Companies with less than $50 million in annual revenue have limited capabilities with outbound telephone sales, in-store marketing and e-commerce that affect the bottom line, according to Jonathan Bein, Ph.D., senior partner at Real Results Marketing.  Bein emphasized the importance of developing and refining a strong multichannel marketing strategy in a recent MDM Podcast, Sales Reps are Not Enough: Getting the Marketing Mix Right.

We Deliver Distribution News to Your Inbox Sign up below to receive MDM Update, your free weekly distribution news update by email.

According to Bein’s research and his own experience, smaller distributors that focus heavily on outside sales and inbound telephone sales are missing the boat when it comes to re-investing in, and diversifying, their marketing mix.

E-commerce is one area where smaller distributors struggle to compete. This may be due in part to distributors’ hesitancy around e-commerce platforms’ ability to accommodate complex pricing structures or multiple distribution centers, according to Kevin Cooper, director of sales and marketing for Insite Software in the MDM article, E-Commerce Evolves for Distributors.

According to a survey by Real Results Marketing and MDM, 40 percent of distributors have no revenue from e-commerce and almost 10 percent have no plans to ever enable an e-commerce platform. (See The State of E-Commerce in Distribution.) According to Bein, market leaders who do devote significant resources to e-commerce, and other non-standard channels, get better results.