Name: Marketing Metrics Corp.
Address: N25 W27798 Prosepect Ave, Pewaukee, WI, 53072
Telephone: (262) 691-9229

March 17, 2020June 23, 2022

Getting Started With SEO & Inbound Internet Marketing in Wisconsin

If you’re trying to build a business online, advertising is essential – but traditional advertising techniques do not work online! Entirely new marketing and outreach strategies are called for. These techniques are known as Inbound Marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Inbound marketing and SEO are separate principles, but they work hand-in-hand. Knowledge of both is essential – but they’ll help you promote your website, boost your business, and build your leads list. That’s why so many invest in the services of a Wisconsin internet marketing company, like Marketing Metrics Corp.

In this guide, we’ll be covering the basics at a 101 level: why these techniques were developed, how they work, as well as how you can implement them on your own website.

What Are Inbound Marketing And SEO?

Inbound marketing was developed early in the 2000s as the first crop of online businesses came to realize that traditional “push” marketing didn’t work very well on the Internet. Most Internet users simply ignore banner ads and other forms of overt advertising or even install software specifically intended to block ads from view. Likewise, while there is some value in using email for “direct mail” style campaigns, this too tends to yield slim results.

So, a new approach was developed: inbound marketing solutions also referred to as “content marketing.”

The principle behind it is simple: Create a website full of resources and rich in content, which is likely to appear when users employ Google to search for products or businesses similar to your own. So, rather than directly advertising yourself to them, you instead wait for them to come to you voluntarily. Then, once they’re at your site, your high-quality content inspires them to stay and read about your products or services.

This is where Search Engine Optimization comes in. SEO is the art of designing a website that is as likely as possible to show up near the top of Google results, putting your site in front of as many users as possible. SEO drives inbound marketing but is ineffective without a site built for inbound.

So, from the customer’s perspective, the buyer’s journey looks like this:

They independently have an interest in a product or service that you sell.
They run a Google search for that product or service, usually a question related to it.
The Google results include a relevant article from your website.
They click on the link to your site, reading the article.
Enjoying the content, they click through to other product or service offerings on your site.
Depending upon where they are in their decision making process, they may either convert and send a RFQ or purchase a product online.

It’s indirect, but for over a decade this has proven to be by far the most effective way of driving traffic to your website, creating leads and sales.

Six Steps To Getting Started With Inbound Marketing And SEO

Getting started with these techniques will require substantial preparation. Plus, most importantly, it takes time. Inbound / SEO takes time to research and prepare, and they also take time to show results. Patience is required to see the proper payoff.

Here’s how to get started.

1 – Take an inventory of your assets and prepare for data tracking

If you’re truly starting from zero, there’s nothing to do here, but it’s better to lay some groundwork. What marketing materials do you already have which could be put on your website and reused as content? Good inbound content is not overtly promotional (aside from a call-to-action or CTA at the end), so look for materials that are primarily informational in nature.

Also, take whatever data you have on the results of previous marketing campaigns, and create a spreadsheet. You’ll want to use them as benchmarks going forward when measuring the success of your new inbound campaigns.

2 – Create buyer personas for your target market

A buyer persona is a kind of character sheet, a generalized description of a typical person you’d want to target with your marketing. This should contain all their basic demographic information (age, sex, location, etc.) but it can be as detailed as you want. The more detail, the better. Job title, role in decision making, daily job responsibilities, fears, worries, hopes, goals, lifestyle, daily routine… the point is to understand your customers, based on data you have on them.

Good content is targeted. Buyers want to feel like they’re reading materials written specifically for them, rather than something written to appeal to everyone. All the content you make should target these personas specifically.

3 – Research your SEO

Good SEO can be the topic of its own article, but in brief: you want the content on your website to match up with what your buyers are searching for. So use tools such as the Google Keyword Planner or SEMRush to discover which search terms are associated with your website – as well as those of your competitors. In general, you want to keep an eye on your competition’s SEO strategies and adapt yours accordingly.

This SEO research will then dictate what topics, keywords, and questions you’ll want to focus on for your inbound content.

4 – Create a marketing strategy, content calendar, and goals

Once your research is done, it’s time to start seriously planning. Your marketing strategy should outline what topics you intend to cover, and how they will be pitched towards your buyer personas / markets. Remember to write content that will appeal to industrial buyers and specifiers throughout their decision-making process. Also, define stylistic elements, such as the “voice” used in your content. Are you professional? Casual? Do you write in first-person or third-person? Your content should be consistent in terms of its tone.

