean we should neglect opportunities. In fact, the 57% of B2B customers now want access to their account and orders online, meaning that they are starting their searches online as well.

Instead of ignoring marketing, wholesalers should just take a different approach. Even in B2B sales, people still buy from people. And people won’t buy from people they can’t find or can’t easily get the information they need to make an informed decision.

That’s where an effective wholesale B2B web design layout comes into play. This will be the foundation of your business’ online presence and marketing strategy, so we’ll start here!

Why Do You Need a Great Website?

Many wholesale businesses see their website as an “online brochure” that is a nice-to-have but not a need-to-have. Let’s look at a few reasons this way of thinking may be a bit misguided.

Product & Resource Organization

If you’re like most wholesalers, you are working with a large variety of SKUs and inventory management is a large part of running a successful business. Having an effective website can do wonders for your overall organization of all your products and resources.

A well-organized website can easily keep all of your products sorted by various categories, with stock management, pricing discounts, and all sorts of other valuable functionality built into the website itself. Your customers will love being able to easily find what they are looking for, and your internal team will be able to keep track of things too.

Including a search functionality in your website will also enable you and your customers to easily look up various SKUs & product numbers without having to flip through catalogs or make a bunch of phone calls.

Sales are important, but using your website to stay organized can be just as, if not more, valuable!

Streamlines Your Sales Process

While a website is often thought of as a tool for existing and potential customers, good wholesale B2B web design can also support your sales team. Being easily able to access your most updated digital catalog, see customer order history, and review real-time inventory levels are just a few of the ways a website can not just offer value to your customers but improve your sales performance internally as well.

Additionally, having a website enables you to set up gated pages and products, meaning your team can be prepared to offer password-protected pricing and services, without fear of having everything open and visible to the public.

CRM & ERP Integration

Keeping track of your customers and resources is a full-time job, many times over. The good news a well-designer wholesaler website can integrate with your existing CRM and ERP programs. This means that your website won’t add another disconnected system that manually requires tracking and updating, but will actually reduce data redundancy and keep your business running smoothly.

Customer Support

Being reachable by phone is crucial for any business, but especially wholesalers. However, many don’t have effective systems built out for support outside of normal working hours. Your wholesale B2B website design can and should include both an email support platform as well as a FAQ section. This will enable potential customers to solve their own problems faster as well as be able to reach out to you via email if they prefer. The more options you have available, the more confidence your lead will be that you can deliver on your promises.

On-The-Go Functionality

Any good website design these days should be fully mobile-responsive. That means your website will look good on any screen size, from a smartphone to a desktop computer. By having a well-designed and organized website, both your internal team and your customers will be able to get the information they need, 24/7.

Wholesale B2B Web Design to Grow Your Business

Hopefully you’re starting to see how a well-designed wholesaler website can streamline your operations and reinforce value with existing customers. But can your website help your company grow by bringing in new business?

Absolutely.

Attract New Customers through Online Search

One advantage B2B companies have, especially wholesale companies, is that they are essentially built for maximum search engine visibility. Here’s why:

1. Generally less competition compared to retail brands
2. Large product and/or service catalog makes it possible to target and rank for a plethora of keywords
3. Specific niche searches are usually made with high purchase intent.

It’s pretty obvious why there are less wholesalers in the world than retailers. This means your company generally has an easier climb to the top of the mountain. Assuming your product and category pages are well optimized, ranking is not just easier for your primary search terms, but all your individual products as well. Lastly, somebody searching for a very specific style of wholesale neon fabric is much more likely to take action once they find it than someone searching for basketball shoes.

High Customer Value

To sweeten the pot even more, new leads and/or orders that come in from a strong wholesale B2B website design are usually substantially higher, justifying any website and marketing costs much more quickly than retail marketing campaigns, which often involve years of brand awareness before the scales start to tip towards significant profitability.

So while there may be more search volume for “basketball shoes” than “wholesale neon fabric,” the latter may lead to a 4, 5 or even 6-figure purchase. Even getting a handful of good new leads online each month for your wholesale company can justify an entire year’s worth of marketing spend.

Build Your Email List

Let’s imagine your new website, perfectly built for your ideal customer, convenient for staff, and wonderfully optimized for search engines. Where do you go from here? Well, usually you’ll start seeing a good uptick of new business considering what has already been discussed. But it doesn’t stop there. You can give your leads an opportunity to develop a relationship with your company even if they aren’t ready to buy immediately. How do you do this?

Give ‘em a deal!

First Time Customer Offer

Creating a (non-intrusive) pop-up or chat box on your website that showcases a special deal for new customers in exchange for their email address is the perfect way to start a new relationship. This offer could be for a free sample, a first order discount, or some other “lead magnet” (such as a PDF ebook). The lead enters their email, and they automatically receive their discount coupon or special instructions on how to activate their promotion. After this point, they are “in your tribe,” and nurturing the relationship with a monthly newsletter or other email marketing strategy is cost effective and leads to great results.

