Vendor revolution
by Andy Braithwaite
In the second part of a review of online initiatives, OPI examines how vendors are using the internet to develop loyalty for their brands and products amongst end-users and resellers
The economic crisis and the resulting fall in overall consumer and business spending; reseller consolidation that is leading to less catalogue space; SKU and vendor rationalisation programmes; the steady rise of private label products are all putting the squeeze on brand owners. In order to stay ahead of the competition it is an absolute must that they come up with innovative marketing strategies.
Nowhere is this more relevant, achievable and cost effective than via the internet, which has given vendors - either unilaterally or in conjunction with their reseller partners - unprecedented opportunities to reach their target audiences.
"The internet is the communication tool to reach the commercial end-user," states Esselte Europe's VP Marketing Ard-Jen Spijkervet. "Virtually everyone in an office has a computer on their desk with a high-speed internet connection."
Stéphane Dervichian, Pilot Corporation of Europe, adds: "For us, the internet has to be used as a key support element, to augment a traditional marketing product campaign. It is common now for agencies to prepare packages called '360°', which include dedicated internet activity."
How brand owners tap into the power of the web will depend upon a number of factors such as brand image, target audience, internet marketing strategy and, of course, budget.
A traditional starting point is the brand owner's own website - or rather websites in the plural, with specific sites for individual brands and even new product launches and campaigns. The importance of the these websites should not be underestimated. "Brand websites are the main source of information, ahead of price comparison services and mail-order companies," states Marc Bürkle, Managing Partner at e-commerce company Weitclick.
However, as internet users of all ages become more web-savvy and expectations of what makes a 'good' website evolve, so manufacturers are required to incorporate the latest technologies and tools into their sites to enhance the browsing experience; it's easy to lose potential customers through a poorly constructed site, or one which does not live up users' expectations.
"A nice-looking homepage is no longer enough for the users," confirms Arno Alberty, EVP of Pelikan Europe. "They ask for attractive features on the website as well as detailed product information," adding that Pelikan has put in a lot of effort to re-launch its website to respond to the needs of, not only end-users, but for the company's dealer partners as well. For that is often the challenge for B2B companies - to cater to both the final end-users of the products and to their reseller partners.
Attracting traffic
Brand owners are adopting a multi-strategy approach in order to attract consumers to their websites. This includes simple things like putting URLs on all product packaging and literature, and also making use of the latest search engine optimisation (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) techniques and tools.
"The best trigger remains product packaging simply because there are literally millions of these in circulation," says Martin Karle of Avery Zweckform. We've also found SEO to be increasingly more effective than paid search."
"Google SEO and SEM have boosted user numbers on our homepage by more than 40 percent within a quarter of the year," notes Sven Schneller, Managing Director of self-adhesive products manufacturer Herma.
Meanwhile, Avery's Karle, in common with other OP marketing professionals, realises the importance of engaging and interacting with consumers via the internet. "Our websites are key to how we develop our interactive marketing relations," he confirms.
For example, Avery offers free software downloads on its sites or runs consumer promotions where customers can claim free gifts. Both strategies require visitors to register first. "If they click that they want to receive more information from us, then we are able to start interacting with consumers," says Karle. This is the first step in what Avery hopes will become a one-to-one relationship with customers.
"We get feedback from customers about their particular needs and their pain points at work and then send them targeted solutions emails, so they only receive information on ideas, products and software that they've told us they're interested in," explains Karle.
German manufacturer Pelikan is another company taking active steps to interact with its target groups. For example, to back up its educational products offering Pelikan offers a dedicated platform for teachers, including a variety of materials to prepare their school lessons. The company says that it has more than 90,000 registered users on this platform.
Presentation skills
The way that brand owners present information to consumers is taking on an increasing importance.
"A lot of our products are pretty self-explanatory as soon as you have them in your hands, but not necessarily just by looking at them on a catalogue page," says Esselte's Ard-Jen Spijkervet. "Our website is a good tool for explaining our products," he adds, citing the example of a simple animation that clearly demonstrates the benefits of the Leitz 180° lever arch file.
One company that has raised the bar with its product presentation is Durable through its award-winning Durable Live! website which, according to the company, is the first virtual office building in the paper, office supplies and stationery industry.