A content calendar is exactly what it sounds like, and gives you a guide towards publishing in months ahead.

Finally, create goals that are clear, concise, and measurable. Use actual numbers whenever possible! Don’t merely aim for increasing sales, aim to increase sales by 10%, or another specific figure.

5 – Start publishing content

Once the groundwork is laid, it’s time to start producing and publishing content. Blog articles are the most common and popular form, but any form of media can be used in inbound marketing. Articles, infographics, memes, videos, podcasts… vary it up so that you attract a wide audience.

Consistent publishing is key! Ideally, something new should be posted once a week, and consider once-a-month to be the bare minimum. Continuous new content helps push your website towards the top of Google searches.

6 – Measure, track, and refine

Inbound marketing is an ongoing process. It’s never “solved.” Track the results of your efforts and look to make tweaks to increase their effectiveness. At first, you’ll be guessing at what content your readers want. Use viewer numbers to fine-tune your targeting and choice of topics.

Then keep track of everything in a spreadsheet or similar program. The longer you work on your inbound campaigns, the more data you’ll have to analyze and draw insights from.

Those are the basics. Expect at least 6 months before you start really seeing results. Inbound is a “slow and steady” exercise that gains momentum over time.

Choose Marketing Metrics Corp. for effective Inbound Marketing

Getting started in inbound marketing and SEO can be difficult – but we make it easy. We’re Wisconsin’s top digital marketing agency, and we can deliver the full package. We’ll help you design a great website and populate it with the content you need to stand out in Google searches, combined with the effective use of social media and other outlets.

March 17, 2020June 23, 2022

Upcoming Trade Show Cancelled Due to COVID-19?

Top 10 Marketing and Sales Tactics You Can Use to Attract Customers

You’ve been planning this for months. You set aside a sizeable portion of your budget to create a formidable presence at an upcoming trade show. Your booth infrastructure perfectly complements your brand. Your merchandise looks terrific. Team members have brainstormed killer ideas for promotions and practiced their pitches. You even have a one-of-a-kind mascot. And then, the excitement crashes before it can peak. The trade show is cancelled among hundreds of other activities and events being cancelled to prevent the spread of the Corona virus COVID-19 pandemic.

News reports say that trade show cancellations and rescheduling of events is causing revenues and profits to plummet, globally. Businesses that are new startups or have been around but are struggling to expand and grow, are now facing the threat of remaining viable. In the absence of opportunities to meet with new and existing customers through trade shows, these businesses are under immense pressure to find new ways to stay afloat.

Many businesses face a compound problem because larger companies have barred external visitors from their headquarters and manufacturing plants. Similarly, companies are telling employees to work from home so in-person cold calling is not an option, either.

It doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom though. While some may not be as effective as an in-person sales pitch, here are some sales and marketing tactics to consider until we return to business as usual.

Get access to Dun & Bradstreet Hoovers Database for direct sales and direct marketing. You can purchase a license to D&B and share it with your sales and marketing teams even if they work temporarily from home. That pet food manufacturing expo you were hoping to exhibit at but was just cancelled? You can view and download company and contact information on over 73 pet food manufacturers that have 500 or more employees in North America. Do you also want to target growth industries or companies – say Kohler Co? (after all, that toilet paper has got to go somewhere). Out of the 2,595 Kohler contacts in the D&B database, 674 are engineers. Are you currently doing business with U-Line Corporation but want to view the other 370 sister companies under The Middleby Corporation umbrella? D&B has that info along with email addresses and more.

Prospect and advertise on social media, especially LinkedIn for B2B purposes. You can create a LinkedIn ad campaign targeting titles, industries and keywords in specific geographic areas. The tracking of website visitors including job functions from LinkedIn is outstanding. In addition to advertising, you can also take advantage of invitations and personalized messages. LinkedIn messages have an average open rate of 70% vs. 20% for email.

Content syndication. Similar to LinkedIn PPC ads, content syndication is a pay-per-lead channel used to generate new sales leads. You basically publish gated content such as a white paper on a network of 15,000+ web properties. You determine the criteria for your ideal prospect and only pay for the leads that match your target market. These are considered opt-in leads and can be used for future marketing and sales purposes. Furthermore, these leads can be sent to sales as a warm lead.

