Your dealer and distributor network is key to your brand’s success. They’re more than just sales representatives; they’re brand ambassadors and local marketing experts who can significantly impact your brand’s reputation, customer relationships, and growth. However, they’re not always treated that way. B2B dealers continue to cite a lack of communication and support from the brand as a key source of frustration. We hear this feedback consistently year over year through our ongoing interviews with these frontline networks.

If you want your dealer management strategy to be effective, you need to recognize dealers’ local markets and unique business needs, as well as their challenges and pain points, and provide them with the right tools and resources to strengthen their business, enhance their ability to drive sales, and increase customer satisfaction.

We’ve identified five marketing strategies to help you successfully strengthen your dealer and distributor relationships:

Strategy #1: Get To Know Your Dealer Audience

Brands spend countless hours and dollars researching, studying, and surveying their customer audiences for insights about purchase behavior and habits. Are you investing enough research time in your dealer and distributor audiences?

Although many brands want to start with their customers, we advise our clients to include audience research at the dealer/distributor level. In addition to gathering insights from the owners and C-suite leaders who run the dealer/distributor businesses, don’t neglect the manager-level audiences. In many cases, manager-level audiences are the most eager to communicate with your company and will appreciate and use any information that makes their jobs easier and more efficient. And remember, they typically have the most interactions with your end-user customers.

April English

Insight From Our Experts: “Just as it is important to understand the brand's experience from the customer perspective, OEMs should invest time and resources into understanding the unique challenges dealers face and help to make the dealer/OEM experience the best it can be.” – April English, 2RM program director and lead of dealer relationships for one of our biggest manufacturing OEM clients

Strategy #2: Communicate Regularly With Your Dealers

How often do you communicate with your dealer/distributor network? Do you provide both day-to-day operational information and high-level, strategic news? If you don’t have dedicated communication channels to reach your dealer network, it’s time to create some. This is an audience that craves insights and information — just like your end-user customers.

We work with our clients to identify and create many different types of relevant content to communicate with their dealers and distributors: from emails and websites to regional events and podcasts. Our aim is to create tailored marketing plans and programs that support dealer communications in a variety of ways and to provide access to industry expert marketers who can provide dealers with skilled marketing services in a cost-efficient way. How do your efforts stack up?

Nik McIlwain

Insight From Our Experts: “Establishing a partnership where leads, equipment and parts, and marketing support are all easily within reach will ensure that you're getting the most out of your dealers and that they will feel connected to your brand.” – Nik McIlwain, 2RM marketing technology director and co-lead of 2RM Channel Marketing Studio: our one-of-a-kind dealer marketing and communication platform

Strategy #3: Offer Dealer Training and Education

Successful dealers and distributors need up-to-date product information and easy, accessible sales training opportunities to keep themselves and their staff educated about your company. Brands that invest in comprehensive sales training see increased dealer engagement and improved conversion rates.

Proactive B2B companies offer ongoing product, sales, and service training; business management and skills training; new technology education; and industry insights to cover current topics.

Nik McIlwain

Insight From Our Experts: “Dealers are busy, and they want things to be easy. Whether it's having a team available to help with materials, a system for managing co-op or support, or just the overall program, making things too complex will result in dealers focusing on other areas and possibly other brands. Conversely, when you make things simple for them, they will often prioritize marketing and selling your brand.” – Nik McIlwain, 2RM marketing technology director and co-lead of 2RM Channel Marketing Studio

Strategy #4: Create Solutions That Support the Dealer’s Business

Depending on the size of your dealer or distributor network, you may not be able to fulfill every request or support every need they have. But you can create the right tools, including co-op marketing and dealer advertising strategies, to help them succeed.

2RM works with many brands to implement a spectrum of solutions that best meet the needs of their dealer audiences. We can help you establish a co-op marketing program, provide our proprietary self-service platform — 2RM Channel Marketing Studio — to facilitate and manage that program, and offer full-service support through a dedicated support center.

A co-op marketing program is a valuable resource designed to enhance local and regional brand awareness, drive dealer sales, and strengthen dealer-corporate relationships through shared marketing efforts. Through a program like this, you can provide matching funds for approved initiatives, personalized marketing recommendations, and seamless enrollment in localized digital marketing packages. Dealers also gain self-service access to our 2RM Channel Marketing Studio, which not only allows them to manage co-op marketing budgets and submit claims for reimbursement but also supports the execution of localized marketing campaigns. Additionally, our team can staff the support center to provide expert assistance with websites, social media channels, advertising, direct mail, open houses, billboards, training, annual strategy planning, and much more.

Jennifer Ruggle

Insight From Our Experts: “While this might sound obvious, I don’t think it can be overstated: Dealers need to know that they can trust their corporate partners to help support and drive the success of their businesses. Corporate partners can build that trust by providing dealers with well-qualified leads, providing strategic and effective co-op marketing programs, and making things easier rather than creating additional work for them.” – Jennifer Ruggle, executive director of 2RM Experience & Technology Solutions and co-lead of 2RM Channel Marketing Studio

Strategy #5: Ask Your Dealers for Input

How often are you asking your dealers and distributors for their opinions and top challenges? Do you regularly schedule input sessions or conduct online surveys for their feedback? Communication is a two-way street, and your dealers and distributors want to share feedback with you. Take the opportunity to learn more about their pain points, their wins, and what they need from you to be more successful.

Toye Cody

Insight from our Experts: “Dealers are on the front lines, and providing them with the tools and information they need to be successful can ultimately determine whether a customer has a positive or negative experience with a brand. Dealers need to feel appreciated and know that you care.” – Toye Cody, 2RM senior account director for one of our largest OEM manufacturing clients

Improving Dealer Relationships

Your dealer network is an extension of your brand and can be one of your strongest marketing tools. Strengthening your dealer management and dealer relationship management strategies can translate into higher sales volumes, improved customer retention, and a stronger brand reputation. Your marketing team can improve and strengthen the relationship with your dealer/distributor network by better understanding their needs and challenges, regularly communicating with them on the channels they prefer, offering valuable training and educational opportunities, creating useful business tools, and seeking out their input and opinions.

Ready to elevate your dealer marketing strategy? Contact us for customized solutions tailored to your dealer network needs.