Applying Marketing Concepts to Procurement

Let's see, we are a group of old-school engineers who had our first job in a refinery, making sure the cable pass boxes didn't fill up with oil.

When we founded Babelus, our dream was to connect emerging global suppliers with large organizations. The first idea was to build a marketplace where qualified suppliers could expose themselves to large organizations: a kind of Alibaba, but quality for enterprises.

With the illusion at the edge of our hearts, we went out to connect with hundreds of factories in Asia. We saw ourselves as a superhero on top of a building with a cape, proud to have thousands of suppliers paying for Babelus' service. 

But, as happens to most startups in their early days, there is no worse plan than believing what you believe. Out of hundreds of suppliers contacted, there was only one that paid to be there. It's a deep topic, that we want to explore it further (Suppliers have a hard time paying in marketplaces).

As we walked around large utilities in countries across the Americas and Europe, selling our Alibaba Reloaded, we realized that these companies were willing to pay to meet more suppliers. It was the complete opposite of the model we had in mind. And thus, we got our first big customer: Red Eléctrica de España, one of the largest power transmission companies in Europe.

The utility had to go out and look for suppliers, and not the other way around. The workflow ensured a higher quality of information and real possibilities for both parties.

In another article, we talked about Supplier Hunting, so we will not emphasize it too much in this text.

Companies are forced to compete for the time of sales teams on the supplier side, meet the right person and nurture them to attract them to their purchasing portal.

Outbound Marketing

By now we were in the startup world where everyone is talking about Inbound, Outbound, content, etc. How to apply it to expand supplier lists?

Outbound marketing is a strategy based on the concept of the sales funnel. Leads or prospects must be captured to enter through the top and navigate to the bottom.

Knowing people's names and job titles is called lead generation. LinkedIn is a great help, but not everyone is there. Using automation software can help you know the person and contact details.

300 vendors = 1000+ contacts

For every vendor, there are no less than three salespeople, but how do you contact 1000 people simultaneously? And how do you persuade them to give you tailored information?

Thanks to technology, there are some amazing email marketing tools available. One of our favorites is Yesware, where you can upload 1000 contacts and design a campaign with different touches to attract them to your company. 

Don't forget to have a CRM, where you can have the information on hand for each supplier, allowing you to qualify leads based on the stage of the relationship. We use HubSpot for that purpose, for example.

Conclusion

Just as companies must go out and find customers and talent, they must also go out and find suppliers. Using lead generation and email marketing automation marketing strategies is the most effective way to engage the right people and attract them to your company.

By the way, the Babelus database is so robust that we can offer suppliers their contact persons and invite them to provide information through our interaction module. With Babelus, you can forget about this process and focus on your business while expanding your supplier lists.

Babelus is gaining so much traction in the industry that the suppliers are contacting us to showcase themselves.

Ironically, our idea wasn't so bad. Now we have the suppliers; they just don't have to pay to be there.