In this blog post, we will provide B2B marketers and sales reps with five tips on how to drive buyer engagement within your portal.
In today’s digital world, brands are relying on technology more than ever to streamline operations. Just as brands provide a seamless online experience for their B2C consumers, they are now enhancing their B2B buyers’ experience by building easy-to-use online ordering portals. But, while brands are investing more time and money into their B2B platforms, buyers are slow to join the digital revolution. In order to grow their businesses, both brands and buyers need to regularly frequent and place orders within the portal. What can brands do to generate ongoing buyer engagement?
NuORDER’s research shows that brands who actively engage their buyers through the platform are seeing more buyer-submitted online orders than brands that don’t leverage the email marketing capabilities. In fact, brands that send linesheets to buyers through NuORDER see on average 8X more buyer submitted orders, and brands that send EZ Orders see on average 6X more buyer-submitted orders.
So, what’s the secret sauce to driving more online engagement and orders? In this blog post, we will provide B2B marketers and sales reps with five tips on how to drive buyer engagement within your portal.
1.) Leverage the Calendar
A major shift in retail is happening. Retailers are less focused on seasonal buying, and more focused on buying in small batch to keep up with constantly changing consumer demand. By leveraging the calendar, brands can create relevant, topic-driven promotions, sales, emails and linesheets to regularly engage their retailers directly through NuORDER. Take advantage of the upcoming holiday season to entice buyers and drive them to your portal by creating and sending linesheets out for each key calendar event.
Tip: In the month of November alone there are four opportunities to drive engagement and orders: Veteran’s Day, Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
2.) Use Trends
There are always surprising trends within a product line - the product no one wanted ends up selling really well, the color people hated becomes the most popular of the season, or the t-shirt added last minute sells out after a celebrity is seen wearing it. Leverage data from your platform to identify trends and top selling items to promote to your buyers. Retailers are always interested in learning about product performance to ensure they stock their shelves with the hottest and best selling items.
Tip: Create and send weekly linesheets with product performance statistics to keep your buyers up-to-date on what’s hot and what’s not.
3.) Use Your Inventory
Whether you’re ending a style line or restocking the most popular items, be sure to let your buyers know. Constant engagement is key when it comes to driving demand. If an item is quickly running out, encourage your buyers to purchase it before it’s too late. When you create a sense of urgency around your product, your buyers will make note and take action.
Tip: Have a new line coming out? Excite your buyers by sending them a linesheet with a sneak peak of the new styles.
4.) Special Promos
Everyone loves a good deal. Saving 20% on orders $5,000 or more or receiving an Amazon gift card on orders $500 or more are great ways to engage and incentivize your buyers. Promotions create excitement around merchandise and can drive buyers right to your product page. Encourage buyers to be the first to purchase a hot new item or revisit their last purchase order by offering specials and sales right through your portal.
Tip: Promotions are also a great strategy for brands to clear out end-of-season inventory.
5.) Make Personal Recommendations
Offering personal recommendations to retailers show you understand their business and care about the success of their business. Tailoring linesheets based on the types of customers that visit the retailer’s store and industry trends can help keep your brand relevant and top-of-mind. For example, this past October was unseasonably warm in some parts of the country. Sending linesheets with EZ Order enabled to retailers who have already stocked up on snow boots and beanies and filling it with warm weather wear is an easy way to encourage orders and generate demand.
Tip: Personalize an accompanying note with each linesheet you send to build a better rapport between you and your buyer.
A beautiful B2B portal is not enough to drive buyer engagement alone. Brands need to leverage NuORDER’s marketing capabilities to keep retailers informed and actively purchasing their products.
To learn more about how NuORDER can help you engage your buyers, request a demo from our platform here.
