Marketing for Manufacturing Vendors – Best Practices to Build Awareness and Generate Leads
Twenty-five percent of respondents, according to original research conducted in the manufacturing industry, strongly agreed that another provider could easily replace their manufacturing industry vendors. Nearly half of them stated they contact vendors when they need help choosing the best provider for their needs. And a full 90% of manufacturers strongly agree that the quality of products and services they buy to support their manufacturing activities is incredibly important. (Our blog Client-Centric Manufacturing: Perspectives and Insights From Across the Industry outlines survey methodology and key research findings.) We discovered from our research that vendors are nearly indispensable to manufacturers.
Best Practice #1: Develop a Strong Online Presence
Have you ever exhibited at a trade show? Then you understand the importance of a strong physical presence at the show to draw prospects to your booth and generate sales leads.
A strong online presence can draw prospective customers to your website and generate sales leads, too. More importantly, your online presence works for you 24/7/365, whereas trade shows last only a couple of days sporadically throughout the year.
Investing in your online presence – your website, SEO, and social media – will yield a higher return on investment than traditional trade shows by helping you be found by more people and providing prospective manufacturing partners with the resources they need to choose you.
Website
Your website is the foundation of your online presence and should be your starting point. It should be informative, concise and easily communicate what you do. (For what not to include on your website, watch our webinar The Biggest Marketing Mistakes Manufacturers Make.)
The language of your website should be less about you and more about your prospects and customers. Address their pain points and how you alleviate them (don’t forget the proof!) in the copy of your website. If you are wondering why this matters, consider this: according to our research, 80% of manufacturers agree that it’s important for vendors to take the time to understand their needs, and those that do will offer better service.
Something we often see is a lack of distinction between manufacturing vendors. The default is to use quality as a differentiator. But if everyone is touting their high quality, you will drown in a sea of sameness. Manufacturers expect quality – they want to know how you are truly different from your competitors.
Eighty-six percent of manufacturers would prefer to purchase through an online ordering system yet only 10% of industrial OEMs have online ordering systems in place, according to a study from McKinsey & Company. If it makes sense for your business, consider an e-commerce site to reduce the friction in the buying process and further distinguish yourself from your competitors.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Building a website is only the beginning. Once your site is live, you need to consistently optimize webpages to improve how you show up in search results (this is referred to as “visibility”). You likely have brick-and-mortar competitors you’re always keeping tabs on, but you also have SEO competitors who are competing with you for visibility and clicks online. (We share four popular digital tools to help you identify and compete with SEO competitors in our blog Our Favorite Competitor Analysis Tools: Learn How to Identify New Competitors.)
One way you can do this is by publishing blogs to your site consistently. Blogs should directly address prospects’ pain points and questions. Optimizing them for SEO can improve your site’s online visibility and help you be discovered by more people. (For content recommendations, see our blog The Content Advantage for Small and Medium Manufacturers.) This also ties into best practice #5, inbound marketing.
Social Media
Though the industry tends to be more traditional and wary of social media, it’s time to adopt this digital marketing platform to round out your online presence. Before you create an account on every social media channel, determine which channel(s) your prospects are on. (This worksheet from Hootsuite can help!) Why? If they’re active on YouTube but not on Instagram, there’s no reason to spend time on an Instagram strategy. Whichever channel or channels you establish profiles on, be sure to optimize them; we tell you how in our blog The Importance of Brand Consistency.
Best Practice #2: Email Marketing
Email marketing doesn’t often get the same buzz as social media marketing, but don’t underestimate it! Your prospects, like you, probably spend a fair amount of their workday in their inbox – especially decision-makers at manufacturing companies.
Your email marketing strategy should focus on investing in client relationships and deepening them. Emails are also a great way to offer value-added services like training, consulting or tech support.
Before you can send emails, you need an email list. As tempting as it may be to purchase a list or add all attendees of XYZ trade show to your email platform, you must resist the temptation. If you don’t, you risk hurting your reputation and email deliverability and open yourself up to data privacy violations. Invite people to subscribe and make them opt-in so you know the people you’re emailing actually want to receive your emails.
As your subscriber list grows, you can segment your subscribers and send targeted personalized email campaigns. Segmentation and personalization help ensure the relevancy of your email content so you are adding value, which will encourage them to open your emails. We go into more detail about how to do this and the importance of automating your email marketing in our blog Inbox Overload? Automating Email to Boost Conversions. For guidance on how to build effective email campaigns (and examples!), check out this blog from HubSpot.
Best Practice #3: Digital Ads
Putting some money behind your organic marketing efforts through digital ads can help your content be seen. Pay Per Click (aka PPC aka digital ads) gives you greater control over how your content appears in online search results, allowing you to better target the right audience. You can also utilize retargeting campaigns to re-engage people who have already shown interest in your business by visiting your website.
Best Practice #4: Strategic Partnerships
Collaborate with complementary businesses to expand your reach and service and/or product offerings. Be sure to choose partners that align with your brand values and target audience. From our research, we uncovered that manufacturers want vendors who provide innovative solutions and who respond quickly; consider partnering with businesses that can support you in these areas.
Best Practice #5: Inbound Marketing
Your website isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it undertaking. To have a solid online presence, you must commit to continually improving your site’s SEO and creating valuable content that attracts potential customers to your website.
Through our research, we learned that 66% of respondents say the quality of products and services for manufacturing definitely varies between vendors. Inbound marketing allows you to address this head-on by creating content that proves the quality you provide and highlights what sets you apart from your competitors (refer back to best practice #1 for the importance of differentiation).
As you prepare a content strategy, be sure your plan includes content for each stage of the customer journey. Depending on the stage they are in, prospects look for different types of content to help move them along the buying journey. Failing to tailor your content and messaging to the customer journey will prevent prospects from finding you and limit the results of your efforts. For examples of the types of content you should be creating, see our blog The Right Message: Digital Marketing Strategies Across the B2B Customer Journey.
Pro Tips: Measurement
We’re firm believers in SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals. But before you can set SMART goals for your digital marketing, you need to collect data to have as your baseline.
For all of the best practices outlined above, there are key performance indicators (KPIs) that you can track and assess as your efforts evolve. This could be your monthly traffic volume for your website, your site’s online visibility for SEO, the number of engagements (likes, clicks, shares) for social media, the open rate for your email, and conversions for your digital ads.
Whichever metrics make the most sense for your business, consistently track them. As you collect more data, you can analyze it for trends and test different tactics. The important thing about measuring and tracking your marketing efforts is to never rest on your laurels; instead, use the data to make continual improvements.
Unlock Success with a Data-Driven Marketing Strategy
Manufacturers are looking for vendors who can deliver innovative solutions, respond quickly, and consistently provide high-quality products. Meeting these expectations requires a strategic and well-executed marketing plan that positions your business as the go-to partner in the industry.
At Keystone Click, we specialize in crafting data-driven marketing strategies tailored to the unique needs of manufacturing vendors. Contact us today to learn how we can help you build awareness, generate leads, and strengthen your relationships with current and prospective manufacturing partners: https://keystoneclick.com/services/research-strategy.