Acquiring new customers is increasingly a major problem for companies in the packaging industry. As a result, important growth opportunities are missing – both acutely and prospectively. Previous, analog and cold forms of acquisition are losing their power and hardly yielding any results. The solution lies in digital and content-based new customer acquisition. An important prerequisite for this: decisive synergies in the cooperation between marketing and sales.
The problem of acquiring new customers affects all industries and segments. It can be observed across markets regionally as well as nationally and internationally. But what are the reasons?
The Pain Point is analog
One fundamental reason is the declining impact and relevance of traditional sales channels. The effort required to acquire new customers through cold calling, for example, is rising continuously while output is declining at the same time.
As if that were not enough, a lot of direct contact is having a counterproductive effect on more and more buyers, who feel that the efficiency of their own work is being impaired. This is also confirmed by a 2018 McKinsey study, which found that one of the biggest inconveniences for companies, especially in the B2B sector, is “too much contact”. Frequent inquiries and contact offers from suppliers are perceived as a burden.
The solution is digital
To be more successful in acquiring new customers in the future, companies must supplement the existing cold-calling approach with digital sales support.
Since customers spend a lot of their time in the digital world anyway, they are easy to find there.
However, in order to address customers in the digital world in a way that is appropriate to the target group, sales and marketing must work together even more closely than before. Here, companies must succeed in creating decisive synergies.
In the first step, thematically relevant content generates interest among potential customers. In the second step, sales develops the interested consumers of the content into new customers.
Large parts of the industry have already embraced the topic of digital sales support. A global survey conducted by the Boston Consulting Group in 2021 shows that 71% of companies prioritize sales and marketing in their digital transformation.
Four steps to new customer acquisition
- Stage 1: True to the motto “strategy first,” companies must identify the focus for strategic initiatives as part of a market strategy. Do they concern new products, new target industries or new regional markets?
- Stage 2: The next step is to identify the potential client companies.
- Stage 3: A thematic added value in the form of content must be created for the identified target group.
- Stage 4: The identified companies are addressed continuously and very specifically via digital tools. Companies use sales platforms, LinkedIn campaigns, webinars, etc. for this purpose, for example.
Why it works
The advantage of the digital sales approach is that it responds directly to customers, addresses their needs, and generates interest.
Those who have mastered the digital playing field have thus also created the best conditions for the analog world. As a McKinsey study from 2018 shows, B2B customers value a good digital experience paired with selective human contact the most.
To be continued
In a special newsletter, we will soon present the possibilities of digital sales support in more detail using best-practice examples.
Stay tuned to the topic, because the competition does not sleep and the topic of new customer acquisition should be addressed as soon as possible.