Arrange video chats. From GoToMeeting to Zoom to Skype, there are plenty of free and paid options. Here at MMC, we prefer meeting through Microsoft Teams.

Direct mail. To improve tracking and conversions, many of our clients are utilizing a multi-channel method of pairing direct mail with online display advertising. BOGO offers, mail-in coupons, one-day discount deals, loyalty or rewards points limited offers, and so on, are great ways to make your direct mailers and online ads stand out.

Inbound or content marketing. Content—in written, graphical and video formats—serves as the cornerstone of your lead generation campaigns. The idea is to write content that speaks about solving a potential client’s pain or need. This content generates website traffic from the search engines. Examples of gated content are 2,500+ word white papers or eBooks that prompt the reader to provide their contact information prior to downloading.

Email marketing using vertical lists from D&B or publishers. MMC has a client that does a lot of email marketing though Design World, Machine Design and Mechanical Engineering. We are able to track the website traffic and resulting RFQ’s to provide excellent ROI.

E commerce. Given the current dire need for smart social distancing, the crisis will only accelerate online buying and selling. If you are a distributor or a manufacturer of custom and stock products, ecommerce is a no-brainer.

Webinars. Host online conferences, workshops and seminars that provide opportunities to educate, inform and answer any questions your customers and prospects have. You may not have that face-to-face meeting and handshake greeting, but you have your audience’s complete attention for the duration of your webinar. What’s more, they can revisit your webinar as many times as they need to, and they will always have your contact information—even though you could not hand them your business card in-person.

Video marketing. Similar to eCommerce, the corona virus pandemic radically sped up the need incorporate video to educate your prospect and to demo or showcase your product or service offering. We have clients using video to educate their prospects on the basics of progressive dies, showcasing the size and machines within their manufacturing plant, demonstration a new software or piece of equipment, case studies, Q&A videos, meet the team or behind-the-scenes videos. So why is video marketing important? YouTube is currently the second largest search engine. Videos are direct and concrete, easily consumed, and the SEO benefits are amazing.

SEO, Social Media and PPC. The most important component to lead generation is targeting. The more ways you can target your prospects, the more success you will have. Targeting based on what your prospects do, where they are located, what they are saying, what problems they are experiencing, what they are watching and where they have surfed. The most effective digital strategies are those that use SEO, Social Media and PPC in tandem to reach your target market. With trade show targeting and even face-to-face selling sidelined for now, it might be time to rethink the role of SEO, Social Media and PPC in your strategy to support your sales team.

The importance of CRM and marketing automation for your business. As your marketing efforts increase, a marketing automation platform that integrates with your CRM will accelerate the performance of your sales team. Your marketing team will be better able to provide “sales ready” leads and your sales staff will have a clearer understanding of where each lead is in the sales funnel and where to best focus their time and energy.

Local area services. Use a time of crisis to be a do-gooder and responsible corporate citizen. Find ways to help the community in the areas where you operate. Can your now idle company fleet be used to drive seniors to medical appointments? Is the excess inventory of perishable items better utilized for families or establishments that can use them today? Do you have products or services that can help parents look after their kids that are now staying home from school? Can you offer them at discounted prices, or even for free? There’s never a better time to be charitable, kind, and generous, than during a crisis.

In summary, eras change, sometimes overnight. So too must your sales and marketing tactics. For over 13 years our company has executed the above-mentioned sales and marketing tactics for manufacturing companies to help their sales team grow revenue. COVID-19 may seem to be a monster we are all dealing with currently, but staying calm, working together and being flexible, will pay off. If you have questions or need help in executing one or more of these tactics, contact Marketing Metrics Corp.

March 10, 2020June 23, 2022

2020 Website Redesign Guide for Manufacturers

If you own a manufacturing company, keeping your website up-to-date is essential for many reasons. Firstly, an easy-to-use, informative website will help your potential and current clients find the information they need in the quickest manner possible. It can also communicate your brand and message to clients, showing them what you’re all about and why they should choose your company over other manufacturing firms. For this reason, many invest in Wisconsin website design services for their manufacturing firm.

However, if you’re not a web expert yourself, it can be difficult to determine precisely what makes a great website stand out from the rest. That’s why the team from Marketing Metrics Corp. is here to help.

Below, you’ll find our in-depth website redesign guide for 2020, explaining some of the most important website components to make note of as well as how to make certain you have the very best website in your industry. Let’s take a look!