Mind Your Analytics

At this point, the fun really starts. Your website should be  set up with analytics (we use Google Analytics) and you can start measuring the actual ROI for your website and marketing. Here’s how it works:

1. You run your numbers to figure out the average lifetime value (or annual revenue) of a customer to your business.
2. Review your website analytics to determine how many website visitors you get, how many sign up for your new customer offer, and then how many actually turn into customers.
3. Determine your target “acquisition budget” for getting a new customer.

At that point you can figure out how well your website and marketing is performing. It looks like this:

• Company A’s average customer spends $20,000 per year with them, for a minimum of 5 years ($100,000+ LTV)
• Company A’s (new and improved!) website is now getting 1,000 visitors per month. 50 of them are claiming the offer, and 5 of them are redeeming it and turning into new customers.
• Company A budgets 5% of gross revenue for marketing and advertising.

5 new customers equates to $500,000 of lifetime revenue for company A. 5% of $500,000 is $25,000. So theoretically, Company A could sustainably spend $25,000 per month on their website and online marketing each month and easily justify it assuming these numbers keep working out. Considering most SEO campaigns for wholesale companies would run in the $1,000 to $5,000 / mo range, you can hopefully start to see the opportunity this holds for many wholesalers.

Deploy Other Marketing Strategies

Once you have your new website set up, know your numbers, and have a profitable funnel (website > offer > new customer), then you can start exploring other advertising channels, such as Google Adwords or Facebook Ads, and understand with confidence if you are spending in a sustainable way.

Managing Your Wholesale Website & Marketing Efforts

Even if you are fully on board with us at this point, you may be wondering how to put all of this into motion. Many wholesale companies keep themselves very busy and always have a million things going on.

Others may be busy but are also fearful of getting “tied” to a web design or marketing company forever, and are fearful of losing control and endlessly being at the mercy of their marketing partner.

Before you engage an any website development or marketing efforts, make sure you approach this question beforehand with the agency you are considering. Here at Midas, we offer three different approaches depending on what suits your business best.

Full Service

You’re busy and need a trustworthy, transparent marketing partner to go full throttle on your behalf. If this option is the most expensive, but it saves you the headspace, management, overhead and everything else that goes with successful outsourcing. When running a campaign like this, we will set budgets and goals at the beginning and execute on your behalf, working in the background while also “owning” the campaign or website process as if we were a part of your internal team.

Semi-Managed

Semi-Managed websites and/or marketing campaigns are often a good mix for a business that has some bandwidth and expertise in house, but not a lot. Maybe one of your internal staff has a few hours each week to help with marketing and updating the website. In this case (for us), we would assist with some of the more complex or time consuming tasks, but still be able to save you a bit of cash considering what you’re able to fulfill in house on the marketing and web development side of things.

Complete Handoff

For those that have staff bandwidth or other resources to manage the website and marketing efforts in house, we recommend a complete handoff. The website is built and screenshare tutorials are created so your team knows exactly how to do everything they’ll need to do. As the videos are lasting assets, you can even keep your website and marketing going strong through staff turnover or other transitions. And of course, we’d only be a call or email away if we were the ones working with you!

Final Thoughts

We hope you have enjoyed this fairly deep dive into wholesale B2B web design and marketing!

While marketing opportunities in this space may be different than the retail world, there is no shortage of ways to win with high customer lifetime values, extensive SEO opportunities and less competition for visibility and market share.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below. If you are ready to learn more about what it would take to revamp your own wholesale company’s website, click here!

The post Wholesale B2B Web Design: A Roadmap to Success appeared first on Midas Marketing.

There’s a huge misconception among business owners about Facebook’s ability to generate leads with B2B Facebook ads. Facebook isn’t just for consumers sharing motivational quotes and posting holiday photos. With 1.59 billion active users, there’s surely something for B2B companies here as well. But, how can you crack the code on Facebook ads and open up the floodgates to success?

Let’s find out.

1. Don’t Limit Your Ads to Your Facebook Page’s Audience

Sharing content on Facebook regularly is a great strategy for your business. But you can’t really grow and acquire new leads if you limit yourself to the people following you. Here’s the thing: if you are sharing content with an audience of 1,000 people then they’re the only ones engaging with you. Of course, you might get some shares, but that’s not always guaranteed.

Facebook advertising gives you the possibility to target an audience of over one billion users. You don’t have to have any connection with them, and your Facebook ads will appear in their newsfeed as sponsored content. However, make sure that the people you target match your buyer’s persona profile.

