What is the analog business outlook versus the digital outlook for office products resellers?
The Analog Outlook!
- The impact of market shrink, digital competitors, and price:
- Volume is reducing.
- Digital competition increases churn.
- Pricing pressure as sellers fight to keep existing business.
- These three factors are likely to lead to a 12% annual contraction of the top line!
- Over a four-year period, a typical office products reseller faces a loss of nearly 40% of its top line revenue.
- Combining to shrink gross margin dollars by over 35% in the same time frame.
The Digitol Outlook!
- In implementing a digital strategy, a business is positioned to expand its footprint and grow profitably in a slowly shrinking market:
- Content rich website.
- Intelligent, consistent email marketing combined with contact database expansion.
- Social media audience development and engagement strategy.
- Educational blogging targeted at "ideal" customers.
- Leveraging aftermarket brands to open doors and improve profitability.
- Sophisticated inbound marketing strategy, respecting each contacts' position in the buying lifecycle.
- Website traffic development combined with visit to lead conversion strategy.
- Successfully implementing an inbound strategy could increase sales by more than 10% per year!
- Over a four-year period, an office products reseller could increase its top line sales revenue by 45%
- And increase its gross margin dollars by over 70% in the same time frame.
