Long-term loyalty: 10 M€ within 3 years

How to get more from existing customers? The theme of this year’s B2B marketing forum fits Daniël Vonken from Bruynzeel Storage Systems like a glove. Thanks to more alignment between sales and marketing and cross-selling to existing customer base, annual revenue rose to ten million euro within three years. Hard facts that prove that it can be done. Find how out? Read more.

Strong contribution to annual business with three years

As Bruynzeel Storage Systems puts it themselves: ‘they organise your space’. In the past years they have organised a lot more than that, namely a fully automated lead generation process leading to a return on investment of 600%. The world leader in storage systems for musea, libraries, archives and offices used their innovative perspective to redesign their sales and marketing, with the current customer database as the starting point and meaningful content as an essential element of their strategy.

Daniël Vonken, Group marketing director at Bruynzeel Storage Systems is prepared to share with us how this sky-high ROI was realised by their new marketing approach. Daniël: “Our starting point for designing the lead generation process was embracing the belief that long term customers are loyal customers. To let our business grow from our existing customer base we realised that more alignment was needed between sales and marketing. In the retail industry they call it ‘seamless’: a flowing process from lead to delivery.

We invested in implementing smart software and tools that help build the foundation of lead generation and marketing automation. This let us harmonise our existing customer database and supply the newly instated account managers with the data they required for cross-selling to existing customers. Next step was a content marketing strategy to support our approach. By truly understanding our customers’ needs we could offer the right content at the right moment.”

Which learnings are meaningful to today’s B2B marketers?

“Companies need to realise that big data isn’t just a flighty hype, but here to stay. You need it to know and serve your customer. I believe that these tools, new developments and strategies that have already proven their value all need to be brought together to create a holistic approach with the customer at the centre of it all. This is no claim that it is an easy exercise. We experienced that first hand. Consider the scale of our operation with dedicated sales offices in nine European countries and a network of distributors in 43 countries.

I also believe that if we really want to understand our customer we need to move up a level. The Japanese term ‘umami’ inspires me. Umami means ‘savoury taste’. Most people are aware of the four tastes: sour, sweet, bitter and salt. However only few know the fifth taste umami. I strive to understand my customers up to and including that fifth dimension.”

Why should visitors visit your session?

Daniël: “During my session I will elaborate on the learnings, do´s, dont´s and on how to move forward. Visitors can join in for all the practical tips and lessons, but I am also looking forward to sharing my vision on how to really get to know your customer in a new and refreshing manner. This will be my contribution to the annual platform where B2B professionals can create a new joint vision of the future of marketing. Besides, from a company who has introduced the term ‘spacefulness’ one could not expect anything less than a fresh approach to matters.”