Responsive vs. Adaptive Web Design

What is Responsive Design?

When it comes to web design, responsive and adaptive design are two distinct ways you can organize your site. Nowadays, many web design platforms will be optimized to look good on any device, whether it be a tablet, phone, or desktop computer. This easy adaptability is referred to as responsive web design because it responds in kind to whatever type of device it’s being viewed on.

When viewed on a smaller screen, a responsive website will adjust its size accordingly, tweaking images and text to their optimal viewing size for whatever device is being used. This will make the website look sleek and streamlined no matter how or where it’s being viewed.

Through the use of special coding and CSS3 media queries, a web page can be used in any situation because it automatically adjusts itself. This eliminates the need to create a webpage then reformat it for every possible size.

What is Adaptive Design?

Much like responsive design, adaptive design also enables your website to adjust accordingly for various screen sizes. However, there’s one key difference between the two: rather than having your content automatically repositioned on screens of various sizes, adaptive design employs different static templates based on a page’s pixel width on a given device. Once a screen reaches a certain width, it readjusts to the next level.

What’s the Best for Your Manufacturing Web Design Project?

When it comes to standard web design for the industrial or manufacturing industry, often a responsive design will work best because it’s the standard for most of the content management systems out there. Responsive design will often allow for more flexibility for webpages. This is because it can automatically adapt to nearly any size or device, making it a clear winner when it comes to functional and user-friendly web design solutions.

When is Adaptive Web Design Used?

Although responsive web design is often preferred among industrial and manufacturing web designers, there are some scenarios when adaptive web design might be more in line with your needs. For example, if you have a niche audience that will be accessing your particular site from a specific device. Is there a standard for field technicians or manufacturing managers in your industry? Quite often tables will be used to place parts orders, fill out online services, forms, and reports, as well as receive instructions and refer to product manuals.

If the majority of orders from your firm are coming directly from technicians or managers using tablets while they’re out in the field, it may be beneficial for you to create an adaptive website specifically designed for such devices and platforms. This way you can always be sure that online content will be displayed consistently on that particular device every time.

Mobile-First Indexing

Nowadays, with so many people using their smartphones to locate businesses, search for services, and buy products, mobile-first indexing is becoming increasingly essential for manufacturers that want to remain competitive. In fact, last year Google implemented mobile-first indexing for all new websites, meaning that sites specifically designed to be compatible with mobile devices will rank higher than others that aren’t.

Google states that it’s monitoring older sites that aren’t compatible with mobile and ranking them based on best practices but don’t be surprised if, in the near future, your site stops ranking at all because it’s incompatible with mobile indexing. Often, implementing mobile indexing can be a great way to give your site a facelift, make it more competitive, and prepare for a successful inbound marketing campaign.

Wisconsin Website Design Solutions for Marketing Metrics Corp.

If you own a business in the industrial or manufacturing industry, enlisting the services of a company that can tailor their solutions to meet your specific needs is essential. At Marketing Metrics Corp. we use all of our industry experience and insight into helping you create a website that will generate maximum returns. Whether you want to build a website from the ground up or optimize your old site, we have the experience and expertise the generate the maximum possible returns.

Our Wisconsin website design team employs responsive tactics to ensure that your site looks fantastic on any device. We’re also experts in every type of development language, including .NET, PHP, Javascript, Node.js, React, AngularJS, and Vue.js. We also have experience working with a variety of content management systems including Drupal, Joomla, ModX, Magento, and WordPress.

One of the benefits of working with the team from Marketing Metrics Corp. is that we have the tools to easily integrate your website with whatever CRM software solutions you’re using. We can also ensure it functions properly with ERP software and other applications, creating a streamlined, one-stop-shop website with a wide range of capabilities.

Contact us for innovative web design technology in Wisconsin!

If you’re searching for a marketing and website design firm that can help improve your bottom line and attract more customers, contact Marketing Metrics Corp. We also specialize in industrial and manufacturing marketing, employment marketing, branding and promotional solutions, and website security.

After you’ve had a new website designed or your old one optimized and updated, Marketing Metrics Corp. can provide your industrial or manufacturing firm with a host of solutions to generate new clientele. Our industry experts have extensive experience heading successful digital marketing campaigns, SEO services, PPC solutions, innovative E-Commerce solutions, and more.

