Digital Marketing’s Impact on Industrial and Manufacturing Companies
Digital marketing is gaining ground as a marketing tool for B2B companies. While many manufacturers still rely on traditional methods to promote their businesses, over the years, we’ve seen the migration of many manufacturers to the internet in order to develop an online presence through websites, ads, SEO, and social media platforms.
In this article, you will learn how digital marketing can help manufacturing and industrial companies to grow.
How Digital Marketing Impacts Industrial Companies
Don’t get us wrong—traditional marketing tactics such as trade shows and cold calling still work. But with a plethora of information available to anyone with a click on the search button, buyers tend to do their research on products and services on their own.
Information is crucial in the decision-making process of logical buyers. However, studies show that only 3% of people find salespeople trustworthy. With that being said, how can salespeople educate prospects about the specifications of their products and services without triggering buyers’ fears of being manipulated into a purchase?
This is where digital marketing comes into play.
How Digital Marketing Works for Manufacturers
Particularly in the manufacturing industry, leads want to know how things work and how much they cost compared to others. Digital marketing allows manufacturing companies to provide these pieces of information without being too pushy.
Likewise, companies can produce targeted content, and other tactics as potential buyers gather enough information and develop actionable interest. Once deployed, digital marketing tactics serve sufficient information and increase the willingness to buy. Buyers can now count on salespeople to fill in the gaps of their research and assist them in the process of actually making the purchase.
To be more specific, here’s how digital marketing impacts industrial companies:
- Increases organic website traffic.
- Shows off your company’s capabilities.
- Establishes brand trust and credibility.
- Strengthens customer relationships.
- Boosts customer retention and reduces churn.
- Fosters company growth.
- Increases Organic Website Traffic
SEO for Manufacturing
One of the most common digital marketing tools that B2B companies use today is search engine optimization or SEO. Besides the fact that it makes your content discoverable on search engines, it’s also cheap. The only catch is that it takes a while to build up your organic rankings. Content inside your website must be great in quantity, SEO-rich, and cited by other websites.
A 2020 research shows that the first organic result on Google Search has a click-through rate of 28.5%. It decreases as it goes down the ranking. Furthermore, users barely go to the second page of a search engine.
With SEO, you can push your content at the top of the search engine results page. At the same time, you can increase website traffic and pose yourself as an expert for the manufacturing industry.
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The bottom line is that your website’s search engine optimization is worth investing in. It’s the best way to increase your website traffic and make people curious about your manufacturing company’s capabilities.
With our web design agency resources, we have the teams in place to handle all aspects of your website making sure that it will get organic traffic and ready for those marketing campaigns.
Content Marketing Strategy
We already know that information is important to support the logic of decision-makers. With that said, manufacturing marketers can provide information about the company’s products and services with content.
Whichever content type you choose—articles, videos, white papers, social media posts—the content must communicate your company’s capabilities and branding.
Furthermore, build up your content marketing strategy by having value-rich content and SEO-rich content as your two main buckets. Consistency is also key here!
Social Media Marketing Strategy
You can use your social media platforms to distribute your content, too. With a social media presence, your manufacturing company will seem more relatable and approachable. We highly advise industrial and manufacturing companies to take advantage of LinkedIn as the top social media platform. Use this platform to showcase your company and industry expertise.
Establish Brand Trust and Credibility
Your digital presence signals to the world that your company exists. More importantly, the quality and relevance of your digital presence signal to the world that your company is trustworthy and credible.
When your manufacturing company is visible and up-to-date with SEO and content, you establish yourself as the expert. People can rely on your company for information not just about specific products and services but also about industry-related topics.
Branding is a significant factor in a product or service’s marketability, and what better way to build this than with a digital marketing strategy.
Strengthen Customer Relationships
With a digital presence, your manufacturing company is not just visible but also approachable. Your customer relationship management can be improved with some digital marketing tools.
Updated Contact Details on Your Pages
Ensure that your company’s contact details are updated on your website, social media, and wherever you are present online. Additionally, provide your telephone or mobile number, address, and email address.
Most prospects get contact information from websites. Indeed, it would be too bad to lose a lead just because they weren’t able to reach your company when they tried to get in touch.
Responsive Communication Channels
One of the benefits of the internet is faster communication. Manufacturing companies must take advantage of it to stay competitive. For example, use communication channels like contact forms, emails, and chat boxes to engage with customers, leads, and prospects.
When you’re responsive to inquiries, your leads are unlikely to move on to the next option.
Curated Newsletters
Manufacturing companies can also use newsletters to strengthen customer relationships. Particularly, this time you’re initiating contact with those who subscribed to your email marketing. But be mindful that you want your emails to come according to their preference to avoid seeming too pushy with this tool.
Boost Customer Retention and Reduce Churn
When you have reliable offerings, capabilities, and customer relations, buyers are likely to associate your brand with positive feelings. And when customers feel good about your brand, they are likely to be repeat customers.
Digital marketing allows you to boost your customer retention and reduce churn with tools that help in your marketing funnel’s loyalty-building and advocacy phase.
Fosters Company Growth
A digital marketing strategy can boost all efforts and increase the total return of investments.
Moreover, when customers are aware and informed about your company’s capabilities, they are likely to buy. When they are given attention, they are likely to stay. And when you have a stable customer base, you are likely to attract even more customers and more sales.
Consequences of Not Having a Manufacturing Marketing Strategy
In closing, manufacturers who are reluctant to leave old-school ways are now considered behind. These companies won’t experience the same reach, engagement, and conversions that manufacturing companies leveraging digital marketing strategies have.
When more than half of the global population is on the internet, manufacturing companies must pivot their traditional marketing strategy to the digital world.
As the leader in industrial marketing, MFG Tribe has been helping Industrial companies from $2 million – $3 billion dominate their competition with the most aggressive marketing tactics that work in today’s competitive environment for over five years. Our strategy adjusts based on what’s most effective for YOUR company, and we only work with industrial companies. If you’re looking to set up your marketing efforts with the Industrial Marketing leader, schedule a discovery call today.