2. Take Advantage of Custom Audiences

Setting a Custom Audience is a powerful tool that allows you to create lists of people you want to target. Most people use the same email address for all their social media accounts. So, chances are, you have a bunch of email addresses lying in your database, unused. Facebook allows you to upload these addresses and target users based on them.

If you want to get more B2B leads, it would be smart to segment your database into specific demographics.

3. Target B2B Audiences

You probably know already that you can set up your Facebook ads based on location, age, or gender. But, did you know that you can make the job title a factor, as well? Use this great feature to target different work categories and to secure more B2B leads.

• Employer: Take advantage of this category if you already know which companies you want to target for your Facebook ads.

• Job Title: Facebook’s advertising platform allows you to target broad categories, such as doctors, lawyers, or entrepreneurs, but also specific job titles, such as creative director or executive accountant.

If your company sells a network security service, you’d likely want to target decision makers working in IT departments.

4. Make Your Offer Appealing

B2C companies often lure prospects with discounts, vouchers, special offers, and other incentives. You can use the same strategy to get more leads. But, instead of getting a prospect to buy a product right away, you likely need to convince them to subscribe to your newsletter or visit your website. Offer them something they can’t say no to, such as free access to exclusive content or an important industry report. After you get them logged into your CRM, your ongoing marketing efforts and your sales team should be able to close the deal!

5. Focus on Lost Prospects

Sure, getting new leads is important, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore lost ones. In fact, you should use the information you get from them to improve your Facebook ads. Try to figure out why they bounced off your site without taking any action. Use the Facebook Pixel to target users who visited a specific landing page and to make your offer more attractive to them.

Facebook offers a whole spectrum of possibilities to B2B companies. But you need to take advantage of them and learn how to use them to generate more leads.

If you need help with your Facebook advertising needs, don’t hesitate to contact us. We’d love to learn more about your business and help you identify opportunities!

The post Facebook Ads for B2B: 5 Ways to Generate Leads appeared first on Midas Marketing.

Inbound Marketing for B2B Companies

The B2B world is often very familiar with bigger invoices and a more considered buying process. These principles make the industry a great fit for Inbound marketing. Inbound marketing for B2B companies offers many benefits over outbound marketing strategies, including the three highlighted in this article.

High-priced purchases are well researched, giving your business an opportunity to shine with good content.

Most of the B2B businesses are in the high price product/service spectrum, where buyers usually do a bit of homework before investing their money. For instance, if you were selling industrial products the business looking to purchase these products would consider all the specifications of your products. They would research to understand the features of your product, your asking price and your warranty. A well-strategized inbound campaign would help you increase your online visibility and improve your odds of being found when potential customers are carrying out product research before buying them. If a potential customer finds your site first after an online search, they will instantly connect your brand with trust and thought leadership. Offering them a content piece as a free download in exchange for their basic contact information is a good way to start moving them along the Inbound marketing sales funnel.

B2B purchasing decisions are generally more considered, meaning it’s less likely you will interrupt someone to close a deal on a whim, and more common that you’ll win a good lead by attracting interest with great content.

Engage pre-qualified leads with strategic content marketing.

Inbound marketing is all about having your customers find you, rather than the other way around. This is accomplished by creating valuable content that is then distributed through social media and discovered through online search. If done right, you are able to build your content strategy around the unique product or service your business offers. With Inbound marketing, every lead is pre-qualified in a sense, as they found you based on what your business can do for them. Make sure you leverage this strategy to tell your authentic brand story, and you’ll see conversion rates soar.

Improves Trust & Credibility

Marketing is as much about delivering the right message as it is about understanding the psychology of the target audience. Outbound marketing has lost its credibility as you are usually trying to push a product or a service that the customer may not be interested in. On the other hand, Inbound marketing is driven by the buyer. They would visit your page or social media accounts because they have chosen to do so and haven’t been forced to listen to your marketing pitch. They are equally as enthusiastic about your products or services as you are about selling it to them. Through this process, Inbound marketing improves trust and credibility for any B2B business. This is why we believe Inbound marketing for B2B companies can be so effective!

The post Inbound Marketing for B2B Companies appeared first on Midas Marketing.

5 Great Examples of B2B WordPress Website Design

You may have seen our article on high-converting B2B websites, and we’d argue that the using WordPress as your base is the first step to a high performing B2B website. Simply put, WordPress has redefined web development, and B2B WordPress website design is no exception. From personal blogs to large corporate websites, it enables individuals, businesses and institutions to create a strong online footprint. Thousands of WordPress themes and plugins have reduced the concept-to-product time, making it the most desired Content Management System in the world. Regardless of the industry you are in, WordPress usually offers all your business needs to achieve its digital goals.

