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Supplier

Woo! You Got a New Connection – Now What?…

Last week I wrote a guide on searching and inviting new buyers, so I thought it would only be fair to write a blog for suppliers on nurturing leads into sales.


OrderEase is aptly named, as first and foremost it is a network marketplace that allows suppliers and buyers to make connections. But that is only the start. To take full advantage of the OrderEase platform and convert your buyers’ visits into actual sales, you still need to go through your sales process of nurturing the relationship. Don’t waste your time chasing down business that hasn’t shown any interest in your company or products, focus on the business that has taken the first step by connecting with you through the platform.

That’s the great thing about the “search and invite” features of the OrderEase platform, as you are bypassing the cold call process by sending out these relationship requests and getting only those who have an interest in doing business with you. It is a great lead generation tool and helps you qualify those leads for conversion to sales. But leads don’t convert by themselves. It takes effort, persistence and consistency to engage with those buyers who have shown an interest in doing business with you. There are many suppliers on OrderEase that take full advantage of the communication tools and have established best practices for a solid e-mail marketing strategy.

So what are the successful suppliers on OrderEase doing to create and nurture their customer relationships?

Here are the 5 main points we have heard from these LG suppliers:

  1. Pick up the Phone – Ok, this goes without saying, but you need to talk to your new buyer and spend the time to get to know their business. I often like to refer to these initial communications as “discovery calls”. This is when you establish a working rapport and get to know your new buyer.
  2. Ask Questions – At this stage of the game, it is not about you, it is about your new buyer and what their business needs are.
    1. What are their pain points?
    2. What are they trying to accomplish with their business?
    3. What do they need to achieve their business goals?
    4. How big is their customer base?
    5. How are they serving those customers?

These are just a few questions you should be asking to gain an understanding of what they are dealing with in their day-to-day operations so you can now address what you can do for them.

  1. Offer Solutions – Now that you know more about their business, you can tailor the features & benefits of your products & services to suit their needs. Don’t make the assumption that your product is better than the competition. State your case so that the buyer comes to that conclusion on their own. There is already interest from this buyer, so hit it home with some key points that make you stand out, but make sure you follow the “Rule of F&B”. Use a feature of your products & services to leverage the benefit to the buyer, based on what you learned during your discovery call.
  2. Keep Communication Flowing – OrderEase does all the work for you with its integrated communication system. Send out those announcements, availability lists and updates to your inventory on a regular basis and any new buyers will receive them as well. It is important to establish regular and consistent communication with all your buyers. Your new buyers will be excited to immediately get an e-mail, as it shows you are engaged with your customers.
  3. Get your Team on Board – OrderEase is a powerful tool in your inside and Outside Sales staffs’ arsenal, but you will need to establish some process and best practices around how they can take full advantage of the communication features. Develop some best practices specifically for using OrderEase as a communication tool to all your buyers on the platform, but inject that into your current process for your sales team so it becomes an extension of their normal routine.

The Power of E-mail Marketing

Let’s face it. Sales is about volume. The more you extend your reach and connections, the higher the success rate for converting a prospect from a lead to a sale. E-mail marketing is one of the most underestimated, but overused methods utilizing the “one-to-many” strategy. Sending out random e-mails, without a game plan is like skeet shooting by throwing the gun at the clay targets. You need to establish a solid e-mail strategy with your sales team and then be diligent in implementing it. The great thing about the OrderEase platform is that it manages all your buyers for you, so your sales rep just has to fill out a couple of boxes with good, solid content for your e-mail announcement, looking good list or new product spotlight. The platform gives you the control on who you send it to and when. You can even subdivide your buyers, for example, by location.

Let’s say you have a new availability list that you just put up on the platform and you want to let only your active buyers in Ontario know so they can get in on the action. Your sales rep simply fills out the announcement, sets the time frame for it to run and selects only the active buyers in Ontario to send an immediate e-mail to all those buyers that meet those criteria. Not only does it send an e-mail, but it will post a notification on your buyers’ dashboard in OrderEase for the length of the campaign.

As you can see, the platform gives your sales team some great tools to reach out to your new buyers that you spent so much time acquiring.

OrderEase’s Customer Experience Specialists are always available for questions or demos of our products. Contact Us at 888-476-6527.

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