Regardless of the size and history of your organization, attracting high-end clients for your building materials company can be challenging. Much of the contact is based on personal recommendations, which means that if your brand is not on a potential client’s radar, getting there can be a difficult process.
These five steps can help you build a strategy that reliably attracts high-end clients by broadcasting and improving your reputation in your industry.
1. The Importance Of A Professional Website
Any effort to attract upscale building materials clients must begin with a professional, sleek website. In the B2B realm, potential customers use and trust supplier websites as the primary tool to gather information and make a purchasing decision. For your company, that means two things: you need to make sure that clients can find you and you should present yourself as a professional, high-end building materials supplier.
In other words, your website needs to be designed both with industry-specific search engine optimization in mind while outlining your benefits and the quality of both your materials and services in a straightforward way. The more professional your online presence, the more likely high-end clients will be to engage with you.
2. Establish Thought Leadership
On your website and throughout your digital presence, you also need to display your company as a thought leader in the eyes of your audience. High-end clients will not settle for yet another building materials company. They look to work with the best in the business and an effective content marketing strategy can help you build that reputation.
You can establish your thought leadership in a variety of ways. For example, a blog allows you to publish articles about the materials you sell as well as building trends, enabling you to convey your expertise in a public forum. Don't underestimate the potential of LinkedIn, which you can use both to reach out personally to potential clients and to engage in industry-specific groups.
3. Building Buyer Personas
Buyer personas allow you to apply your target audience research in a qualitative format. You may already know the type of client you are looking to attract, but without a persona, they will likely be represented in the form of numbers and statistics.
Buyer personas help you turn these numbers into ideal customers that allow you to better understand your demographics, the type of communication they're looking for, and where you can find your leads. Developing a buyer persona can take time and effort, but will pay off in optimizing your marketing strategy overall.
4. Respond To Inquiries Immediately
Any time a high-end client reaches out to your business, it’s imperative to answer as quickly as possible. As we've detailed in this space, speed is crucial in digital marketing, and its importance only rises for upscale audiences. Whether you get a LinkedIn message or voicemail, answering quickly (preferably within one hour or less) can make the difference between losing a potential client in the awareness stage of your sales funnel or converting them to the next phase.
5. Offer White-Glove Customer Service
As potential clients begin to engage with your business, the final important step is to return that engagement. Whether you're communicating with architects, interior designers, or builders you need to make sure that they always feel like they're being taken care of.
That need extends from your speed of response, as outlined above, to the care and detail with which you respond to concerns and other comments. Personalizing your marketing even for automated or large-scale messages is another way you can make sure that each member of your target audience is satisfied and will move toward becoming a first-time or repeat client.
As you begin to attract your first high-end clients, you can work to institutionalize your efforts. For example, you can begin to incorporate social proof in the form of testimonials and case studies on your website, which will reassure potential customers in the same category that your building materials are the right fit for their needs.
But it begins with a basic strategy, which you can achieve through the above five steps. To learn more about the process, and to optimize your marketing strategy to attract the type of client that will maximize your business success, contact us.