For more information about our services, contact us online today or call (262) 691-9229.

March 1, 2020June 23, 2022

Predicting Major Ecommerce Trends for 2020

The last decade saw e-commerce grow into a dominant form of business, and there’s every reason to believe the next ten years will see just as much growth and change – if not more! At Marketing Metrics, we’re looking forward to the 2020s being very exciting, with plenty of new ideas that you’ll want to follow and adopt.

There’s no telling for certain how things will shape up in the years ahead, but these are a few predictions we feel good about making. Or, at least, they point towards trends that everyone should be keeping an eye on.

Ten Predictions for Ecommerce In 2020 and Beyond

Amazon-style B2B purchasing experiences

A major side effect of Millennials and Zoomers becoming responsible for purchasing decisions is that they increasingly expect a simple streamlined approach to e-commerce, even when making corporate purchases. They have no time or patience for the more traditional “wooing” process where one salesperson makes themselves a single point of contact for making purchases. Even Gen Xers are often annoyed by this process.

If they can hop onto Amazon and buy a box of pencils for their home in two minutes, they will want the same experience when they’re buying a case of pencils for their office. B2B and even B2C vendors will want to look into offering do-it-yourself shopping experiences that emphasize speed and ease of use, even if that means restructuring how sales staff get paid.

Greater bleed over between online and physical presences

Extreme pendulum swings always tend to equalize over time. Across the past two decades, we saw e-commerce become huge, with an urgent push to move all interactions online. However, as time went on, the problems with this approach – on both the supply and demand sides – started becoming clear. Customer service and experience were difficult to maintain. Online transactions are distancing and impersonal. Logistics became more of a problem. Buyer loyalty was hard to maintain.

So, it’s hardly a surprise that in the last couple of years, we’ve started to see a hard push from previously online-only retailers to move into the physical space. Amazon is the most obvious example of this, but it’s a trend that we suspect will continue. However, as Amazon has shown with their grocery stores, it will be a new online-enhanced physical shopping experience.

QR codes and Bluetooth beacon messages will guide customers and track their activity. Checkout-less stores will become more common. Promotions will cross over between online and offline to encourage more engagement. This field is wide open for innovation!

Predictive “AI” systems will improve engagement

The current tech gold rush is in the realm of heuristic “AI,” predictive learning algorithms that go far beyond the simple “If you liked this, you’ll also like these” recommendations of the past decade. Heuristic systems will be increasingly observing customer behavior, and making strong predictions about behavior – who’s likely to buy, who’s likely to abandon their cart, etc.

This will open up entire new avenues to engage with these customers directly with pitches, offers, and other opportunities meant to encourage sales.

Of course, this must be tempered with an awareness of how creepy these systems can seem to the public when their influence is too visible. Most likely, there will be a lot of work put into trying to disguise these observation systems and discouraging customers from thinking too hard about them.

Increased adoption of chatbots and other conversational systems

“AI” won’t only be powering storefronts – it will also be powering customer interactions. We’ve already seen a big boom in online commerce sites deploying chatbots mimicking human service reps, and they seem to have a positive effect. Few buyers are fooled into thinking they’re human, but these bots can still function as interactive FAQs or handle basic requests such as scheduling callbacks from human reps.

This is a trend that will only grow over time. We’re absolutely going to see more advanced customer-facing AIs which will have increasingly sophisticated capabilities to parse natural language and autonomously handle complicated requests. There will still always be a need for human representatives and overseers, but in truth, we won’t be at all surprised if “Tier 1” customer support is almost entirely robotic by the end of this decade.

Growth in regulation-compliance services

Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) legislation sent shockwaves through e-commerce by implementing highly restrictive regulations on data-handling that applied to any company with any presence in the EU. While the Americas haven’t seen any legislation as far-reaching, there are similar headaches when dealing with regulations like the HIPAA laws covering medical records. And now, we have the new “Article 13” copyright laws about to come into force in Europe, further making electronic compliance a hassle.

What this strongly points towards is growth in services designed to help guide companies through increasingly complicated global e-commerce laws. It’s simply becoming too complicated for many businesses to keep up with, so a push from the service sector is almost certainly the inevitable result.

Companies may end up handing over more and more control of their data to third parties, just to keep themselves protected.

