Effective Communications In a Digital Age: A Distributor's Eye-View

More than 50 years later, Bob Dylan’s immortal words have never rung more true— the times they are a changin’. The digital era—with its electronic platform, instantaneous connectivity and unique language and characteristics—has in many ways transcended print and other conventional communication forms of the past, creating both opportunities and challenges for American businesses. Several IMARK distributors recently shared how their marketing efforts have changed over time and offered some of their best practices for effective marketing and communications in today’s digital age.

IMARK Now: Within our mature industry, how would you assess the changes in communication methods preferred by your customers? Are you marketing to and communicating with customers/prospects differently today than 3-5 years ago?

Alex Long, marketing manager, Richards Electric Supply in Cincinnati, Ohio: Three years ago, Richards didn’t have a marketing department. Since then, we created one, grew it from one to two people and developed a strategic plan to engage customers and communicate information about key products/manufacturers as well as Richards’ own brand of solutionoriented services. Communication tools we use now that we didn’t three years ago include regular email blasts that feature product promotions, website banner ads, social media updates and digital and print large-format signage at our newly-renovated sales counter. Soon, we’ll have a brand new online e-commerce capability complete with real-time product availability and customer pricing and a web and mobile app presence. Despite a shift toward electronic/digital communication, we continue to experience a very high volume of phone calls daily and have yet to do away with our fax machine because we understand that some of our customers choose not to change the way they do business. For that reason, it’s critical to have a presence online, on social media, by email, phone, fax, in print, at the point-of-purchase (POP) and in everimportant face-to-face conversations. These are not only necessary because preferred communication options differ from one customer to the next, but because our customers encounter such a vast amount of information every day. Therefore, it’s critical that our information is presented to them in multiple formats on multiple occasions to increase the likelihood that they receive, process and utilize the information.

Susan Mason, senior director of marketing, Springfield Electric Supply in Springfield, Illinois: While we continue to create printed materials to arm our sales teams with professionally- branded messaging to present to customers and continue to utilize email communications, we’re also utilizing content to create landing pages on our website and using social media platforms and other digital communications. We’ll continue to evolve and update our website with additional content as well as experiment with paid ads and video creation to support communication with the customer.

Greg Smith, executive vice president, Granite City Electric Supply in Quincy, Massachusetts: As I look back over more than 30 years in our industry, several small but impactful developments affected the way we communicate and interact with our customers. First was the fax machine in the 1980s. Then non-traditional competitors like Home Depot emerged in our space and the nuances of this new threat not only changed how we communicated, but the frequency of our communications and the type of customer we sought. The subsequent emergence of cell phones and computers gave us more instant access to our customers. Our current evolution is driven by three macro factors—generational change, big data and technology. Having these three factors converge at the same time is truly unique for our industry and presents opportunities and challenges for how we market, communicate and ultimately sell to current and new customers. Prior to 2008, marketing for most of us was a shared function—only the “big guys” had marketing departments and most independents either didn’t have the resources or chose not to spend them that way. Today, if done correctly, marketing will become revenue-generating. We have the data and technology to perform pinpoint marketing and, based on the generational change and the greater familiarity with cell phones, tablets and computers, customers understand how technology works and prefer receiving texts, emails, Tweets and push notifications versus talking on the phone or having a face-to-face conversation. They also understand the value of time a lot better than their parents; this, combined with our current national shortage of licensed electricians, magnifies the challenges and opportunities in marketing to the new generation of electricians in this fast-paced, changing environment.

IMARK Now: If you hypothetically owned a small to medium-sized distribution firm and were launching a marketing/communications function for your company that would be effective over the next 3-5 years, what essential skill sets would you require of your team members?

Mason (Springfield): Essential skills would include the ability to tell a concise “story” from the customer’s pain points and analytical thinking skills in order to better utilize data and understand the customer’s needs/journey. They’d also need to be tech-savvy and be open to change and trends in technology. Finally, I think it’s still very important to be able to visualize a shared goal.

Smith (Granite City): Team members should possess a mix of analytical and creative abilities, good storytelling skills, an understanding of our channel, expertise in social media and advertising and the ability to execute drip marketing campaigns effectively.

Long (Richards): They’d require drive, strong communication skills, vision, flexibility, creativity and the ability to follow through.

IMARK Now: For many years, customers depended on their electrical distributors for information about products and their applications. We now live in a world where customers have direct access to tremendous amounts of information at their fingertips. Are you seeing a change in the way that customers engage with your company as a result of that development?

Smith (Granite City): Today, information is everywhere and we have access to anything we want 24/7. Information availability isn’t the issue, but rather the problem and the opportunity for us. We need to understand our customers a lot better than we do. We think we do, but most of us don’t really understand the depth of our customers’ needs. Once we do, our role is to provide the exact information they need before they need it so that they’ll welcome the information versus perceiving it as “spam.”

Long (Richards): With so much information readily available online, it’s easy for customers to find pricing and product details for any product. For us, this means three things. First, it’s more critical than ever that we have the right price for our customers—price-checking takes all of 10 seconds and many of our customers’ businesses are driven by price. Based on this, we recently invested substantial resources to ensure the best pricing for our customers. Second, our online presence for pricing, product information, service information, promotions and other valuable info is critical to maintaining and growing market share. Finally, the intangible aspects of our business have to punch our competition in the face—these include product knowledge, operations/delivery services, project management, product availability, reliability, customer relationships and application solutions.

Mason (Springfield): Customers still want and need information about products and applications, so we must continue to provide that through our sales teams via training and through our websites via digital marketing campaigns. With customers more engaged in digital, social and online mediums than ever before, they want better data in our e-commerce sites and the ability to search and find products and information easily. It’s been a challenge to get product data up to par, but programs like the IMARK eBranch initiative have certainly helped us move forward much faster.

IMARK Now: In your opinion, what are some of the hallmarks of effective communication that help cut through the information clutter and are deemed useful by your customers and prospects?

Long (Richards): Best practices include repetition—you have to hit them with the same idea multiple times; if you only tell them once, you’re destined to fail. Second, the source of information is key. Information should be presented by someone the customer respects. Email blasts, web banners and POP displays are good, but they lack validation; you’ll have greater success if information is presented by an outside salesperson, inside salesperson, manufacturers’ rep or whomever your customer trusts and respects. Finally, effective communication promotes the value of something—for example, that the product is going to cut your customer’s labor in half. Identify the value and make that your headline; if you can’t identify the value, don’t bother.

Smith (Granite City): We need to truly understand our customers’ needs; once we do, use pinpoint marketing to reduce the clutter. Long gone are the days when we’d send out generic marketing pieces to every customer on our list regardless of whether they were in the target segment or not, which was insulting to our customers and a waste of everyone’s time. Effective efforts are driven by data that should reside in our enterprise resource planning or customer relationship management package. I recently read that “in the absence of data, it’s just opinion.” Data is the key to understanding your customers’ needs and wants, which in turn will drive more effective, value-added marketing.

Mason (Springfield): By considering customer segments in our communications, we’re ensuring that we’re speaking to a specific segment’s pain points or potential interests and not just adding unnecessary clutter to their information streams. We’re tailoring messages and targeting our ads/campaigns by customer segment in almost all of our communications today. We’re also continually assessing communication channels within each of these segments to know where they may go to find information; in many cases, we’re gathering analytics and making changes where needed.