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It’s no secret that the Internet has irreversibly changed
the behavior of industrial buyers.
of industrial buyers are more likely to contact suppliers
who provide detailed information about their products
and services online
of industrial buyers
will seek a new supplier if the supplier’s Website they
visit first doesn’t give them immediate access to the
information they need
of industrial buyers
say that by providing detailed information online, suppliers
show they want their business
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There are basically three types of visitors
who might come to your Website:
- Buyers who know exactly what they want, and they’re ready
to buy it.
- Buyers who know the general category they’re searching
in, but need to gather more information in that category.
- Non-industrial buyers who are looking for the non-industrial
equivalent of your products or services. For example, a
user who is searching for high heel shoes types “pumps”
into the search box and clicks through to a site that sells
industrial pumps.
The Internet used to be the wave of the
future. Now, it’s a business-to-business tsunami, and
it has turned industrial marketing into a sink-or-swim proposition.
Over the course of the past decade, the Internet has emerged
as the destination of choice for buyers and specifiers seeking
information about industrial suppliers and their products.
It’s where more of your potential customers are researching,
comparing, specifying and buying, and where lucrative, long-term
relationships are forged, or – if your site falls short
of users’ expectations – forsaken.
Yet the Internet has a marvelous sense
of irony. Even as it offers industrial suppliers unprecedented
marketing power, it leaves them completely powerless. Industrial
buyers now call almost all the shots, and your products are
being bought, not sold. You have but one way to sway prospects
in your favor: the information you provide online. Prospective
buyers who come to your Website expect two things: detailed
information, and the ability to find it fast. For that very
reason, you need online tools that will help buyers make instant
decisions. Satisfy their need for easy-to-find information
and their dollars could be yours. But disappoint them, and
you can kiss customers (and their dollars) goodbye.
Before the Internet, the industrial buying
process faithfully followed seven steps:
- Recognition & Definition of a Need
- Information Collection & Project Development
- Product & Supplier Investigation
- Product & Supplier Evaluation
- Invitation to Quote
- List of Approved Suppliers
- Specification & Procurement
From start to finish, this sourcing cycle
averaged 3.3 to 4.2 months. Steps three through seven involved
a lot of faxing, FedExing and phone calls between buyers and
suppliers. This gave suppliers opportunities aplenty to push
their products.
| Five years
ago, 98% of buyers “almost always used the phone”
to collect information; now, 91% rely on the Web. For
suppliers this has ominous implications – namely,
buyers are leaving suppliers out of the decision loop. |
Not even 10 years ago, almost 70% of calls
to manufacturing companies were from prospects wanting more
information. By 2002, that percentage dropped to 4%. Furthermore,
five years ago, 98% of buyers “almost always used the
phone” to collect information; now, 91% rely on the
Web.
Why? Because buyers can now immediately
satisfy their information needs on the Internet. The process
that once took weeks may now transpire in just a few minutes.
The seven-step industrial buying process has been compressed
and dramatically accelerated. Today the process is essentially
two stages – step one, and steps two through seven compressed
into one.
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