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Manufacturing

10 Things to Include in Your Manufacturer Marketing Strategy Plan

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A manufacturer marketing strategy plan needs to reach its target market effectively.

Generating a comprehensive manufacturer marketing strategy plan that stands above the noise in the over-populated manufacturing industry can be difficult. Time is a scarce and precious resource so focusing your project efforts is a must.

But how can you measure the return on investment of your marketing programs? With today’s competitive setting the bar higher than ever, your manufacturing marketing strategy needs to be exhaustive.

Don’t worry, though, Matrix Marketing Group has compiled what your marketing strategy needs to succeed. So take a quick step back, and dive into this challenge head-on.

Manufacturer Marketing Strategy Outline

It doesn’t matter if you are a start-up entrepreneur with a few cents in your budget or the head of a large enterprise organization with millions of dollars at your disposal. The blueprint of your company’s marketing strategy should consist of these 10 activities:

  1. Situational Review
  2. Current Marketing Report
  3. S.M.A.R.T Goals
  4. Buyer Personas & Target Audience
  5. Software Stack Selection
  6. Inbound Marketing Activities
  7. Outbound Marketing Activities
  8. Sales & Marketing Process Identification
  9. Marketing Budget
  10. Measure Return on Investment

1. Situational Review (Analysis)

The manufacturing marketing strategy plan must start with an internal and external assessment.

Anyone who has taken business 101 has probably heard of a S.W.O.T analysis or situational analysis. Its sole purpose is to connect strategy and objectives by establishing where a company stands in four key areas. This overview consists of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Strengths and weaknesses are internal to your business while opportunities and threats are external. It is important to prepare a thorough review as it will be the underlying message for all your marketing efforts going forward.

Your company’s strengths should revolve around the superiority of your products over close competitors. Either that or define how the services offered alongside the products are more inclusive.

Whichever you choose, these should be compelling to your niche audience as strengths are undoubtedly the focal subject of future communications.

Conversely, address possible weaknesses and get to know how to present the relevant solutions. Understand that your target market and market research might be slightly outdated and be ready to address concerns based around it.

External opportunities present themselves in many ways, high product demand, loyal customers, changing the target landscape. Plan extensively for openings but to successfully position your product in the market you must mitigate external threats as well.

Don’t be caught off-guard, analyze your commodity and as efficiently as possible, predict the outcome of your marketing efforts. Know what your customers want and execute on your full situational analysis.

2. Current Marketing Report

website small business ideas
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A current marketing report takes a look at your marketing teams’ approach to gaining new leads and customers. What has been your general marketing procedure?

An issue we often come across at Matrix Marketing Group is small teams typically have one or two specialists that have extensive knowledge in one or two sub-categories but lack the ability to craft a full marketing strategy.

Additionally, over 50% of marketers don’t feel prepared to provide their executive team with hard metrics. So let’s make our company stand out from the crowd and take care of business.

Your manufacturing marketing strategy plan must start with a marketing audit.

Reach across marketing channels:

What is your marketing strategy for social media?

This is a solid indicator if your content has been loved by your viewers and consumed or if it has been a dud. Where are these observers coming from, email, PPC, social media?

If your reach hasn’t been growing at a healthy rate, you might be missing out on new marketing leads. When you miss out on leads you miss out on revenue and no executive will be happy with that.

Website Visitors and your manufacturing marketing strategy plan:

The number of visitors to your site details how many people came to your site during a given period. More importantly, though is where these visitors originated.

As you enter the nitty-gritty of the marketing strategy, you’ll naturally want to treat referral traffic differently than organic and social traffic. If efforts aren’t paying off on social media it’s nice to know so that you can refocus and adapt.

Am I driving new website traffic? Is it high-quality and targeted traffic? Is traffic converting into sales? And if not, how can I improve to maximize my efforts? That point should be brought up early on and repeated often.

Leads:

These are your bread and butter, your meat and potatoes; they make the marketing world go round.

Leads will show the direct return on investment of your efforts and how beneficial the marketing department has been for the sales team.

Ideally, divide your leads generated by the source to identify the most efficient producing channels.

Customers:

What’s on everyone’s mind, the total amount of clients gained from marketing campaigns. New business is what drives your budget and gets straight to the executive’s heart.

