Best Practices in Multichannel Selling in High-tech Manufacturing

If there is one key takeaway from this global recession is that the stronger the channel partnerships a company has, the greater its opportunity to keep profitable and growing.

Yes, I said growing in the face of a recession.

Think of it this way: every business today is being tested and has more challenges than ever. When your company and channel partners join in on the mission of helping shared customers over their obstacles, you both win. That is the essence of best practices in multichannel selling in high-tech manufacturing.

Staying Consistent Across Channels is Key

Getting your products in front of as many buyers as possible and having your value proposition stay consistent is what multichannel selling is all about. From websites, social networks, targeted e-mails, multimedia DVDs and videos to telemarketing, outbound sales representatives, and solution providers, multichannel selling is now more diverse than ever. In the wide breadth of channels there is the need for greater focus on consistency too. Add in the speed of the high-tech manufacturing industry and its product lifecycles that put all these channels and their strategies into motion rapidly, and the need to make every channel strategy count becomes clear.

Lessons Learned in the B2C Market

For business-to-consumer (B2C) companies who sell through mail order catalogs, brick-and-mortar retail stores, online through websites, micro-sites and via social networks, the speed of selling through channels accelerates even more. High-tech manufacturers who sell through B2C channels have turned the new product development and introduction process into a science. Multichannel selling gets tested when a new product gets launched and with the biggest selling season of B2C manufacturers here, the urgency to have all channels synchronized is a high priority right now.

Cincom is seeing the following best practices in multichannel selling in B2C industries. Business-to-business (B2B) companies are paying attention to these and rapidly adopting them as well:

Cross-channel shoppers are the most profitable and loyal of all. Cross-channel shoppers are why some malls still have stores in them. This is why having such strong consistency across all selling channels is critical. When this happens customers get the same message, the same experience, and the same price regardless of channel. Eventually the question is not whether they will buy, it is when.

Multichannel selling strategies must be anchored in excellent knowledge management to deliver sales results. Friends in the consumer electronics business who rely on B2C channels say their biggest challenge is keeping up with the fire house of product and service information on high-tech products coming into their channels. Add in the fact that some of these channels experience more than 60% churn of sales personnel and the need for supporting channel partners with excellent knowledge management is crucial.

Control the price or the price will control you. For B2C multichannel selling strategies, this is the heart of why they matter more than ever before. From managing pricing consistency, pricing discounts, special pricing requests, looking at multichannel selling strategies pays and lifts some companies into profitability even in a recession.

Image: Functional Squares by St Stev

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