How to facilitate contact between component suppliers and designers

As a component manufacturer, you want to create strong links with your target audience. Indeed, you have identified your target audience, but now you are wondering how to reach them.

It is not easy to create this kind of link or relationship. However, there are various tools and tips that you can use to make it easier for you to develop your contacts with your target group, i.e. industrial designers.

Email campaigns

Email marketing is one of the best tools for making initial contact or maintaining a relationship with your prospects and existing customers.

However, there are a few basic rules you should follow for your email campaigns to be effective.

Here is a checklist of questions to ask before starting your campaign:

• What message do I want to send? Is the content relevant? Interesting?

Often, due to lack of time or content, mass mailing is preferred.

However, by studying your target, you will be able to establish an idea of which subjects will increase the number of mails opened and your click rates.

• How can I breakdown my target into segments?

Even if you have the best message in the world, if it doesn’t reach the right target, then that message will have no impact.

So, it is essential you use an up-to-date, opt-in contact base that has already responded to (opened and/or clicked on) emails you have already sent in the past.

• When shall I send the message?

If you wish to address professionals, you must send your email campaign during working days and during a time slot that corresponds to a typical working day (between 9am to 5pm, for example).

• What should I include in my message?

It all depends on your objective. There are different types of design. The choice is yours.

Do not forget the basic ratio that you must comply with to avoid your emails landing in the spam folder, i.e. 80% of text for 20% of graphics/images!

• > What is the purpose of my email?

The purpose of your email will determine the format/content of the “call-to-action” (CTA) button/link. The objective must be clear and it is preferable to have only one CTA per email to avoid confusing your recipients with too much information.

Carefully design your landing pages

When you decide to promote a product through an email campaign, you should allow time to think about the design of your landing page.

This is too often neglected, even though it is as important as the email campaign.

Indeed, if you do not have a well-structured landing page, you will not get the expected results.

A landing page must be explicit and concisely explain what benefits/added value content people will have access to when they fill out the form.

This page should not contain elements such as exit links to other pages on your site, so as not to distract the visitor.

Your landing page should contain:

• A form
• A relevant picture
• Text that explains what you offer on the landing page
• A reassuring element, such as a testimonial or a key statistic, or any other information that makes visitors feel comfortable about deciding to submit the form

Learn more about landing page creation.

Optimize contact points on your site

We say it time and again and we will continue to say it the visibility of your website is key.

Your website is the main entry point for prospective customers. This is why it is essential to optimize your site in order to guide them to strategic pages that will allow you to get in contact with them.

For example, you could set up links so that your prospects can request your products’ prices; or set up CTAs that direct visitors to contact forms making it possible to have access to further technical details about your products.

Display campaigns

Banners, just like email campaigns are a useful tool if your landing page and targeting are optimized.

As with email campaigns, you must pay particular attention to your landing page. You should consider banners as a call to action.

Where you place your banner will be equally important. The website on which you choose to display your banner must have an audience that corresponds to your target.

The larger the site’s audience, the more interesting it is for you to be visible on their site.

Don’t neglect the design of your banner either. It must be attractive, legible and in the appropriate format. See the full list of standard web banner formats here.