Couple this section with conversion rates on business closed by the sales team to understand the quality of leads that are flowing through the sales funnel. Are you experiencing a low closing rate?

It might be time to change the basis of how you are handing off leads to the sales team.

3. S.M.A.R.T Goals and Your Manufacturing Marketing Strategy Plan

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S.M.A.R.T Goals is another one of those acronyms most of us know by heart: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Timely. Nonetheless, structuring plans around these parameters increase the likelihood of success. So let’s structure a sample goal.

Being specific on what your team intends to accomplish drives them forward. Who is involved, what are they trying to achieve, where will this be executed, when will they finish, which requirements or constraints are in place, and why are these individuals included?

These points all relate to transparency, and they aim to make sure everyone is up-to-date when it comes to fulfilling their goals.

Goals need to be measurable to establish criteria for progression. Just like when reporting marketing metrics you want reliable standards that will relay where the goals stand regarding completion. Understand questions along the lines of when will “X” be finished and how much of “Y” do I need to achieve that?

Begin determining what developments are most important to you and figure out how to make these things a reality. What skills and abilities will have to be improved to make this goal attainable? Remember, if you develop your goals wisely and with uninhibited motivation, almost anything can be attainable.

That being said if you were never realistic in the first place then you are just wasting everyone’s time. An ERP company probably won’t make a seamless switch to selling gym socks, but you never know.

Balance your goals with realism and driving substantial progress. Just because you might have to reach doesn’t mean it’s unrealistic, motivate the team to perform their best.

Draw a line in the sand for your manufacturer marketing strategy plan

Create a sense of urgency and follow a time frame right from the beginning. Don’t allow procrastination to take over, set intermittent due dates to drive productivity. So let’s wrap all of this together with the example promised earlier:

“Our marketing team would like to increase inbound lead flow by 25% through content marketing. Within two weeks, we would like to develop and approve a three-month-long content marketing plan that will describe how to attract, convert, close, and delight future inbound leads.

One marketing team member will be responsible for SEO, two will be responsible for blogging, one will be responsible for premium content (white papers, ebooks, videos, etc.), and one will be in charge of design.

At every two week duration during our three-month plan, we will generate six blogs and three premium pieces of content. At six weeks we will review metrics and determine if our long-tail keyword strategy needs an adjustment based on recent lead generation rates.”

4. Buyer Personas & Target Audience and the Manufacturing Marketing Strategy

An ideal customer profile (ICP) can either bring total success or total failure and therefore is a crucial make-or-break decision for marketing managers. Try to envision who your business buyers are and how much information is known about them.

In thinking about consumers, you begin the process of developing buyer personas. Matrix Marketing Group offers an excellent free buyer persona template to help organize your thoughts and walk through the entire creation process.

Buyer personas are fictional generalizations of users who fit into an ICP. These personas are not only beneficial to marketers but also sales, product development, and customer services.

Future marketing content generation will be dependent on who these dynamic fictional characters represent. The good news is buyer personas aren’t challenging to form under the right circumstances.

To start the process you can use market research reports, customer surveys, interviews, and focus groups of anyone in your target audience. These don’t have to be customers only; they can consist of sales prospects, referrals, and database contacts. The better understood a profile is, the more valuable it becomes. Begin asking questions along these lines:

  • What is their job title, role, experience?
  • What does an average workday look like?
  • Do they possess a specialized skill set?
  • Which industry are they involved in?
  • How big is their company?
  • What are their responsibilities?
  • What does their personal life look like?
  • Do they have shopping preferences?
  • Educational background?

Take this raw data and compile it into the top reoccurring trends. Organize and fill in the essential background, demographic, and identifying information. I would suggest downloading our free buyer persona template for a more in-depth, step by step guide to creating your company’s buyer personas.

5. Software Stack Selection

The sales and marketing technology industry has become exponentially overcrowded in the past few years. Your manufacturing marketing strategy plan must be included marketing technology to test and scale your marketing programs.

In 2016, the industry offers over 4,000 different solutions. The good news is this provides marketing teams with the ability to create a marketing software stack that fits their exact needs.

The bad news is finding the software to match your requirements has become a daunting task in the face of 4,000 options.

Every manufacturing marketing strategy will require a personalized software stack for efficiency, but we have some favorite combinations that we’ve come across with multiple clients at Matrix Marketing Group.

