How do you assess how well your company is known in the industry? Is every potential customer aware of its range of products and services? Or might there be thousands of users out there who have never heard of your company?

The bad news first: You are probably overestimating how well-known your company is because it is so important to yourself. Now the good news: You can attract lots of new customers if your company invests in visibility and awareness.

Contents
▶ A common problem for companies: lack of visibility among new potential customers
▶ How visible is your company to new potential customers?
▶ An unbelievable 65% of suppliers are invisible on Google
▶ The solution is quite simple: Use a company listing in the right business directories with a wide reach
▶ This is what a perfect company listing looks like
▶ Conclusion: Company listings are effective and don’t cost much

A common problem for companies: lack of visibility among new potential customers

Large companies with decades of experience in their field can consider themselves fortunate. Imagine LTO Systems Technology, a fictitious company. Since the company’s inception in 1973, it has built a large customer base. Regular customer contacts with field service and service technicians have resulted in positive customer-supplier relationships.

If LTO Systems Technology doesn’t make any serious mistakes, its existing customers will keep buying. So most of the company’s annual sales are basically assured.

The new customers LTO acquires are mainly:

1. Dissatisfied customers of competitors who are looking for an alternative. They usually know exactly what they need.

2. First-time users who are looking for a reputable supplier. This group of customers needs competent advice to select the right product or system.

But how do potential customers find out about the top products that LTO Systems Technology offers? So far, LTO has relied on going to trade fairs and conferences. A few fresh sales leads could always be gained there, even if many of these sales leads were already known to Sales.

Why do so few first-time users and customers of competitors contact LTO directly? Don’t they know that LTO is an established supplier?

The new Head of Marketing, Eve Rhodes, won’t stop pursuing the question. She wants to finally understand why Sales receives so few fresh sales leads.

How visible is your company to new potential customers?

Let’s join Eve in her analysis. I wonder if the findings will be familiar to you.

How can LTO Systems Technology gain more fresh sales leads? Eve calls her team together. Together they analyze the situation. How visible is LTO to new potential customers?

Generating sales leads at trade shows and conferences looks like a good idea. However, Eve’s predecessor, who retired three months ago, has neglected trade fair marketing in recent years. To cut costs, he drastically reduced entries in trade fair catalogs. And he has stopped booking trade fair previews.

Eve knows from experience that without intensive trade fair marketing, in particular business with new customers will suffer due to a lack of visibility. That’s why she raises her team’s awareness to use all external opportunities at the next trade fairs.

A website analysis shows Eve that many people search for “LTO” or the company’s product names. She concludes that these people already know LTO.

On the other hand, Eve sees few search terms around the methods and applications for which LTO offers solutions. “Ermm, our SEO doesn’t seem to be working,” she realizes.

“Where are we advertising the company online to attract new customers? For example by company listings in business directories?” Eve asks her team. There’s an awkward silence. Her predecessor didn’t have online marketing on his agenda, an employee later tells her.

Eventually, Eve realizes what LTO lacks: The company is not visible to new potential customers. No wonder there are so few fresh sales leads.

Does this situation sound familiar?

An unbelievable 65% of suppliers are invisible on Google

I wanted to know more and took a closer look at an important lab market segment: HPLC systems. According to Market Data Forecast, the total HPLC market, including consumables and accessories, is worth $3.8 billion worldwide. This means that thousands of new systems are purchased every year.

The world’s largest market overview of HPLC systems lists 31 manufacturers. How visible are these companies to potential customers on Google? I determined this using the typical search term “HPLC systems”.

The result left me speechless: no less than 20 manufacturers are completely invisible and not found in a Google search!

Is this an isolated, freak example? No, this is typical! It’s similar for search terms like “purchase HPLC system”, “HPLC systems vendor”, “HPLC systems manufacturer”, “HPLC products” or simply “HPLC”. Depending on the search term used, 61% to 74% of the suppliers are NOT listed on the first 10 result pages of a Google search.

Even the Google Ads placed by some providers do not change this. That’s because these ads feature the same three to five providers that also tend to be at or near the top of the search results.

Fazit: In a nutshell: For manufacturers of analytical instruments, search engine optimization is reaching its limits. This has grave consequences: These manufacturers risk being invisible to new potential customers and thus have no chance of being approached.

A poor Google ranking permanently costs sales leads

The solution is quite simple: Use a company listing in the right business directories with a wide reach

Fortunately, there are not only generic search engines like Google or Bing. For B2B companies in particular, certain business directories offer much greater chances that companies are found by new potential customers.

In industry directories with a wide reach, for example chemeurope.com, the leading portal for the chemical industry and its suppliers, a company listing makes B2B companies visible around the clock with what they offer. Participating companies achieve this by

• Presenting the company and its range of services in several languages,
• Using carefully considered, well-structured keywording.

This allows internet users to quickly find potential suppliers and contact them directly.

More than 11,000 companies feature in the CHEMIE.DE business directory

Fazit: For your company, one thing is important: Your company presentation must be complete so that it appears in the list of results for corresponding searches.

This is what a perfect company listing looks like

A company listing lets you become much more visible to new potential customers. But what turns a company listing into a magnet for sales leads? What information must be contained so that you receive fresh sales leads?

I’ll show you, using the example of Analytik Jena GmbH. The company has a premium company presentation on the chemeurope.com portal. This attractive company listing allows Analytik Jena to present itself as a leading company in its industry.

1. First impressions matter

• The large header image gives the company listing a face. The logo gives it recognition value.
• All contact options are visible at a glance. This distinguishes this company presentation from the websites of most companies, where potential customers often have to laboriously navigate through several web pages to find contact information.

The company listing shows all contact options at a glance

2. The company profile – key information at a glance

a. The profile reveals in which market segments the company operates.
b. The company video briefly introduces the company.
c. Based on the given facts, users can immediately see that Analytik Jena is a heavyweight in the industry.

The company profile gives potential customers an idea of what your company does

3. The products – what new potential customers search for
All Analytik Jena products are listed in the product portfolio of the company presentation. This is crucial for the company to be reliably found by searches.

The product portfolio is linked to the company listing. When searching for one of these keywords, the company appears in the list of results.

4. A multilingual company listing to ensure Analytik Jena is found worldwide
To make sure that potential customers around the globe find out about the products and services of Analytik Jena GmbH, the company listing can be entered in four languages: English, German, Spanish and French.
This allows users to search conveniently in their native language and thus greatly increases Analytik Jena’s visibility, leading to more fresh sales leads from all over the world.

Tip: If your company maintains a website in only a single language, your products will be invisible to many new potential customers, as these tend to search in their native language. A multilingual company listing lets your products become visible worldwide quickly and effectively.

Conclusion: Company listings are effective and don’t cost much

A multilingual company listing in business directories will reliably get you new customers from around the world. Your company listing is created online in less than 30 minutes and can be updated by yourself whenever needed.

If you would like to know more about how you can benefit from a company listing in one of the industry directories for chemistry, life sciences, pharmaceuticals and food & beverages,

please call us at
+ 49 30 / 965 368 451

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