For the typical distributor, the sales function is generally its largest expense. Yet this is the area where the fewest analytics have been applied. Sales and marketing is the final frontier in wholesale distribution for process improvement.
For many years, it worked fine for wholesale distributors to focus on products and sales revenue. But today’s distribution markets are much more specialized and fragmented. They require a deeper understanding of customer segments and market niches, and how to profitably mine them with limited sales resources.
In this post-recession period, distributors must transition to a more analytical approach for developing and growing sales. It starts with getting a deeper knowledge of local markets, customer segments and ultimately customer patterns.
Many wholesale distributors already identify specific customer segments by SIC or NAICS code. But even those that do aren’t analyzing purchase trends by product across similar segments.
Consider this: the best customer in a market segment may be buying a broad product array because of a high-level relationship. This class A customer can be used as a benchmark for measuring the potential of other customers within the segment by dividing sales by product by the number of employees, and then applying that ratio against other customers in the segment.
There may be some large untapped potential that simply was not visible to the outside salesperson calling on the account. By applying government data on industrial product consumption to customer segments at account or territory levels, Industrial Market Information provides the type of marketing analytics you can’t see from traditional sales force-generated market intelligence.
Learn more about how IMI can help you identify customer segments and specialized niches.
