The image of the company is a marathon. And the one who can think over long distances wins in it. In this article, we will talk about the most effective tools for finding dealers.
In order to reach the federal level, any company needs appropriate resources, the main of which are money, people and time. But many people forget about another important component – the image. In this article, we will not go into the essence of this substance too much, but we will talk about the components for creating a favorable image, which will help to quickly develop a dealer network.
Option 1: Blog to help
Today, many companies maintain their blog, but most of them, unfortunately, do it just for show, having absolutely no idea how and why it should be maintained. But a blog can be not just a news feed, but an effective way to turn potential customers into real ones, as well as a powerful image tool.
With a blog, you can:
- Accessibly and in detail tell about your product and service, its capabilities and advantages, create demand for “complex” products;
- Demonstrate experience and competence in your field;
- Generate leads. Give useful information in exchange for contacts;
- Increase site traffic;
- Increase brand confidence, increase the number of loyal customers;
- Create a database of potential customers and attract partners to develop a dealer network;
- Stand out among competitors as a brand that “hears and listens” to the audience, works directly with it;
- Work as a specialized media, reporting on all the news within the company and in its market;
- Quickly receive feedback on new products and services and quickly respond to shortcomings indicated by the audience;
- Become an opinion leader in your industry.
But what exactly is to blog? If such a question arises, it means that you do not fully know your audience, its needs and pains … Simply put, a blog is engaging content and everything that your audience may be interested in. But just knowing the pains and interests of the audience is not enough, you also need to be able to translate them into human language. A blog is, as a rule, catchy and catchy headings, conciseness, readable text, divided into tablets, graphics, illustrations, presented in the language of metaphors and comparisons. The blog should saturate with useful and relevant information that you will want to refer to again and again.
What is the hardest thing about creating a blog?
For domestic entrepreneurs, the most difficult step is not even a question of resources and time, but the opportunity and fear to speak openly with the audience. Conducting a dialogue with the audience is more in the tradition of Western businesses than Russian ones. But in practice, this is how it turns out: those who are not afraid to speak openly about all their mistakes and fears, in the end, win in the eyes of the audience. As a rule, blogging companies have a non-traditional attitude towards competitors. They are perceived not as spies who want to explore corporate secrets, but as friends, together with whom the company seeks to improve the lives of people in their field. A corporate blog is like a company’s worldview. Like personal blogs, it can be cozy and correct, but dead, or it can be unkempt and “wrong”, but alive and full of comments.
When should you not start a blog?
Discarding banal answers like finance, time and human resources, we can find three more main reasons.
- When there is not even an idea of what is worth writing. Low-quality content will most likely not generate any returns, even negative ones. The content strategy should be clearly thought out and the main, and most importantly, an understandable message that carries some useful action. For example, the message of “Tinkoff-magazine” is to help anyone save and increase money. And each material responds to this message.
- When there is no interest from the founders of the business / top officials, but there is only the so-called “initiative from below”, for example, from advertising specialists. Of course, the best blog is a blog from the first person, from the perspective of an expert. The greatest trust is formed precisely to a specific person. Blogging, of course, can be transferred to content managers, advertisers, or outsourced in general, but then you need to constantly monitor its quality. For there is a risk of creating a situation where social networks and a blog are “on their own”, and business is “on its own”.
- When there is no desire to conduct analytics. A corporate blog is not only for the soul but also for money. It is necessary to understand exactly what results will speak about its effectiveness: transitions to selling pages, applications for cooperation, site traffic, when it comes to finding dealers – concluded deals, etc. It can also be the number of mentions on the Internet, the number of impressions advertisements and more. This return must be monitored and recorded.
Option 2: Get featured in the media
Entering the federal level of business implies a kind of statement about oneself outside the boundaries of a particular region, for which publication or placement in the federal media is perfect. Turning to the federal media working on your subject, you declare yourself to the whole country, and create a name for yourself in the eyes of potential dealers from other regions.
