Seven steps: choose accounts by application; map the specifier, buyer and gatekeeper at each; open with a technical answer to a known problem; send the documents before they are asked for; get a sample into a trial and support it; win the approval; keep the approval with change notification and service. Distributors and consented email extend each step.
The rules on hazard wording, safety claims, green claims and export controls apply in every email and call as well as on the website.
Step 1: Choose accounts by application
List the applications where your grade solves a problem buyers know they have, then the industries where that application matters, then the accounts in each, by region. A list of "companies that use chemicals" is not a target list; a list of forty coating formulators who struggle with a specific dispersion problem is. Rank the accounts by fit and size, and decide which ones your team will work directly and which go to distributors.
Step 2: Map the people at each account
Each account has three roles that must all say yes. LinkedIn's ad targeting reaches members by job title, company, industry and seniority, and LinkedIn reports more than a billion members, which makes it practical to put an application note in front of the specifiers at a named list of accounts:
- The specifier: the R&D chemist, formulator or process engineer at the client who decides whether a material works.
- The buyer: procurement or category management, who decides whether you are a supplier they can rely on.
- The gatekeeper: quality, regulatory or EHS, who decides whether your documents and status are acceptable.
Step 3: Open with a technical answer
The first contact that works is useful to the specifier: an application note on the problem they have, a comparison of grades for their process, a short answer to a question their team has asked in public. A generic introduction to your company is easy to ignore; a specific answer from a named chemist is hard to. Offer a call with that chemist alongside the salesperson.
Step 4: Send the documents before they are asked for
The gatekeeper will ask for the technical data sheet, the safety data sheet, the certificate of analysis, regulatory status in their markets and your change-notification policy. Send them early. In the USA, 29 CFR 1910.1200(g) requires SDS headings in a set order under OSHA's Hazard Communication Standard; in the EU, Article 48 of the CLP Regulation requires an advertisement for a substance classified as hazardous to mention its hazard classes or categories, and from 1 January 2028, under Regulation (EU) 2024/2865 and Regulation (EU) 2025/2439, its hazard pictograms, signal words, hazard statements and supplemental EUH statements (non-visual ads may omit pictograms and signal words), and a June 2026 political agreement on the EU's "omnibus VI" package would ease these rules, so check the current text; sales materials for those products carry that information too. For pesticide products, 40 CFR 156.10 rules out claims such as "safe", "nonpoisonous" or "harmless", and the FTC's Green Guides govern environmental claims; the same words stay out of sales emails and decks.
Step 5: Get the sample into a trial, and support it
Ship the sample with the documents and a named contact, agree what the trial will measure and when, and follow up on the date, not weeks later. Most stalled sales stall here: the sample sits on a shelf, the trial is run without guidance, or the result is never reported back. Offer your chemist's help with the trial design and with interpreting a disappointing first result. Record every trial, its outcome and the reason, by application.
Step 6: Win the approval
After a successful trial, the buyer's quality team reviews your documents, may audit your site, and adds you to the approved-supplier list. Be ready with your quality certificates, an audit-ready site, consistent batch data and commercial terms the buyer's procurement can accept. Approval is the real win; until then, the business is a successful experiment.
Step 7: Keep the approval
Approved suppliers keep their place by delivering consistently, notifying changes in process, raw materials or site in the way the buyer requires, answering complaints quickly and helping with the next application. A change made without notice can cost the approval and the account. Keep a calendar of each account's review dates and a named owner for each relationship.
Distributors extend the reach
For accounts below your direct-sales threshold, or regions you do not cover, distributors carry your products to buyers. Give them the application notes, documents and approved descriptions, the list of claims they must never make, and a clear route for technical questions to your chemists. Track which distributors start trials and which only take orders.
Controlled grades
If any of your products appear on export control lists, such as the Australia Group's common control lists for chemical weapons precursors, sales follow your compliance team's screening, and outreach for those grades is never broad. Route every inquiry for them to the people who screen end users and destinations.
Follow-up email within the laws
Follow-up email to specifiers and buyers is commercial email. In the USA the FTC's CAN-SPAM guide requires accurate headers, a truthful subject line, a postal address and an opt-out honored within 10 business days, with penalties up to $53,088 per email; in Canada, CASL requires consent before a commercial electronic message. Send trial reminders and new application notes to people who agreed to hear from you, and keep marketing and transactional messages apart. Our email marketing service runs it.
How to measure the sales path
By application and region, each month: target accounts contacted, technical conversations started, samples sent, trials completed, qualifications won and lost with reasons, approvals kept, and distributor-started trials. The ratio to watch is samples to qualifications; when it falls, the trial support in step 5 is usually the cause.
If you want it run with you
PromotEdge International is an international strategy, technology, marketing and design company, and our delivery team is in India. Chemical clients we have worked for include Fine Organics, Novozymes and Himadri Speciality Chemical. That work was for their business in India and was delivered by our team there. Our chemical marketing service page describes the work. This guide is general information, not legal advice; the rules of your country, state and province apply, and your counsel has the last word.
Facts we rely on: see our company facts for what we state about ourselves and where each fact comes from.