"Unlike brochures and catalogues, the new web presence provides realistic product visualisations that give distributors the opportunity to point out those special features which are not obvious at first glance but need explaining," says Durable's VP Marketing, Horst Bubenzer. "The virtual tour through the Durable Tower demonstrates numerous practical application examples which help our customers to familiarise themselves quickly with the complex product group of display panel systems."
Completely computer-designed, not only does the site have a modern video game feel, but it is also tailored for different customer profiles. The tower is divided into six floors, each of which shows Durable products in a realistic workplace setting such as a hotel or a bank.
According to Bubenzer, the investment is yielding good results and the website, though still fairly young, is becoming more and more popular.
The recent explosion in the use of social media is something that many OP manufacturers are watching with interest, but there are few that have really taken the plunge. Partly, this is due to the B2B nature of the industry that may not appeal to a mass global audience or to the younger generations who tend to be the biggest users of video-sharing sites, blogs, etc. Not surprisingly, therefore, those that have achieved success with these new online resources include OP mega brands such as 3M's Post-it, whose One Million Uses and Counting initiative on YouTube at the end of last year attracted over 600,000 visitors to its YouTube site, and brands whose appeal lies with younger consumers.
Pilot, for example, has been enjoying success with back-to-school promotions on major European blog platform, Skyblog, to promote its FriXion brand. "Our idea was to launch a new theme each year which would interest our end-users," explains Stéphane Dervichian. "For example, to guess the prequel to the story in our TV commercial, or to design the next limited edition of FriXion, both of which were extremely popular and generated an impressive buzz around the product, especially when the winner of the competition found his product in store one year later!"
Dervichian says that during the two months of the 'Limited Edition' campaign, the site had almost 300,000 visits and 12,000 designs created for FriXion. "Leaving the initiative to consumers is the best way - they are in the best position to tell us what they expect in term of products," he suggests.
Clearly, the potential in social media marketing is enormous, not just for mass appeal, but targeted at the vast array of online communities that are springing up that will allow precise, niche campaigns.
B2C experience for B2B customers
It's not only the general public who are demanding a better web experience. In the US, office furniture and workspace vendor Safco has taken aspects of the most successful B2C online retailers and incorporated these into its B2B site for dealers. Pam LaFontaine, Safco's Director of Marketing, says that much like any online shopper, its customers are looking to the web to fulfil some basic needs even within their business life. "They want it easy, fast and they want an experience!" she notes.
One interesting aspect of Safco's recently updated site is its ability to cater for the specific job functions at its dealer customer base, rather than just lump all reseller resources together.
"The new interactive site has demonstrated to be a helpful data management process as many organisations have one person or department responsible for placing orders and another for answering sales or customer service calls," explains LaFontaine. "We've noticed that their online needs vary as their functions do. Understanding the varying needs of our customers, we've been able to offer customised viewing capabilities tailored to the needs of that individual's role."
Buyers, for example, can place orders online, view their specific pricing and follow up on order status with a couple clicks. Another individual within the same organisation can check the shipping status, while another person, perhaps a designer, can download hi-resolution images.
Customers can view their order status online and track their shipments, most of which offer real-time tracking links directly to the carrier's website. Other familiar features such as wish-lists, product comparisons, estimated freight costs and a virtual 'flip' catalogue are also available, with customer-specific information only visible to that individual's secure login.
Safco says that the ability to provide real-time product information has also led to internal improvements. "We found that approximately 29 percent of incoming calls were interested in pricing information and 24 percent were with regard to order status, so we decided to place this online as a customer-specified resource," states LaFontaine. "Providing this information to our customers 24 hours a day on an easy-to-navigate site has developed the site into a strong resource."
Benefiting dealers
There are also several online tools that Safco has made available to the general public, but which are ultimately targeted at benefiting dealers. "These open resources are especially valuable as pass-along programmes for dealers who don't necessarily have the capability to offer this yet," points out LaFontaine.
"Again, it's about understanding our customers. Many of our smaller dealers don't have programmes that design the chair or demo what a chair could look like with one of our many fabric options, so the 'Design Your Own' button allows the consumer to go out to the site, design the chair and email the design to the dealer to order."
