Distributors have the unique position of working with a variety of audiences. You want to connect to manufacturers and healthcare facilities that want to purchase your supplies. As a result, content marketing for distribution varies from traditional marketing because of your different goals. However, content marketing is just as effective for you as other B2B businesses.
Learn why content marketing is relevant for distributors and how you can build a winning marketing strategy for distribution.
Key Takeaways:
- Content marketing will help you stand out from your competition as a trustworthy distributor.
- Content marketing for distribution requires different strategies depending on whether you are reaching manufacturers or healthcare facilities.
- Your content will lead your customers through their sales journey with easily accessed information and products.
The Role of Marketing for Distribution
Content marketing for distribution is the online materials you create to promote your distribution services to manufacturers or products to healthcare facilities. It helps you educate your readers, build relationships with your clients, and offer customized solutions to help your clients meet their goals.
Benefits of Having Content Marketing for Distribution
Content marketing for distributors helps you reach more customers by positioning yourself as a valuable asset to your specific audience. Here are three specific ways content marketing benefits distributors.
Stand out from your Competition
Content marketing is your way of shining a light on your company’s best features and solutions. Without content marketing, your business can easily blend in with other distributors and have no differentiating value that will make manufacturers and buyers choose you over your competition.
Generate Quality Leads
Content marketing targets and attracts quality leads that are most likely to turn into conversions. Instead of blindly plastering your business name publicly in hopes that someone will respond, you can use keywords and strategic channel placement tactics to target healthcare facilities most likely to need your product.
Build Trust with your Clients
Manufacturers need to trust that you will sell their products and healthcare workers want to know they can depend on your supplies to save lives. Just telling these customers that you are reliable isn’t enough. They want proof through numbers, testimonials, case studies, and specific benefits.
Your healthcare content marketing is a means for sharing that proof and establishing yourself as an industry leader so that more manufacturers and healthcare facilities will choose you.
The following survey results show some other benefits of B2B content marketing.
5 Factors in a Successful Content Marketing Strategy for Distributors
Use these five strategies in your distribution content marketing to successfully reach your audience with relevant content that leads to more clients.
1. Establish Audience Groups
Distributors’ two primary audiences are the manufacturer and the buyer. However, the buyer can have many personas like healthcare facilities, retailers, or end-users, depending on the products.
Your manufacturing audience wants to know you are a reliable distributor who understands the industry and can match their products to their ideal audience. However, retailers, healthcare facilities, and end-users want to know about the product and its unique benefit to them.
2. Create Niche Content
Half of B2B content marketers focus on building brand awareness and interest in their products through niche content. This step is essential for attracting leads that will turn into conversions that bring in revenue.
What content should distributors include in their digital marketing strategies?
Your content should offer valuable insights about your products, help buyers and manufacturers improve their supply chain strategies, and build trust with your clients. When you create thought leadership content, you establish yourself as a knowledgeable and trustworthy expert in the industry.
The following video will explore specific types of effective B2B content and the return you can expect from using those strategies in your company.
3. Streamline the Purchase Process
Businesses complete 56% of the purchase process before contacting your sales team. They do this through research, benefits comparisons, and building a list of requirements before reaching out to distributors. If you wait to pass on information once you connect with clients, you miss out on nearly two-thirds of their sales journey.
Instead, you can help your customers choose their best options by posting relevant information that leads them through the purchase process with easily accessible contact information, product details, and distribution options. By streamlining the purchase process, you remain in control over what information they read and can help them decide faster.
Connecting to your customers throughout their journey also opens more doors for upselling and cross-selling because you can offer solutions earlier in their buying process.
4. Offer an Omnichannel Experience
To stay competitive in a saturated content market, 58% of businesses will use at least three different marketing channels to promote their content, often repurposing content across channels. Distributors can use the same platforms as other B2B content marketers, including:
- Blogs
- Social media
- Email campaigns
- Podcasts
- Videos
- eBooks
- Whitepages
Below are the top five content marketing channels today.
5. Network through Your Content
Throughout this discussion on content marketing, trust has come up several times because it is a crucial part of healthcare sales. One way to establish trust is through third-party approval like testimonials and feedback that you can share in your content. However, an underutilized method of building trust is guest posting.
When a healthcare manufacturer is looking for a distributor, they might start their research by asking their network of other manufacturers for recommendations. The same applies to healthcare facilities that need new supplies.
You can get your name in front of more clients by guest posting on reputable channels and current client websites. As a guest post, your content appears more authentic because it has the support of an authority figure your clients already trust.
Invest in Your Distribution Marketing Strategy
Are you looking to boost your content marketing strategy to reach more clients?
Share Moving Media shares news and information about healthcare distribution that keeps you informed about the latest trends in the industry. In addition, our Repertoire Magazine is the only publication for healthcare distribution and provides valuable insights you can use to create content that converts.
Contact us to learn more about our publications and educational materials to help you create high-quality marketing content.