Network Marketing for Industrial Products Lecture Series Lesson 3:
Ranking enterprises suitable for network marketing means determining which enterprises are more suitable for doing network marketing. What industries can achieve best network marketing effects?
Here I would like to share with you two stories.
The first story is about aluminum doors and windows and invisible security mesh.
Two decoration companies asked me to help promote their websites in 2007, one specializing in aluminum alloy doors and windows and the other engaged in invisible window mesh. In the early stage of the promotion, I thought the company selling aluminum alloy would produce better results in receiving business from the Internet. It was simple. Customers in need of aluminum alloy doors and windows were more than those in need of invisible window grills. But I was proven wrong after a year of network marketing for them. Due to low sales volume and poor operation, the company doing aluminum alloy stopped the network marketing cooperation. On the other hand, the company selling window grills was doing very well. In addition to the application of natural listings, Baidu paid advertising, and mass postings, the company continued to expand its business by marketing on the industry’s group-buying websites and on Liba.com (a website that excelled in word of mouth).
The second story was about a software development company in Xi’an asking me to do online promotion for them, but after an analysis of their concrete business, I didn’t take it. Because they specialized in oil exploration management software and their customers were all owners of large oil fields. Such customers added up to no more than a hundred across the country. Therefore, there was no need to try network marketing. They could just list out all the dozens of customers and contact them one by one for business. Don’t expect such customers to look for software development companies through the Internet, because this kind of software was not a necessity of the company. They might use the Internet to investigate the reputation of the software company and to see whether there were any negative information about the company, but nothing more. So I suggested that they find an advertising company to design a decent corporate official website and publish some information on free platforms. That’s all.
Any company whose products or services are likely to be searched for by potential customers on the Internet is suitable for network marketing. However, the effect varies according to the characteristics of different industries.
A company largely depends on the products and customer base when deciding on whether to carry out network marketing, what kind of network marketing method to use, and how much to spend on the effort.
The following is a list of industries suitable for network marketing in order of the size of customer demand on the Internet：
The industries ranking in the first echelon—their products or services are used by every company or individual, resulting in better marketing results, such as cell phones, books, computers, furniture, cars, renovations, home sales, courier services, etc.
The industries ranking in the second echelon—their products or services are used by every company, resulting in better marketing results, such as printing materials, office supplies, office furniture, office consumables, office decoration services, group purchasing services, gardening services, cleaning services, etc.
The industries ranking in the third echelon—their products or services are considered necessary to be used by every factory. With smaller customer group, it is a little more difficult to do network marketing, such as industrial raw materials, industrial equipments, packaging products, tools, water, gas and electric facilities, installation and maintenance services.
The industries ranking in the fourth echelon—their products or services are used by companies in specific industries. Targeting a niche market makes promotion even more difficult, such as food inspection equipment, injection molding equipment, raw chemical materials, consumables for machining production, etc.
The industries ranking in the fifth echelon—their products or services will be only used by a small number of companies in a single industry. They target a very small market, so the possibility of being searched is very small, leaving us very poor sales clues. So these enterprises, in most cases, cannot achieve satisfactory network marketing effects, such as oil drilling, railroad equipment, urban transportation facilities, large ships, etc.
Whether a company is suitable for network marketing has a lot to do with the current landscape for network marketing in its industry.
For instance, one of my customers is also engaged in the building materials business, but he sells light steel keels. In 2003, he started the network marketing campaign but found it hard to continue in 2007, so he shifted to another business. It was due to the fierce online competition in the industry that the supply had exceeded demand.
Another customer of mine sells hollow sheets. He didn’t conduct network marketing until 2010, but the performance was pretty good, and he reached sales of more than 20 million yuan in a year. As the hollow sheets were new materials, the competition online was not very severe, and the demand was more than the supply.
As a network marketing company, apart from what I have talked about above, we also made a multidimensional map. We need to determine whether the enterprise is suitable for network marketing according to the different dimensions of network marketing. As shown below:
It includes dimension of industry, region, network development, marketing, customer relationship, customer group and customer attribute. There will be a section devoted to the relationship between latitude and Internet marketing in the future.
Preview of Lesson 4: Network Marketing Starts From the Company Name.
Related Articles:
Network Marketing for Industrial Products Lecture Series Lesson 2: Search Engine Marketing for B2B Enterprises in a Broad Sense
Network Marketing for Industrial Products Lecture Series Lesson 1: Precision Marketing