An increasingly popular approach is for vendors - who don't have e-commerce sites of their own - to offer e-commerce packages to resellers.
One company which has embraced e-commerce tools is Herma. "Between 2006 and 2011, there is expected to be a two to four-fold increase in the volume of online sales in the UK, Germany, Austria and Switzerland," says Herma's Schneller. "With our online support for resellers, we are opening up new internet marketing channels."
Herma's e-commerce solution for resellers has recently been given an award for IT innovation by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology and encompasses various modules such as a product catalogue that incorporates animated product presentations and special promotions, its LabelScout product finder and the LabelAssistant online web tool.
"Retailers can easily incorporate the Herma shop-in-shop solution into their own online stores," states Schneller. "Everything is maintained and updated by us."
Herma's solution is based on the Commerce Connector tool, a system that was jointly developed by the German manufacturer and Stuttgart-based Weitclick.
It is a solution that is appealing to a growing number of manufacturers and resellers in Europe.
Commerce Connector enables brand manufacturers to indicate on their websites which products are available from which online shops and to take consumers directly there. "Brand manufacturers can generate e-commerce sales through a genuine partnership with retailers and take advantage of online sales channels in a way that actively involves their retail partners," states Weitclick's Marc Bürkle.
"Using Commerce Connector creates a win-win-win situation," argues Bürkle. "Consumers gain a quick and easy way to buy the products they want; retailers establish contact with large numbers of prospects; and brands benefit from a true multi-channel model that fully exploits the sales potential among consumers interested in ordering."
So far more than 35 brand manufacturers have adopted the Commerce Connector system. One of them is shredder manufacturer HSM.
"Commerce Connector solves the problem of keeping the customer within our own environment," says HSM's Head of Marketing, Stefan Schraff. "With three clicks at most, the customer can move from our own site to be ready to buy the product at one of our resellers. It's a convenient solution that reduces the chances that a customer will go to a competitor's product."
"Resellers who have incorporated our e-commerce package record an increase in turnover of up to 20 percent," adds Herma's Sven Schneller.
Encouraging figures indeed in these troubled times.
by Andy Braithwaite
In the second part of a review of online initiatives, OPI examines how vendors are using the internet to develop loyalty for their brands and products amongst end-users and resellers
The economic crisis and the resulting fall in overall consumer and business spending; reseller consolidation that is leading to less catalogue space; SKU and vendor rationalisation programmes; the steady rise of private label products are all putting the squeeze on brand owners. In order to stay ahead of the competition it is an absolute must that they come up with innovative marketing strategies.
Nowhere is this more relevant, achievable and cost effective than via the internet, which has given vendors - either unilaterally or in conjunction with their reseller partners - unprecedented opportunities to reach their target audiences.
"The internet is the communication tool to reach the commercial end-user," states Esselte Europe's VP Marketing Ard-Jen Spijkervet. "Virtually everyone in an office has a computer on their desk with a high-speed internet connection."
Stéphane Dervichian, Pilot Corporation of Europe, adds: "For us, the internet has to be used as a key support element, to augment a traditional marketing product campaign. It is common now for agencies to prepare packages called '360°', which include dedicated internet activity."
How brand owners tap into the power of the web will depend upon a number of factors such as brand image, target audience, internet marketing strategy and, of course, budget.
A traditional starting point is the brand owner's own website - or rather websites in the plural, with specific sites for individual brands and even new product launches and campaigns. The importance of the these websites should not be underestimated. "Brand websites are the main source of information, ahead of price comparison services and mail-order companies," states Marc Bürkle, Managing Partner at e-commerce company Weitclick.
However, as internet users of all ages become more web-savvy and expectations of what makes a 'good' website evolve, so manufacturers are required to incorporate the latest technologies and tools into their sites to enhance the browsing experience; it's easy to lose potential customers through a poorly constructed site, or one which does not live up users' expectations.
"A nice-looking homepage is no longer enough for the users," confirms Arno Alberty, EVP of Pelikan Europe. "They ask for attractive features on the website as well as detailed product information," adding that Pelikan has put in a lot of effort to re-launch its website to respond to the needs of, not only end-users, but for the company's dealer partners as well. For that is often the challenge for B2B companies - to cater to both the final end-users of the products and to their reseller partners.
