- Industries
- Furniture & Textiles
Furniture and textiles
The Furniture and Textiles industry is part of the manufacturing industry. It is dominated by SMEs that are designing, manufacturing, distributing, and selling textiles and furniture pieces.
In this industry, companies are often relying a lot on retailers. A big part of the companies are producing the furniture or the textile and do not - or only partly- sell it to the end-consumers. However, there is a growing need to have communication with both audiences.
The trends in this industry
As stated in this 2021 article of Forbes, one of the strategic priorities for manufacturers is to be customer-centric. Thinking about the customer first in every decision is essential in order for the industry to be resilient, to improve the processes, and to be innovative. The Manufacturing industry is also turning more and more to digital technologies to serve their customers. This enables the customer to make their purchases online and allows a cost reduction for the customer and the manufacturer, thanks to fewer travel costs and resources.
This is showing as well in the fact that augmented reality is a big trend in 2021 in the furniture industry's marketing efforts. This technology enables the customers to visualize the product in their space, before purchasing.
By working with our customers, we notice that the industry is evolving towards the improvement of the customer experience and the digital world. We accompany them in this change by reimagining their digital processes and systems.
implementing a customer-centered methodology and tools that help automate the commercial processes and outsmart the competition.
Solutions for furniture & textiles companies
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Communicating online and attracting customers
Part of the industry is basing a lot of its marketing activities on trade shows. At those events, they can show their products and connect with potential prospects. With the evolution of digital, the marketing activities have to expand to cover the online marketing channels.
By knowing the audience and being present where and when they are looking for information, marketing teams can start attracting new leads.
Communicating with both retailers and end-consumers
Furniture and Textiles appeal to both B2B sector and B2C customers. In the B2B sector, we find architects, designers, shops, and many other profiles that are researching furniture and textile for their projects or shops.
In the B2C sector, there are people that are just interested in buying furniture or textiles. This means that both B2C and B2B can visit and convert on the website. Even if they don't buy directly from you, end-consumers are also sometimes very interested in what you have to offer and want to get inspired.
Communicating to both of the audiences can be a challenge which is more easily handled thanks to online processes.
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Reimagining your sales processes
Sales teams in the Furniture and Textiles industry are still doing a lot of in-person visits to the prospects and customers. When they do, they return with a lot of information that has to be manually entered in a tool to better manage the relationship.
We also see that companies of this industry are often working with sales agents all over the world. It is crucial that the information they capture is collected as well and shared with the main sales team.
By implementing more digital sales tools, both the internal sales team and the sales agents are able to connect with more prospects and handle the entire sales cycle more easily. Being able to create quotes directly also helps to be more efficient and to provide a better buying experience to the customer.
Aligning with back-office for quoting and reporting
In a lot of cases, the commercial teams are disconnected from the back-office, which can lead to inefficiencies in case the back-office is responsible for creating quotes. It can also lead to discrepancies when it comes to report on the entire buyer's journey.
The sales teams need to share information efficiently with the back office in order to create the most accurate quote. Furthermore, the commercial teams should share with the rest of the organization their results. This way, companies can improve their processes.
Customer stories
Getting Bru to the next level with Hubspot
Read how Bru Textiles aligned their commercial teams by increasing the collaboration thanks to a methodology, technology and an integration.
THE STORY OF VINCENT SHEPPARD IMPLEMENTING INBOUND MARKETING
HUBSPOT INTEGRATION WITH MICROSOFT BUSINESS CENTRAL FOR VINCENT SHEPPARD
-Bad commercial data quality
-The governance processes for commercial data was weak
-No CRM to track customer interactions