What was one of the very first things that caught your eye in this photo?
The businessman is standing out from the crowd because he’s wearing different, intense colored socks. Just like him, wearing the red socks, you can differentiate yourself and stand apart from your competitors by coming up with something different: marketing on B2B portals.
If you are planning to boost your sales process, find trusted suppliers or sell products over the internet and still did not try a B2B portal, you are simply losing out on a big opportunity to make new customers!
Portal marketing offers the possibility for companies to facilitate their online trading to a great extent by placing products and services on B2B directories.
What Is an Online Business Directory?
In a broader sense, a B2B portal is an online platform where buyers, suppliers, manufacturers, wholesalers and service providers come to connect with countless potential customers, collaborate and make business transactions. Let’s say you are a furniture manufacturer and you are searching for local or worldwide buyers. You can feel free to get in touch with any company with whom you think you can do business with and it will be profitable for you.
The main purpose of an online business directory is to allow its members to use very specific search criteria in order to find high-quality leads. This will help them grow their productivity in both of the 2 fundamental elements: cost saving and revenue growth.
Benefits of Using a B2B Directory
1. Access to millions of international business leads from each and every industry
Being listed on a business directory gives you the chance to actively search and contact a sheer number of traders, producers, wholesalers and general suppliers from all across the globe. Most of them are active traders themselves and, just like you; are interested in reaching out to a broader audience.
You should definitely try OnlineCompanies.com if you are looking for an international B2B directory where you can generate qualified leads, boost your sales and drive traffic to your website. Since it’s an international portal, you have access to profiles and products that your competitors place and you can easily analyze their growth patterns.
OnlineCompanies.com is one of the largest B2B portals, containing millions of companies from all over the world, with key information such as personal contact names and positions, products, company size, activity description, VAT number and much more.
It takes less than one minute to register and validate your account. After that, you create a company profile so you can actively search for various leads, both locally or abroad.
The very first aspects that will catch your attention will be the website’s usability and accessibility. You won’t encounter any difficulties when searching for something because it’s well structured and straightforward.
With your company account, you can reply to the leads you receive, get trusted sales prospects with verified details, access international markets and expand your business globally.
2. A better sense of security
When buyers are using a B2B directory for trade, they are always looking for a trusted seller who offers the genuine product at the best price.
Most B2B portals provide verification services to make the user experience safer and more efficient. For example, they can validate all registered users via phone verification or implement review ratings that ensure a professional and secure interaction. The verified members are 100% genuine leads.
With OnlineCompanies.com, you can rest assure that your leads are qualified and verified using multiple sources. Their team test each and every contact for spam traps and authenticity. If, for some reason, it happens to come across something shady, just let their customer support representatives know and they will happily run some checks.
3. Smaller investments, higher returns
Compared to other online marketing tools, B2B directories have a relatively lower risk in terms of cost and ROI.
Most business directories offer annual memberships with price ranging between $200 and $3000. In return, you get additional functionalities and features that will help you achieve your goals.
Let’s suppose you have a premium membership on a well-known B2B directory. The membership will increase your company’s visibility within the portal, so each time potential clients are looking for companies from the same industry as yours, you will be listed amongst the first.
OnlineCompanies.com provides 4 types of Memberships: Free Default Plan, the Bronze Membership, the Silver Membership and the Gold Membership.
Each Membership has different and unique functionalities, for example, the Gold Membership gives you preferential ranking on their platform- your company profile will be ranked as 1st, with the Silver Membership you will be ranked as 2nd and the Bronze Plan will rank you as 3rd. Every time time a potential client is searching for leads from the same business sector as yours, they will see your profile and this will boost your brand awareness.
*Here’s a small trick: in order to increase your response rate, what you can do is have information available on your profile, so your company does not look like an empty shell. Your profile should have enough details: a company description, a logo, contact information and pictures of the products/ services you sell.
The difference between the 3 Premium Plans resides in the features: with the Gold Membership you get a Free Banner (which is clickable and will get you even more sales leads and is linked to whatever webpage you desire -your company’s website, your company profile on OnlineCompanies.com or your contact page) and you are allowed to add 64 keywords and 100 products with pictures to your profile. It is recommended to add the maximum number of keywords, because they will significantly increase your online visibility and is one of the most valuable functionalities.
Other features include the number of messages that you can send per month and also the bulk emails option, which is a valuable tool, especially for those who don’t have so much free time.
4. Online business directories boost your search engine rankings and drive traffic to your website
Additionally, listing your enterprise on OnlineCompanies.com will give your company higher ranking among relevant search results. This is because they run expensive marketing campaigns for relevant keywords on search engines. These campaigns give you the chance to drive traffic to your company website without having to pay for it.
It’s a brilliant solution that will get you online visibility to prospective clients.
5. Expand your business network
Remaining successful in today’s global competition is a big challenge. That’s why top companies spend as much on networking as they invest on other direct marketing activities. B2B portals allow you to increase your company’s online presence, grow your business network and create mutually beneficial partnerships with trusted companies that can complement your work.
OnlineCompanies.com works like a 5 in 1 business directory, it allows you to contact trusted clients, helps you drive traffic to your website (they have good traffic and their users migrate to your company’s website which is added to your profile), you get better ranking on search engines, it improves your online presence and you benefit from free business consulting.
6. Better targeting
Portal marketing facilitates a great targeting of specific industries and geographical regions. At the moment, OnlineCompanies.com has more than 5 million companies registered on their platform.
Members can direct their marketing focus on certain customer segments without losing coverage. For example, if you are looking for water heaters buyers, you’ll be adding keywords and refine your search results using advanced filters, based on numerous criteria: business sector, country, types of traders, service providers, and so on. The website will display a relevant list of companies and either you’ll be contacting them one by one or you can use the bulk messaging system.
Conclusion
Global business marketers have embraced the digital era by using B2B directories to generate targeted leads and focus on relevant audience. They know it pretty well: a lead is not just a random potential client. It’s the one that has displayed an interest in the product or service that your company provides. And it’s only one step away from you!
Have a look at www.onlinecompanies.com, register for free (it takes less than 21 seconds) and start selling more! Contact us: +44 20 3239 9531, WhatsApp: +44 77 0975 3482