B2B companies have increasingly benefited from the WordPress platform. From small start-ups to large businesses, WordPress delivers stunning design opportunities and plenty of functionality. With easily available themes and B2B-specific plugins, there are many examples of creativity and technical acumen all around. In this post, we take a look at five great examples of B2B WordPress websites:

#1 Little
As strategic design consultants and storytellers for businesses ranging from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, Little’s site perfectly captures the ethos of their brand. The newly-designed site with a large banner immediately grabs your attention. This website is a perfect example of a minimalistic design that is eye-catching and responsive across all devices, a built in feature of all good WordPress themes.

#2 Healogix
Healogix is one of sites that instantly catches your attention the moment you land on it. The leading global health care marketing research and consulting firm uses a traditional site structure that offers a great experience on both on desktops/laptops and handheld devices.

#3 Mixpanel
Mixpanel offers a good example of using both strong design and functionality within the WordPress framework. The design is engaging through subtle, well-integrated animations and transitions, and the login portal highlights WordPress’ ability to offer back-end functionality as well, such as user profiles.

Mixpanel is a strong example of a B2B site using WordPress as their foundation.

#4 Openview
Openview uses the WordPress multisite feature and has integrated a blog, a lab website, and a corporate website into one. These three are seamlessly interconnected and built over a centralized theme. The well-organized structure offers a great user experience for visitors, which is why it makes our list as an excellent B2B WordPress website design example.

#5 True Ventures
True Ventures is a go-to website for small businesses and startups looking for venture capitalists. The use of a simple site structure and clear communication delivers information to visitors in an engaging format. Sticking with the theme, True Ventures’ website is fully responsive across all devices.

With effective design, concise messaging and a good strategy, B2B websites can thrive on the WordPress platform. Thanks for reading and don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions!

The post 5 B2B WordPress Website Design Examples That Will Inspire You appeared first on Midas Marketing.

How To Design and Build High Converting B2B Websites

If creating a high converting website is tough, creating one for the B2B ecosystem is tougher. Unlike the average website, your target audience is smaller in the case of B2B websites, meaning the competition is intense. B2B transactions are also often higher in revenue and a more considered process, so A+ strategy is a must. A good digital marketing company would design and optimize a website to establish maximum traction with your potential clients, but often the B2B nuances are ignored and the website is put through the agency’s typical funnel for web builds. Going against the grain, here is a comprehensive guide towards creating high converting B2B websites.

• Focus on The Design – The look and feel of your website conveys a lot about who you are. Your visitors will immediately make an impression about your brand browsing through the business. The design should be contemporary and mobile friendly to attract maximum attention. Images, graphics, ease of navigation, good color scheme and call-to-actions are some of the important elements of the website that you should focus on. Even if the website isn’t selling directly, a bad first impression might end up losing a $50,000 potential account. A good website design shows you are serious about excellence in all facets of your company.

• Highlight Your USP – Why should your client do business with you? What is it that separates you from your competitors? Highlighting your USP is one of the best ways of increasing conversions in a B2B website. Whether it is though infographics or appealing content (such as a good blogging strategy), you should strategically educate your clients of the value you would add to their business.

• Be Discoverable – It is important to be found when your potential customers are looking for you. SEO becomes a very important part of your digital marketing campaign. The challenge magnifies as you won’t gain from traffic itself, unless it is targeted and qualified. A seasoned campaigner would then focus on generating the right leads that have higher conversion value. If you have good relationships with key clients, discuss the key ideas or problems that led them to your business, then apply that to your on-site SEO plan.

If someone is looking for you, make sure they don’t come up empty!

• Keep Clients Updated – In the B2B world, someone is always looking to grab a part of your market share, so you should constantly keep your existing clients updated with your latest product and service offerings. Sending them newsletters or employing print marketing techniques is rewarding as this helps in keeping your relationship warm, not yielding space to rivals.

• Leave No Room for Confusion – Every bit of information mentioned on the website right from your Contact Us page to your Products and Services should be specific. Leave no room for confusion and ambiguity as these often portray you in front of your clients in poor light and lead to loss of business opportunity. All high converting B2B websites make the offering clear in order to attract high quality leads.

• Analyze Your Website – It is important for every business to aware of the KPIs (key performance indicators). There are number of freely available analytics tool such as Google Analytics and KISS Metrics that offer you deep insights into your website and resort to informed measures that help rise up on the value chain. If you know your average customer value, and your conversion rates, you can set up reports that show how well your website is performing based on leads generated. If you track where visitors are coming from, you can know exactly where to invest your marketing dollars!

These are some of the winning formulas that have yielded great results for high converting B2B websites, and if applied will pay rich dividends to your business as well.

The post High Converting B2B Websites: 6 Key Strategies appeared first on Midas Marketing.