Trade marketing is a process that entails manufacturers performing promotional activities to increase the demand for their products among wholesalers and retailers. This type of marketing encompasses a business ensuring product availability and consistent supply, providing discounts and freebies.
In this article, we’ll uncover why trade marketing is essential and who uses it. We’ll also list 8 trade marketing strategies and examples for you to grab some inspiration.
Why is trade marketing important?
Trade marketing aims at getting products to the shelves of shops, supermarkets, and malls. Suppliers leverage different promotional activities and demonstrate the advantages of their products to attract potential buyers. If manufacturers succeed in making wholesalers believe that their products will bring good revenues, they can become suppliers of these goods and help meet customer demand.
Manufacturers focus on cross-promotion, time of sale, and product value to trade their goods. They introduce new flavors, show the pros of packaging, and demonstrate their competitive advantage. An effective successful trade marketing strategy helps businesses stand out and gain a market share. When presenting products at trade shows, manufacturers increase exposure, and build brand recognition, and awareness.
Companies provide retailers with discounts, free samples, and shipping for the first purchase to encourage more buys. After implementing a trade marketing strategy and generating interest, brands can increase sales, reach new audience segments and cooperate with new partners, and receive direct feedback on their goods from potential customers.
Now that you know about the importance of trade marketing, let’s uncover the parties of the trading process who benefit from this process.
Who uses trade marketing?
Manufacturers use trade marketing to reach their supply chain partners, such as retailers, distributors, and wholesalers. They implement various marketing strategies to draw the attention of supply chain partners, communicate product value, and convince potential partners that their product will bring good revenue. The main aim of manufacturers is to get their products onto the shelves of stores in front of consumers. Trade marketing is popular among companies that have physical stores and suppliers try to reach the shelves of stores with their products.
If you produce goods and strive to find distributors, you need to develop and stick to your trade marketing strategy. Below you’ll find several points you should consider before searching for supply chain partners.
8 Trade Marketing Strategies
Before running any trade marketing campaigns, you need to develop a strategy. Setting key objectives and conducting research will prevent you from having issues with your campaign.
- Conduct market research. Every business starts with research. The main focus of your research is your target audience. During this process, you can collect information about your target market and make sure that your product will be successful. After investigating the market, you’ll be aware of the state of the industry. Research enables you to identify your audience segment and understand its problems, pain points, and desired solutions. As a result, you can come up with a relevant offer. Besides your audience, you need to research your competitors. Conduct competitor analysis. Focus on your competitors' features, market share, price points, marketing strategy, strengths, and weaknesses. Besides, see customer reviews to find out why customers choose these specific businesses.
- Develop a comprehensive plan. After the research, you need to prepare a detailed plan. It should cover the demographics you want to target, long-term and short-term goals, budget, strategy, tactics, etc. Follow your plan step-by-step to attain your objectives.
- Participate in trade exhibitions. At trade shows, you can showcase your product, communicate the benefits, and draw the attention of your target market. Since many retailers and distributors visit these events, you can obtain partnerships beneficial for your company.
- Ensure to have strong branding. Often, people make purchasing decisions based on their emotions. This rule also works for supply chain partners. That’s the reason why you should pay attention to your branding. If you succeed in making partners remember your brand, you can establish an emotional connection and encourage them to purchase. A consistent, credible, and recognizable brand helps you stay ahead of competitors and stand out. As a result, retailers will choose your product over dozens of substitutes.
- Run ads. Brand awareness is essential for every business since it helps increase sales, boost traffic, and improve revenue. Advertise online to promote your manufacturing business. Consider sending email newsletters to generate leads and connect with customers. Since 17% of B2B buyers look for peer reviews, you should add accurate information about your brand to online business directories. To do it, develop company profiles on platforms like Google My Business, Yelp, Facebook, Tripadvisor, Google Customer Reviews, Foursquare, etc. Another type of useful online advertising is PPC. It helps your website get more targeted visits. In addition, consider running paid ads on social media and pre-roll ads on video platforms like YouTube to get exposure.
- Consider trade promotions. Provide your potential clients with special incentives like coupons, discounts, and promos to encourage buying. They will help you stand out from the competition and get a competitive advantage. Better yet, if your products are superior to others in quality, price, and features, retailers will strive to display your goods on the shelves of their stores.
- Use digital marketing methods. Consider implementing your trade marketing strategy online. The modern world requires you to be socially active. Establish an online presence with social media, messengers, email marketing, and online ads. Communicate with your prospective customers on social media, educate them about your product through content marketing, and update them on releases through email campaigns. You can save time and resources by using SendPulse’s email campaigns, chatbots, landing pages, CRM, SMS, and web push notifications.
- Leverage trade marketing tools. You can use different trade marketing tools such as email marketing software, landing page builders, SEO, CRM, etc. With SendPulse, a multichannel platform, you can send email campaigns to your potential partners and create a landing page and share a link to retailers through email, SMS, or chatbot messages to promote your product. Our service also offers a free CRM that helps you store all partners’ data in one place and access it freely.
It might be challenging to stick to the strategy yet the result will justify your efforts. The next section will provide you with brilliant ideas to promote your product and reach new heights of partnership.
Trade Marketing Examples
Companies have to maintain good relationships with distributors and prove that their product is worthy. There are many ways you can sell your product to potential supply chain partners. Now you’ll discover the strategies well-established brands implement to drive interest.
Sweets and Snacks Expo
Trade exhibitions and shows allows manufacturers to demonstrate their products and attract potential partners. They display their goods so that retailers see their value and advantages. Suppliers choose the best representatives to talk about the product and communicate its benefits. They use targeted messaging to meet the needs of retailers and persuade them that the product will bring good profits.
Sweets and Snacks Expo perfectly fits confectionery and snack retailers, manufacturers, and suppliers. The producers of sweets have the opportunity to debut new products at this exhibition and find supply chain partners. The event provides industry connections and opportunities for partnership.
Consumer Electronics Show
New technologies and global innovators are presented at Consumer Electronics Show (CES). You can find thousands of famous brands displaying their products and searching for partnerships. Manufacturers, developers, and suppliers of consumer technology hardware participate in this event to showcase their new inventions. The show covers many product categories so companies from different industries can take part in it. Besides, CES has a program where business leaders talk about the industry's most relevant problems.
Congrats, now you understand what trade marketing is and why it’s essential. Hope that our examples inspired you to take part in trade shows and showcase the benefits of your product to potential distributors.
Last Updated: 23.03.2023
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