Attracting traffic
Brand owners are adopting a multi-strategy approach in order to attract consumers to their websites. This includes simple things like putting URLs on all product packaging and literature, and also making use of the latest search engine optimisation (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) techniques and tools.
"The best trigger remains product packaging simply because there are literally millions of these in circulation," says Martin Karle of Avery Zweckform. We've also found SEO to be increasingly more effective than paid search."
"Google SEO and SEM have boosted user numbers on our homepage by more than 40 percent within a quarter of the year," notes Sven Schneller, Managing Director of self-adhesive products manufacturer Herma.
Meanwhile, Avery's Karle, in common with other OP marketing professionals, realises the importance of engaging and interacting with consumers via the internet. "Our websites are key to how we develop our interactive marketing relations," he confirms.
For example, Avery offers free software downloads on its sites or runs consumer promotions where customers can claim free gifts. Both strategies require visitors to register first. "If they click that they want to receive more information from us, then we are able to start interacting with consumers," says Karle. This is the first step in what Avery hopes will become a one-to-one relationship with customers.
"We get feedback from customers about their particular needs and their pain points at work and then send them targeted solutions emails, so they only receive information on ideas, products and software that they've told us they're interested in," explains Karle.
German manufacturer Pelikan is another company taking active steps to interact with its target groups. For example, to back up its educational products offering Pelikan offers a dedicated platform for teachers, including a variety of materials to prepare their school lessons. The company says that it has more than 90,000 registered users on this platform.
Presentation skills
The way that brand owners present information to consumers is taking on an increasing importance.
"A lot of our products are pretty self-explanatory as soon as you have them in your hands, but not necessarily just by looking at them on a catalogue page," says Esselte's Ard-Jen Spijkervet. "Our website is a good tool for explaining our products," he adds, citing the example of a simple animation that clearly demonstrates the benefits of the Leitz 180° lever arch file.
One company that has raised the bar with its product presentation is Durable through its award-winning Durable Live! website which, according to the company, is the first virtual office building in the paper, office supplies and stationery industry.
"Unlike brochures and catalogues, the new web presence provides realistic product visualisations that give distributors the opportunity to point out those special features which are not obvious at first glance but need explaining," says Durable's VP Marketing, Horst Bubenzer. "The virtual tour through the Durable Tower demonstrates numerous practical application examples which help our customers to familiarise themselves quickly with the complex product group of display panel systems."
Completely computer-designed, not only does the site have a modern video game feel, but it is also tailored for different customer profiles. The tower is divided into six floors, each of which shows Durable products in a realistic workplace setting such as a hotel or a bank.
According to Bubenzer, the investment is yielding good results and the website, though still fairly young, is becoming more and more popular.
The recent explosion in the use of social media is something that many OP manufacturers are watching with interest, but there are few that have really taken the plunge. Partly, this is due to the B2B nature of the industry that may not appeal to a mass global audience or to the younger generations who tend to be the biggest users of video-sharing sites, blogs, etc. Not surprisingly, therefore, those that have achieved success with these new online resources include OP mega brands such as 3M's Post-it, whose One Million Uses and Counting initiative on YouTube at the end of last year attracted over 600,000 visitors to its YouTube site, and brands whose appeal lies with younger consumers.
Pilot, for example, has been enjoying success with back-to-school promotions on major European blog platform, Skyblog, to promote its FriXion brand. "Our idea was to launch a new theme each year which would interest our end-users," explains Stéphane Dervichian. "For example, to guess the prequel to the story in our TV commercial, or to design the next limited edition of FriXion, both of which were extremely popular and generated an impressive buzz around the product, especially when the winner of the competition found his product in store one year later!"
Dervichian says that during the two months of the 'Limited Edition' campaign, the site had almost 300,000 visits and 12,000 designs created for FriXion. "Leaving the initiative to consumers is the best way - they are in the best position to tell us what they expect in term of products," he suggests.
Clearly, the potential in social media marketing is enormous, not just for mass appeal, but targeted at the vast array of online communities that are springing up that will allow precise, niche campaigns.