The main advantage compared to blogging is the chance to make yourself known, albeit one-time, but perhaps with a much greater effect. The very fact that an authoritative federal media appears on the site and pages gives such advertising weight. Another thing is that the cost of placement is quite high, regardless of whether we are talking about the banner, native, or any other advertising. For example, posting an article on the RBC website – from 160 to 300 thousand rubles, articles with writing – from 180 to 400 thousand rubles, placing billboards – about 165-190 thousand rubles/month.
The cost of placing banner advertising in the federal media for 1000 impressions*
| EDITION TITLE | COST OF 1000 IMPRESSIONS, RUB. | THE COST OF 1000 IMPRESSIONS INCLUDING VAT | THE COST OF 1000 IMPRESSIONS, TAKING INTO ACCOUNT SEASONAL COEFFICIENTS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vedomosti | 1250 | 1475 | 1475 |
| businessman | 550 | 650 | 520-845 |
| RBC | 850 | 1003 | 805-1437 |
| Business Petersburg (dp.ru) | 720 | 850 | 850 |
| Expert | 800 | 945 | 945 |
| Forbes | 750 | 885 | 885-970 |
| Company’s secret | 650 | 767 | 690-767 |
Another thing is that the real effect of advertising in the media is difficult to trace. It is very good if once published an article does not leave the site and is constantly displayed in search results for one of the key queries about your market. But if we are talking about a news feed or a banner, then it is extremely difficult to get into the target audience. Not only does no one carry out a targeted search for dealers in the federal media, but sooner or later the information will go out of sight into the archive or will be turned off depending on the conditions of placement. Yes, and people turn to the media for news, so this method is best suited for the presentation of a new product or service, or a new format of work in the traditional market. But only a few can offer such an information product.
Option 3: Catalog-article
There are a large number of directories of manufacturers and suppliers on the Internet. This tool is certainly useful and important, and most importantly – free, but for the image it does not give any sense. All offers in such catalogs are “stuffed” under one brush and their capabilities do not allow them to somehow stand out among competitors.
Another thing is the catalog of suppliers, combined with the database of thematic articles. The largest article catalog in Russia is the Openbusiness.ru portal, which contains more than 5 thousand materials on starting a business in various fields, which traditionally occupy first places in Yandex and Google search queries, as well as a catalog of franchises and offers integrated with the article database by dealership.
What is the advantage of advertising on such a portal? Perhaps the main advantage is the combination of results in terms of image and real leads. The portal is visited by about 700,000 people per month, 93% of which are novice entrepreneurs who study articles on opening specific types of business, business plans, market reviews, and so on. Accordingly, when placing end-to-end advertising blocks that are placed on all pages of the portal, the number of impressions per month is about 1 million, and placement in the catalog gives about 3 million impressions of the logo per year. And only for the target audience. All this together leads to high results. The number of applications is from 10 to 100 per month, depending on the offer. And the price of advertising is an order of magnitude lower than that of other advertising methods. For example, 1000 banner impressions on the Openbusiness portal. ru will cost only 170 rubles, and the cost of a lead with a semi-annual or annual placement will cost only 130-190 rubles. These figures 24-74 % are higher than even contextual advertising, which many consider manna from heaven in the search for business partners.
Another tangible image effect is that you can present your products in person – by presenting them in feature articles on opening specific types of business. As a rule, each article touches upon the issue of equipment and suppliers, where readers are offered a list of everything necessary for their type of business. Thanks to the huge number of thematic articles of the Openbusiness.ru portal, the supplier can significantly increase the return on his advertising by organically placing it on the relevant pages. For example, if a company is engaged in the supply of car wash equipment, product advertising can be placed in 20 articles at once, dedicated to the opening of a car wash. And this means that about 5.3 thousand people a month who are directly interested in opening a car wash will see an advertisement for its equipment. At the same time, most of the visitors will meet such an offer for the first time. By placing an advertisement for equipment in a feature article, with calculations and figures, in the eyes of a potential client, you will instantly acquire the image of an expert in your industry