ABB’s multi-step Distributor Online Acceleration (DOA) Program is designed to support distributors in maximizing their ABB online sales and boosting their omnichannel growth.
Our collaborative approach, which starts with offering initial workshops to assess the needs, capabilities and market of each distributor, and extends right through to implementation and assessment, allows ABB to grow its online presence at the same time as supporting our e-commerce partners to grow theirs and generate increased revenue.
In Poland, the first distributors to go through the program, which was activated by the local sales and marketing team, managed by eCommerce Lead Alicja Majczak, and supported by ABB’s global Digital-Enabled Sales (DES) team, have provided a valuable proof of concept of how the DOA Program can enhance distributors’ online presence and set them up for digital success.
Campaign goals
As part of the initial preparation of the DOA Program launch, the local ABB team identified several steps needed to ensure the success of the Program. A key aspect of this was developing a digital marketing campaign to support the distributors’ own online activities.
The Poland sales and marketing team decided to focus on ABB’s softstarter product, an electrical device connected between the main power and the motor that increases a motor's lifetime by protecting it from electrical stresses.
Their goal for the softstarter campaign was to make the product more visible on selected distributors’ online channels, resulting in increased enquiries and orders, and generating increased revenue for distributors.
Methods
First, the team focused on providing optimized digital data for the softstarter products and ensuring consistency between digital touchpoints for the customers. Creating enriched content based on relevant keywords that appear on the product page in the distributor’s online store and updating the product descriptions was a key action to improve the user experience. Detailed and consistent product descriptions also improve SEO, help boost brand credibility, build trust with customers and increase awareness of the product and brand on the market.
Next, the team developed customer journeys to ensure distributors could effectively reach their target groups. This involved integrating their webshops with ABB eFinder, an inventory locator system designed specifically to easily help customers find out where to buy ABB Electrification products from authorized distributors in their region. This was supported by ABB’s product configuration tool, eConfigure, which ensured that the products met the needs of the target audience in terms of technical parameters.
ABB Poland also collaborated with a local digital marketing agency to analyze different marketing channels, including SEO, content marketing, paid media and social media, and put together a bespoke marketing plan for each distributor. In addition, the team prepared promotional assets, including a landing page and static and dynamic forms of promotion on each digital channel.
Finally, the team analyzed what was working and what wasn’t for each distributor using all available data, and suggested future actions that would further improve their online visibility.
Results
The softstarter campaign is a clear proof of concept for the DOA Program. With the results, we are now clear about which forms of promotion are most effective at creating demand in distributors’ webshops and how we can continue to support our distributors using the DOA Program’s toolbox.
In addition, we have built a strong network of e-commerce partners and demonstrated to customers just how seamless and easy doing business online with ABB is.
We are excited to continue to evolve our program and showcase how it can be tailored to suit any size and complexity of organization that is committed to maximizing online sales and accelerating its own digital transformation.
