Against the Grain: Advertising

Your dealers and distributors are one of the most valuable sales and marketing resources you have. They are on the front line of customer interaction and can absolutely make or break a new initiative or product line. Having a dealer/distributor network that is jazzed about your products and enthusiastically recommends them to customers is a huge competitive advantage.

But if left unchecked, it can get out of hand.

A dealer’s main motivation is closing the deal and moving product. And if that means sacrificing your brand and positioning to do it, it will happen. And that’s a recipe for long-term disaster. Keep your dealers on message and operating within appropriate boundaries not only by providing them with marketing and sales tools, but by incentivizing them to use them (and punishing them when they don’t.) Because if left to their own devices, they’re bound to come up with something that misses the mark.

Trilix is a full-service advertising agency headquartered in the Midwest with expertise in helping manufacturers market effectively and drive sales success. Learn more at www.trilixgroup.com or email Todd Senne at tsenne@trilixgroup.com.

If your company is like most manufacturing companies, you don’t sell directly to customers. There’s a dealership, distributor or retailer between you and the end customer. An intermediary you rely on to move product, drive profits and serve your brand.

You are treating them like royalty, right?

Your dealer or distributor network is your front line sales team. And failing to support, coddle and motivate them can drastically reduce your end-of-year sales. Does the dealer have the materials they need to close a sale? Have you given them reason to recommend you over a competitor? Do you regularly train their sales staff? Show the dealer some love and they’ll return it ten fold.

Many of the manufacturing companies we’ve come across share a common internal characteristic — they’re consumed by an engineering mindset. And for good reason. But this feature-minded, product-centric outlook causes trouble for marketing and sales.

Engineers and customers don’t care about the same things.

Your engineering staff is a valuable resource when developing your marketing materials… but they’re not marketers. They’re often so enamored with the engineering minutia of a new product that they lose touch with why a customer should care. They’re selling the features and celebrating the challenges their department overcame to deliver the product. But you have to keep your eye on the only thing that matters — how it benefits the customer.

After chatting with professionals in the field of advertising, I cannot tell you how many times I heard, “If you don’t have any experience in the crazy world of advertising, chances are you won’t be considered for a position.”  I suppose this is understandable.  I mean, why would agencies want to hire a person fresh out of college with zero knowledge of agency life when they could hire someone who has completed an internship and learned the ins and outs of advertising already?

Now, we’ve all been told that internships might not be the most fun and exciting work, but once you get over the standard intern “chores” of making coffee and printing copies, it is clear to see that no class can beat in-house experience.  Walking around the agency, seeing what people do on a day-to-day basis is something that is more valuable than any classroom project.  With only five days experience under my belt so far, it seems like I’ve learned more in those days than I did all semester at school.  Classes can teach you about typical advertising pieces like what a creative brief is or what a new business pitch should look like, but nothing beats hands-on experience.  This is why internships are so valuable.  You have the opportunity to watch and interact with people who’ve been in the business for years.  I’ve been able to sit in on new ad pitches, brainstorming sessions, vendor meetings as well as new client proposal pieces.  Everything is new and exciting.

Everyday I go into work excited to see what projects I will be working on next, keeping an open mind knowing that some will be better than others, but you have to start somewhere right?  With the World Pork Expo coming up next week, I know I’ll have my work cut out for me.  I’m taking every day one step at a time but eager to see what’s in store for me in the future.  Also, just for the record, I haven’t been the “coffee boy” or “copy guy” yet, but if need be, I’ll step up to the plate; after all, I am the intern…

The primary goal of a manufacturer’s marketing efforts is to generate leads for a sales team and dealer channel. Educating the marketplace, positioning products versus the competition and brand building are all parts of the message… but the end goal is the same. Sell more stuff.

One thing many marketers are forgetting to do: Ask the sales team for marketing advice.

It’s commonplace to find an organization that has completely separated the two disciplines. But their job is to feed each other. Marketing feeds leads and awareness to sales, and sales feeds market insight and customer feedback to marketing. It’s a perfect circle. Ahhh… the symmetry. Make it happen.