B2C experience for B2B customers
It's not only the general public who are demanding a better web experience. In the US, office furniture and workspace vendor Safco has taken aspects of the most successful B2C online retailers and incorporated these into its B2B site for dealers. Pam LaFontaine, Safco's Director of Marketing, says that much like any online shopper, its customers are looking to the web to fulfil some basic needs even within their business life. "They want it easy, fast and they want an experience!" she notes.
One interesting aspect of Safco's recently updated site is its ability to cater for the specific job functions at its dealer customer base, rather than just lump all reseller resources together.
"The new interactive site has demonstrated to be a helpful data management process as many organisations have one person or department responsible for placing orders and another for answering sales or customer service calls," explains LaFontaine. "We've noticed that their online needs vary as their functions do. Understanding the varying needs of our customers, we've been able to offer customised viewing capabilities tailored to the needs of that individual's role."
Buyers, for example, can place orders online, view their specific pricing and follow up on order status with a couple clicks. Another individual within the same organisation can check the shipping status, while another person, perhaps a designer, can download hi-resolution images.
Customers can view their order status online and track their shipments, most of which offer real-time tracking links directly to the carrier's website. Other familiar features such as wish-lists, product comparisons, estimated freight costs and a virtual 'flip' catalogue are also available, with customer-specific information only visible to that individual's secure login.
Safco says that the ability to provide real-time product information has also led to internal improvements. "We found that approximately 29 percent of incoming calls were interested in pricing information and 24 percent were with regard to order status, so we decided to place this online as a customer-specified resource," states LaFontaine. "Providing this information to our customers 24 hours a day on an easy-to-navigate site has developed the site into a strong resource."
Benefiting dealers
There are also several online tools that Safco has made available to the general public, but which are ultimately targeted at benefiting dealers. "These open resources are especially valuable as pass-along programmes for dealers who don't necessarily have the capability to offer this yet," points out LaFontaine.
"Again, it's about understanding our customers. Many of our smaller dealers don't have programmes that design the chair or demo what a chair could look like with one of our many fabric options, so the 'Design Your Own' button allows the consumer to go out to the site, design the chair and email the design to the dealer to order."
An increasingly popular approach is for vendors - who don't have e-commerce sites of their own - to offer e-commerce packages to resellers.
One company which has embraced e-commerce tools is Herma. "Between 2006 and 2011, there is expected to be a two to four-fold increase in the volume of online sales in the UK, Germany, Austria and Switzerland," says Herma's Schneller. "With our online support for resellers, we are opening up new internet marketing channels."
Herma's e-commerce solution for resellers has recently been given an award for IT innovation by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology and encompasses various modules such as a product catalogue that incorporates animated product presentations and special promotions, its LabelScout product finder and the LabelAssistant online web tool.
"Retailers can easily incorporate the Herma shop-in-shop solution into their own online stores," states Schneller. "Everything is maintained and updated by us."
Herma's solution is based on the Commerce Connector tool, a system that was jointly developed by the German manufacturer and Stuttgart-based Weitclick.
It is a solution that is appealing to a growing number of manufacturers and resellers in Europe.
Commerce Connector enables brand manufacturers to indicate on their websites which products are available from which online shops and to take consumers directly there. "Brand manufacturers can generate e-commerce sales through a genuine partnership with retailers and take advantage of online sales channels in a way that actively involves their retail partners," states Weitclick's Marc Bürkle.
"Using Commerce Connector creates a win-win-win situation," argues Bürkle. "Consumers gain a quick and easy way to buy the products they want; retailers establish contact with large numbers of prospects; and brands benefit from a true multi-channel model that fully exploits the sales potential among consumers interested in ordering."
So far more than 35 brand manufacturers have adopted the Commerce Connector system. One of them is shredder manufacturer HSM.
"Commerce Connector solves the problem of keeping the customer within our own environment," says HSM's Head of Marketing, Stefan Schraff. "With three clicks at most, the customer can move from our own site to be ready to buy the product at one of our resellers. It's a convenient solution that reduces the chances that a customer will go to a competitor's product."
"Resellers who have incorporated our e-commerce package record an increase in turnover of up to 20 percent," adds Herma's Sven Schneller.
Encouraging figures indeed in these troubled times.
