Real Results Marketing in partnership with Modern Distribution Management conducted an online survey of more than 175 distributors to better understand their marketing practices. This article, the second in a two-part series analyzing the results, explores how distributors use different marketing vehicles such as email, the Web, catalogs and more. The first article looked at how marketing channels are used by different distributors.

Historically, distributors were limited to in-store marketing vehicles such as print flyers, catalogs, some telemarketing and tradeshows. Marketing vehicles that have become prevalent in the past five years include email, search engine marketing, increased telemarketing and social media.

Of course, the marketing vehicles are linked significantly to the marketing channels chosen by a company. As noted in Part 1 of this report, published in the May 10, 2011, issue of MDM, many companies have outside sales and inbound telephone sales channels. Fewer companies have a transactional website. Companies without e-commerce will make only token efforts in search engine …