Sales reps reinvent their internet, marketing, and sales businesses

Meet customers at a trade show, survey a home manufacturer, display their new product on site, and maintain good connections in their network while traveling. Lots of steps that the company’s sales representatives were denied for a year. Landing behind a phone or screen has been trying particularly for this sales force with a profile that focuses on human contact in the body. However, SME owners and their employees have not lacked the ideas to limit the harm and maintain the connection with their customers.

Fermob plays the role of its executives

For Fermob, a manufacturer of metal garden furniture, Maison & Objet Fair is the most important time of year to address international distributors (50% of sales volume). After feeling canceled by the Marketing Department in September 2020, she spent the summer closed in a rented movie studio, to showcase the new collections in Living Sets, which were uploaded to Interactive site, Colorarium.

« We wanted to develop a tool that is not a simple online catalog », Explains Aude Florimond, Marketing Director who used to welcome dozens of international clients in Al Ain within two weeks of the show. The Deputy General Manager, but also Sales Director for Europe and Head of Prescribing Markets, played the role of the actors in the drawings shot in the garden and terrace of the bar, ” In order to maintain human contact with these strategic people ».

Within two weeks of Maison & Objet, Thirty salespeople take turns day and night, every six hours », Details of Aude Florimond, to“ visit ”the Colorarium of Australians, Americans and Asians in one-on-one meetings. They guided them in screen sharing between chairs, tables, and lamps with “clicks” to discover their specifications, an interview with the stylist, or a video of molding. Fermob put the same budget into operation as on the salon.

While waiting to find their customers, the focus on France has not been reintegrated into a partial joblessness of export salespeople. When they don’t care about the hex distributors, they answer the phone. While Fermob, 78 million turnover Before Covid, it was a trademark of BtoB, being attacked with requests from individuals. Production has been running in three shifts since January, without accommodating the six-month lead times, which heralds an extraordinary year.

Cabanon is organizing its own virtual fair

To make up for the lack of trade fairs, Cabanon, headquartered in Dunkirk and the last tent factory in France, with its 17 seamstresses, organized its virtual exhibition “Generation Camp” from February 26 to April 25. With US company Target Web Event as the technology provider. The home page opened to an exhibition hall where visitors could attend a conference or visit a booth, Cabanone’s stand or one of his 10 partners.

Visitors can then visit tents and other products virtually, download catalogs, and make an appointment via email. ” Then we called them again to meet them via video link and study their project. “Francoise Sirullus, the export manager, and her husband, explains Pierre Cerulos bought the company in 2012. To generate traffic, a contest was held with a tent to win. Questions related to each suite that required everyone to visit.

The dedicated site recorded a total of 3,500 views, a visit which somewhat disappointed the Export Manager. ” It’s a big marketing job, because you have to find the right contacts to announce the event, and target prospects.. Cabanon reached out via social networks and ran a digital campaign over 10,000 emails. However, convinced that it is a good solution, SMEs have already decided to repeat the event at the end of May by reformulating marketing. ” We will add more videos and see with our provider how to attract more people », Francois Cerullus concludes.

Weather simulation in Grand Large Yachting

Outremer Yachting and Gunboat, Grand Large Yachting’s boat manufacturers, had to react quickly to continue their business, threatened by Boat shows canceled And the borders close. For its foreign customers, the manufacturer has implemented Long video clips including presentations of the shipyard and tours of the sea With different simulations of weather conditions, on board each of the five models.

In one month, during the first booking, 30 hours of videos were shot. ” It wasn’t easy, because live experience is important for clients, Matthew Roggeveen brings back Pavel, commercial director. Movies allowed us to Keep the link With our Australian, American or New Zealand customers. Part of the image capture and editing process was done internally. The video trusses are serialized in different chapters – mold pumping, assembly, carpentry, fittings, then at sea, navigation, performances, wind angles, lifting sails … – for customized consultation. In addition to these online tours, which can be accessed by reservation through video conferencing, Outremer has also launched quarterly virtual private lounges. An opportunity to present the new model, the Outremer 55, and to answer questions. ” This digital format matches the expectations of our customers, some of whom live deep in Colorado or in New South Wales. », Explains Xavier Desmarist, CEO.

Even with a return to trade fairs, this new marketing method will continue. Allow ” Speed ​​up time between first contacts and sales, and increase conversion rate », Concludes the director. The manufacturer, which employs 200 people at La Grande-Motte, is ending a favorable year for 2020, with sales up nearly 30%.