START DOING ONLINE BUSINESS – Create your own B2B Portal

First Thing – Registration of B2B site. What’s next?

This question is common in the minds of first time users. They ask to themselves, discuss with friends. Some do think name itself will bring customers to them. Well gone are the days when websites name itself used to bring company good fortune. Websites used to have a high notional value and some times used to get real money from large players based on this notional value. Sites were sold at hefty prices. Innovation always fetches its price. So people who could turn their thoughts into quick money were the real genius. Some people really created some thing innovative some just followed and made money and quickly went out of. But situation is now different. Market is mature and you need to have not only good name but also a good business model. In few cases still the name and just content would bring you customers especially if you are a seller of some much coveted items. But for rest of us, things are a little trickier! A large B2B marketplace has a lot of suppliers of similar products, who are vying for the attention of potential customers. To establish your company as a favored one among them is not an easy task! However, a little planning and thorough follow up of some basic guidelines improve your chance of getting noticed by buyers significantly.

There are some tips which may help you to get noticed among the crowded market players.

1. Company Profile

Write a nice, noteworthy profile of your company which could set your company & business apart from competition. When a prospective client sees your trade lead ad or your product on the marketplace and feels interested, the first thing he does is - checks your company profile out. That’s where the buyer gets his initial information about your company. If you have a virtually blank profile with a very little information on your company, doubtful that the potential client will even bother to make a request for quote. That’s why you should spend a little time on writing a nice company profile. Here are some aspects that you should emphasize on while writing your company profile.

If you can provide statements of your clients about your company and can give some reference of your clients. This would be a validation of your business and business practice. This would certainly set your business apart from your competition with a distinct quality.

Other things which you can mention to build some trust among your target segment are following

-         Describe your present customer base, target market and any new products or projects that you are planning to come up with.

-         A bit about your company history will also help.

-         If you have something to boast about, why not to do that. Who else will do for you.

Be brief and do not go beyond 4-5 paragraphs! Otherwise a long profile will start boring your buyer and they will find it too redundant. If you have some figures to demonstrate then it is better you present those figures as separate charts or tables as links.

2. Branding

Think seriously to build a brand however small initially which will allow you to sail the boat in that direction later. A brand is the distinctive pattern of your business which will allow you to command premium if you could successfully able to create one. There are some tips to do that

-         Position your logo at the front page 

-         Clearly mention your support telephone numbers on front page.

-         Always start politely with your company name on that phone when you receive any call and proactively come forward to help the caller.

-         Try to allocate some reference number of their call which will generate some interest in caller to speak to you next time also taking reference of previous call reference. That will create an impression that your company is very organized.

-         If you can create an impressive slogan of your company as a brand slogan it will work as brand reminder to customers and you can simply put that as banner of every page.

Marketing

-         You can even take help of email marketing companies to do promotion for you. Hire good marketer who can create a precise, nice and appealing email. Which should be able generate sufficient interest in prospective buyers or in existing buyers to turn them towards your website.

-         You should not disappoint if you are not getting immediate response. If you have planned properly and you feel confident on your products and pricing then don’t worry. Repeat your marketing and communication to customers and adopt different channels to do that as per target segment, product category and of course financial strength of your company. You can go for exhibition, sponsoring events, news paper or even TV

-         Post your sales offers on other popular portals or relevant sites. Try to tie up with other popular sites for promotion, commission basis or cross sales products from both sides (he sells yours you sell his)

3. Products Display

Display your main products as Home page to generate interest at the first click. Usually buyer who comes first time to your website will look for following things

-         Product Category and range

-         Brand

-         Company Profile

-         Description of products and Specifications

-         Prices

-         Any unique offering

So first page itself should generate sufficient interest in buyer so as to encourage him enough to browse your website more to look for more precise information.

4. What can turn back your prospective buyer

Nothing can turn off a prospective buyer than a hazy or blur picture of the product that he intends to buy from you. If your competitor’s product with exactly same features has nicer picture, guess who has a better chance to get the business? Spend some money and take professional pictures of your products. You can even post products for sale on the E-marketplace. There is nothing wrong in broadcasting on your products and company.
There are numbers of great advantages of posting products on E-marketplaces:

Frequent browsers of marketplace can see your products Buyers can compare your products with others on marketplace buyers can take an immediate buying decision and make an instant Purchase Order.