Industrial Marketing Isn’t One Size Fits All

There are two general buckets in industrial marketing: products and services. Although industrial marketing techniques and strategies have the same pillars and areas to focus on, execution is going to be different depending on your market.

You will need to look at where your prospects spend most of their time and go from there. If you are in services, then you’re serving industrial companies, such as machine shops, plastics, or robotics. On the other hand, industrial products are usually sold directly to consumers.

If you’re a technical marketing engineer or a sales engineer and you’re marketing or selling an industrial product or service, you need to take a good look at your industrial marketing techniques. Each product, company, and service is different and there is no one way to market industrial products or services. Even a manufacturing marketing agency will use different techniques depending on the product. However, there are standard strategies that everyone should keep in mind.

There are 5 key areas to consider in any marketing strategy:

1) The website

Whether you have 500 or 5,000 hits in a month, your website has to be ready to perform. Maybe you hired a manufacturing marketing agency to help you with your website, or maybe you made it on your own. Either way, keep the following important points in mid:

a) Have a clear call to action – when someone visits your site, what do you want them to do? Make sure the call to action is clear. For example, “Add to Cart,” “Sign up for Newsletter,” and “Shop Now” CTAs should be clear and easy to find on your site.

b) It has to be “marketing ready” – take a good look at your homepage and landing pages to make sure they are optimized. How is the speed of your website? Is it loading too slowly? It has to be able to handle traffic, channel visitors into your sales funnel, and get conversions.

Make sure everything is working before even considering implementing industrial marketing techniques. It doesn’t make sense to spend money on a manufacturing marketing agency to run your ads, or even running some ads yourself, if your site isn’t ready for the traffic you are going to attract.

c) The website is always the starting point.

You don’t have to spend tens of thousands of dollars to have a manufacturing marketing agency completely revamp your website. Maybe you just need to spend a little money for some improvements or maybe it’s completely fine the way it is. Just spend some time to make sure that your site is optimized with CTAs and keep in mind that for many prospects, your website is the first place they will learn about you and your company.

2) Content

We’ve all heard the term “content is king.” There’s no denying that content is a driving force for brand awareness, revenue, and growth. If you’re a technical marketing engineer, keep in mind that you need to create a mix of written and video content. How you execute depends on your product or service as well. Standard industrial marketing techniques work with both kinds of content but generally, photos and videos work well both on Instagram and LinkedIn. Current trends in industrial marketing lean towards video, but Google still likes ranking written content, like articles and blog posts, so you should have a balance of both.

Want to get the most out of your industrial marketing strategy? Consult the experts here at MFG Tribe. We are a specialized industrial marketing agency that understands the ins and outs of your product and what you do!

3) Getting Attention

You’ve spent time and money creating content. Now you need to get it some attention. What you do to get attention will depend on what you’re selling and how big your company is. If you work with a manufacturing marketing agency, they can help you with this aspect as well. If you’re doing it on your own, keep the following in mind:

a) You need to have an active social media presence – you need to be on the platform where your customers spend most of their time. If you sell a really cool product B2C, then shooting a promotional video and posting it on Instagram is likely to get a lot of engagement from your customers. For B2B, focusing on LinkedIn works best. Remember, social is the quickest way to get content in front of somebody.

b) Use email to share your content – if you have an email database, you can send out an article via email and provide value to your prospects instantly. If it’s for a specific audience, include in the copy who it’s meant for – example, “If you’re a technical marketing engineer, take a look at this:”. Encourage them to read it by emphasizing that it might help them with a specific issue. If you need help setting up email marketing, consider working with a manufacturing marketing agency.

c) Post your content on your website – strategically post the content you create on your website, especially on your most visited pages. Use Google Analytics to determine where it would be most visible, but make sure the content is relevant to the specific page. Include links as needed – link out to your YouTube channel, for example.

d) Money follows attention – Brand awareness will definitely help your sales and marketing efforts. People are more likely to purchase a product from a company or brand they’ve heard about versus one they’ve never encountered before.

4) Follow Up

Following up is a simple yet very important industrial marketing technique to always remember. Follow up with everybody. If you have an opportunity, if someone asks you to send pricing for your product or more details, following up in different ways is a must. They’ve already shown interest, so it’s up to you to follow up whether vie phone, email, or LinkedIn. Following up is the difference between technical sales engineers that close a lot of deals versus those who don’t.

5) Speed It Up

This is where advertising, or working with a manufacturing marketing agency, comes in. While waiting for organic content to show results, which can take weeks or even months, you might want to start advertising. However, you have to be very strategic when it comes to paid advertising, or you might just lose money. Make sure that you’re going after a specific group of people, accounts, types, and personas.

Keep on creating content and keep on going back to these five key areas. Industrial marketing strategies don’t develop overnight. And the best ones require years of experience and careful planning. There is no such thing as instant gratification here. If you feel stuck, consider reaching out to a manufacturing marketing agency with expertise in your industry. If you want the best in the business, give MFG Tribe a call. Visit our website to learn more now!