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How to sell Industrial Supplies using smart Direct Marketing Ideas

Selling Industrial Supplies  B2B successfully. 

Direct Marketing will always:
bulletIncrease Sales to existing and new customers.
bulletFind new prospects and turn them into customers.
bulletCreate Loyalty among your clients.
bulletBuild qualified lists for marketing

  See below...

How to sell more Shipping Supplies, Industrial Tools & Equipment

Background

United Shipping Supplies was a small industrial supplies and packaging supplier selling to businesses. Products included: Corrugated Cartons, Foam, Packing Tape, Pallet Jacks and items consumed by a Shipping Department. They were not the cheapest, but they were fast at delivering and solved customer's problems.        

Objective

United Shipping Supplies objective was to increase sales to new accounts, and be able to ship immediately without credit approval delays. They had 2400 active accounts, which had survived a rigorous credit-checking cycle. For United Shipping, it was mandatory to have only accounts with a credit backing that would let United ship the goods without delay.  

Campaign: Step ONE - Test the Credit Quality of the new buyers

 

We created a Direct Mail campaign that would allow United Shipping to "test the waters" by mailing only a small quantity on the first step.  This would allow United to check the credit-quality of the new buyers. After the first mailing, the results were positive - the credit quality of the new buyers did match their criteria. Now we could do the real mailing.

Step TWO:  Boost Sales Results

 

From both existing customers and new customers. We created a strong Direct Mail campaign to attract new buyers, focused on the most desirable products.  It was very successful. Immediately there was a 30% sales increase, with probably a long-term near-doubling boost in sales.

Very Successful

Within 90 days, United Shipping Supplies had increased their number of active customers from 2400 to over 5000 - Sales rose dramatically.

United Shipping supplies received tremendous Sales Results

This campaign is a typical Business-to-Business campaign. In the field of Industrial Supplies, you can expect a return on your investment that other companies envy.  For each dollar spent on Direct Mail, this client received 30 times the gross sales. Viewed from an accounting perspective, the new gross sales had only a 3% cost-of-sales. Amazing!  Because Sales doubled over a 90-day period, they were able to make a substantial profit. But more important to United Shipping Supplies was the doubling of their number of accounts, because these new accounts could be expected to become customers of United Shipping Supplies forever.

What kind of Sales Results can you expect?  Using Direct Mail, most companies experience Sales Results that are instantly profitable

Your return on investment will typically be about 10 times - for each dollar you spend, you will get back 10 times that in Gross Sales. Accounting wise, that means new sales to new customers are costing  about 10%, which is amazing. Because the new sales coming from new customers do not increase your overhead - that's really good.

Direct Mail can sell both Products and Services to Businesses

This Direct Mail Marketing method would work for most companies who sell Products to businesses: Office Furniture, Coffee Services, Stationary, Copier Sales, Computer Sales, Paper Products, Industrial Equipment & Machinery, and most Business-to-Business sellers. Similarly, Direct Mail Marketing has worked successfully for those who sell Services to businesses, including Telecom, Machinery Repair Services and Delivery/Cargo Services. Whether you sell a product or a service, from Business-to-Business, this method of Direct Mail marketing almost always works well. Direct Marketing works surprisingly well selling $100,000 machines, $10,000 repair services, and dramatically delivers high-ticket sales.

How would we do it differently today?

This program worked extremely well, but we'd change many aspects based on "tricks" we've learned since this campaign  was tested. We'd incorporate the Internet fully, with a Website with Ecommerce capabilities. We prefer one-click ordering, which makes the sale immediate and easy. We'd capture names and addresses more thoroughly. We'd probably introduce a promotion, perhaps a free draw. For larger users, we'd investigate doing a loyalty program. Each of these items would work seamlessly with the others. We'd thoroughly investigate the industries being sold to, with an intention of addressed-mailing these targeted prospects. We'd gather email addresses for easy and cheap future mailings. We'd incorporate these successful steps in a logical and cohesive manner, over time, as it was practical.

Isn't a list needed? Yes and No.

We created this campaign to work successfully without the need for this client to have their own list. Lists can be obtained from reliable suppliers. Alternatively, Bulk Mail sent by unaddressed mail to businesses can be successful. For example, Vancouver City has 32,923 businesses while the whole Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley areas together contain  78,119 businesses. Best of all, unaddressed costs just $.10 postage, and requires minimal processing to mail. However, Addressed Mail, with a postage cost of $.35, is highly targeted and can be the most effective. Both methods need to be tested, as both usually bring in profitable sales.

What's the average cost for a Direct Marketing Campaign?

We'd suggest that you start with a minimum budget of $5000 to $10,000 to effectively test a Direct Marketing program. Then, after a few successful campaigns, you can increase the scope of your Direct Marketing. 

If you sell to Businesses, you need to find out more about  Direct Mail programs from AVI Digital

AVI Digital Direct Marketing is the only company that specializes in this type of industrial mailing program. We often wonder why more companies aren't using Direct Mail for increasing their business-to-business sales. If you've grown tired of failed advertising, you will be very pleased with the sales results that you'll get from Direct Mail done by AVI Digital.

Learn more about Direct Mail Marketing

To learn how your business could benefit from a focused Business-to-Business Direct Mail Marketing Program, contact Doug White at 604-477-4455. There's no cost or obligation.

See a list of our Clients who have used Direct Mail Marketing:  Click:   

See these other B-to-B Direct Mail Programs:

bulletSee a Case Study of a B2B Direct Mail Campaign we did for DHL Worldwide Express: Click  
bulletSee a Case Study of a B2B Direct Mail Campaign that we did for CP Air Cargo: Click  
bullet See a Case Study of a B2B Direct Mail Campaign we did for Overland Freight Lines: Click 
bulletCloverdale Paint B2BSee a Case Study of a B2B Direct Mail Campaign we did for Cloverdale Paint: Click 
bulletSee a Case Study of a multi-part B2B Direct Mail Campaign we did for Wajax Kawasaki Loader Division: Click 
bulletSee how BC Telephone, now known as Telus,  used Direct Mail to get B2B sales of their Long Distance Calling Cards. 
bullet How many businesses are there in the Lower Mainland? Click

Loyalty Program:

bulletSee a Case Study of a B2B Direct Mail Campaign and Loyalty Program that we did for Canadian Airlines International: Click  

  AVI Digital - Industrial Marketing Specialists

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