Increased reliance on social influencers for outreach

This is another trend that’s been going on for a few years, and we see no reason to think it will change any time soon. Social media influencers will become the new pitchmen (and women) of the 2020s, and one of the primary ways buyers in all segments will hear about new products.

As things stand, this is an excellent opportunity for companies to get in on the trend early. The nice thing about partnering with social influencers is that as long as you keep your expectations realistic, it’s a relatively inexpensive venture with huge potential for returns.

What’s important to remember is that even mid-tier influencers still reach many thousands of people. It’s not necessary to try to get onto the radar of the biggest influencers in your sector. Find B-listers, even C-listers, and butter them up. They’ll eat out of your hand and tell their audience all about your products.

Increased product personalization or customization

Manufacturing trends have made it easier than ever to produce variations on existing products, with little or no retooling needed. This has already given rise to closet industries of custom manufacturing work, and this trend will undoubtedly continue. Consumers already expect customized product offerings online, so it’s only natural that this desire will start to expand into physical products as well.

This is a trend that can take many, many forms. The main takeaway here is simple: no matter what field of business or industry you’re in, determine what types of customization or personalization might appeal to your buyers, and look to provide it.

(Personalization will also almost certainly be a driver of buyer loyalty as well!)

Less reliance on “clickbait” and other sleazy tactics

A “sucker” may be born every minute – but they’re wising up. The Millennials and Zoomers have grown up online and are very familiar with all the typical sleazy tactics and tricks used to push engagement and purchases. There’s already a backlash building, as and the online generations continue to move into positions of responsibility and power, they will be less and less influenced by cheap tricks.

Racing towards the bottom, and only targeting low-information buyers, can also backfire in numerous ways. In the short term, it can damage your brand image. In the longer term, we’re talking about some of the least-loyal buyers in the market. They won’t stick around. Those who continue to pursue low-hanging fruit will be devoting huge amounts of time just maintaining market share.

Marketing Metrics

Marketing Metrics Corp designs and develops e-commerce websites. We’re the top online marketing firm in Wisconsin, and we put a particular emphasis on the industrial and manufacturing sectors. If you want cutting-edge outreach in e-commerce, website design, and more, please contact us to discuss the details.

Can you add a 9^th one for On-Demand? Here is some copy ideas. At the end of this section, please tie in the need to integrate e-commerce with your ERP software.

On-Demand Ecommerce Becomes the Norm

On-demand ecommerce is the expectation to buy and receive goods whenever and wherever wanted – including delivery on the same day. Orders will be placed from phones, from vehicles, and numerous Internet of Things (IoT) devices (think Alexa, Siri, Google on steroids) that will be integrated into everyday lives. This order convenience will not only impact how and when products are ordered, but also when they are delivered. The desire for convenience and our growing impatience has started to create more and more expectation for same-day delivery of goods.

This spring, Amazon announced it had invested $800 million in narrowing Prime shipping to a one-day window, rather than two days. Amazon is already capable of next-day delivery to about 75% of the total U.S. population – and already has a huge head start in fulfilling its promise to shorten the current two-day free shipping plan to same-day.

Amazon has already changed the game and set consumer expectations in the ecommerce market, and this plan will continue to raise total consumer expectations and force other retailers to keep improving their logistics infrastructures in order to compete.

Most retailers are only recently starting to offer two-day shipping. They will be forced to spend even more on improving their logistics infrastructure to try and keep pace with Amazon. To be relevant, they will have to build more, smaller distribution centers (DCs) in population hubs to keep delivery windows short. We are already seeing this trend and we will continue to see the expansion of smaller DCs throughout the 2020s.

A 10^th should be: Manufacturers are selling directly to customers via online platforms. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/advanced-electronics/our-insights/the-coming-shakeout-in-industrial-distribution

Other manufacturers are selling directly to consumers on online platforms. For example, Dow Corning recaptured cost-sensitive customers by establishing Xiameter, a low-cost web-based brand. Within ten years of launch, online sales accounted for 40 percent of Dow Corning’s revenues. Kohler, a major manufacturer of plumbing products, has invested in direct-to-consumer and builders’ channels with a state-of-the-art e-commerce platform and supporting organization structure despite an extensive network of distributors and retailers who sell its products. The list goes on: prominent manufacturers across industries are looking for ways to capture a larger share of the overall value chain.

Conclusion: slower-moving distributors (that don’t adopt or embrace e-commerce) will struggle—and some to go the way of Blockbuster and Borders.