Investing in digital marketing for your manufacturing company will not only serve your business right now, but it will build a foundation that will serve as a source of business for years to come. The process of finding clients has changed significantly in recent years, creating the need not just for standard advertising methods but the use of digital marketing for manufacturers.
We created this step-by-step guide to give you some ideas for how to incorporate the most effective digital marketing tactics. Our top 5 ideas for marketing a manufacturing company include:
Before you can properly build out the rest of your manufacturing business marketing plan, you must first have an understanding of who you are trying to reach. The buyer persona functions as a filter and helps determine who is more likely to purchase prospects.
A buyer persona is a fictional version of your ideal customer based on research and data about your current customers. In a buyer persona, you'll want to define your customer's:
A buyer persona helps you better understand your customers (and prospective customers). It’s based on market research and real data about your existing customers. Understanding your buyer persona allows you to create marketing messages and strategies that speak directly to them.
Learn more about building a buyer persona here.
Our next marketing idea for manufacturing companies is improving SEO. When potential buyers and customers or your manufacturing business are searching for a provider, 81% of them search online. When they type they keywords into the search engine, they'll click on a few of the results that show up on page one.
Search Engine Optimization, or "SEO" for short, is a technique that can be used on a website to improve site visibility amongst search engines. It’s a means of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to a site from search engines, ideally resulting in increased revenue.
Investing in search engine optimization is the first step toward connecting with these prospects. It's not the only step; you can also invest in PPC Advertising for faster results.
SEO is a complex and ever-evolving practice comprised of three main components.
There is no better long-term play to build your manufacturing business than to have core SEO in place. This is what will attract customers to you on a consistent basis for years to come.
To improve SEO:
For a comprehensive overview of SEO for Manufacturing businesses, click here.
With excellent SEO, you will start to have traffic flooding your website. Our next marketing idea covers what to do once this traffic is on your site. Most customers will wonder, "How do I do business with you?" after reading your content or exploring your website.
Many manufactures don't present/show a clear next step to start the formal sales process. They may have a section that states "Contact Us" but that isn't a clear way to say "Buy Now."
To ensure you have a website optimized to convert casual website visitors into paying customers, your calls to action should provide clarity on how to get started. A call to action stating "Request a Free Consultation" or "Upgrade your Process Today" clearly directs prospects towards buying.
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) aims to get the most out of your website traffic by turning more of them into leads or customers.
Here are some of the best practices for optimizing your website for conversions.
Content Marketing serves numerous purposes in an effective digital marketing plan. You have probably heard the concept that “Content is King” and it’s for good reason.
Content serves to help with:
Simply put, if you are going to focus your efforts anywhere, focus on content. You can more easily grow into other areas of digital marketing once you have great content.
The content on your website needs to be valuable, but you also need to consider content marketing from other vantage points.
Once your customer clicks on your content, they are likely to look at other resources on your website and start the formal sales process.
In addition, you can easily use your manufacturing blog content to engage potential customers through various digital channels.
You can share your blogs through:
For the best ways to create content for your website, click here.
Our last marketing idea for manufacturers is creating email marketing campaigns. Email marketing remains one of the most effective marketing tactics for reaching prospects and customers. With email marketing, you can effectively engage customers directly in their inboxes, directly on their phones.
Even if they don't read every email, your manufacturing company name appears in front of them every time you show up in their inbox. Those emails remind prospects and customers your company is still there and ready to serve them.
With that said, we are not encouraging you to abuse access to someone's inbox. The best email marketing always leads by adding value to the customer's life.
Some of the best email marketing ideas are:
The average consumer needs to interact with a business between 8-12 times before they are ready to buy. By utilizing email marketing, you will get numerous touches with your prospects without spending a ton of money. Once you have their email, your only cost is the software you use.
To learn more about effective email marketing, click here.
After reading this guide, you have a clear idea of what needs to happen to effectively promote your manufacturing business. If you’d like a custom digital marketing plan for your business, talk to one of our digital marketing experts about what a digital marketing plan could look like for your organization by requesting a free consultation.