Our Setup

Outreach: We use Outreach to structure our outbound email campaigns. It allows for personalized correspondence with prospects and statistical analysis to let us know which emails are working and which emails need tweaking for better results.

A majority of the activity generated is directing towards our website. The outbound activity here is typically cold-emailing or old leads that need some reinvigorating. Outreach is where new data starts in our full-cycle sales and marketing system; it is the beginning of our cycle.

Our favorite Outreach alternatives:

Hubspot: This is our marketing stack middleman. Hubspot manages our web presence and everything related to our inbound marketing strategy. They have a broad range of services from web content management, inbound email marketing, marketing automation, and digital analytics. Their core is inbound marketing, but their team endlessly pumps out new innovations like PPC management, and advanced reporting add-on, and their sales sidekick.

Our favorite Hubspot alternatives:

Salesforce: To end our full circle software stack we implement Salesforce CRM and integrate its functionality with Hubspot, and Outreach. After leads have taken enough predetermined action on the website, they are passed along to the sales team to be qualified or sent back to Outreach for further lead nurturing. Salesforce provides limitless features and upgrades to keep the sales process on track.

Our favorite Salesforce alternatives:

It’s easy to get lost in all these software options, and we didn’t even get into niche solutions for content creation, collaboration, social, paid media, project management, and contact discovery. Take the time to devise a strategic framework that works with your team. Most of the software listed offer free trials so you can play with organization structure and operating different options in unison.

Have something to add?

We’re listening.

Have something to say about the manufacturing marketing strategy? Share it with us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

General FAQ’s

Why is marketing for manufacturing important?

The growth and health of the company are fueled by sales. By applying lean manufacturing and six-sigma methods to marketing, you begin to see it’s value quickly through more sales. Matrix Marketing Group has been working with manufacturing companies since 2002, we know the importance for manufacturers to use digital marketing where tremendous opportunities exist.


Why a manufacturing marketing strategy plan important?

The manufacturing marketing strategy plan helps you develop products and services in your business that meet the needs of your target market. Good marketing helps your customers understand why your product or service is better than or different from the competition.


What is a marketing strategy plan?

The manufacturing marketing strategy plan is the approach and continued efforts the marketing team will take to achieve its goals. The strategy revolves around how the team is planning to hit its targets while keeping marketing priorities in mind and remaining aligned to the business objectives.

Colorado Manufacturing Companies: The Top Colorado Manufacturing Firms [List]

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Colorado Manufacturing Companies on the Rise.

Colorado manufacturing companies in the Rocky Mountain region are brimming with manufacturing innovation. NAM recorded almost 5,000 Colorado manufacturing companies, producing $23 billion worth of goods, and accounting for 5.6% of the State’s employment.

Many of the nation’s top-performing firms are producing their products in Colorado due to a highly skilled workforce and local Universities pumping out competitive innovations.

That’s why it isn’t a coincidence industrial startups are popping up in every corner of Colorado as more and more businesses are finding success within its borders.

Denver Manufacturing stats

The strong industry leads to one question, what are the manufacturing front runners all doing to stand out from the crowd?

And the answer is a robust, multi-channel marketing strategy. This is a list of manufacturing companies in Colorado that hit our radar.

They know that while there are plenty of good old boys reading trade-rags, the industry has evolved rendering the effectiveness of paid media lacking relevance.

The new gap needs to be supplemented with digital and inbound marketing techniques, and they’ve done just that. The primary goal for these top Colorado manufacturing firms is to grow their business.

This is done through digital marketing where there is a lot of opportunity for sales growth.

Colorado Manufacturing Companies Listed and Its Marketing Activities

Healthy sales are the lifeblood of any Colorado manufacturing company. To do that they need a strong sales pipeline. The Internet and a website can help drive leads while you are in your sleep.

Do you want more sales and a healthy pipeline?

Is your website getting sales leads like these top 10 Colorado manufacturing companies?

Ranking on the first page of Google can be the deciding factor in making your business thrive online. You probably already know that, right?

What could you do with more sales leads coming in right from your website? Let’s see what these folks are up to.

These 10 Colorado manufacturers present aspects of a healthy marketing plan. While we haven’t worked with any of these companies to date, we can at least say they show an aptitude for these particular marketing categories.

This list is not in any specific order; it’s been curated to show different Colorado manufacturers utilizing digital marketing.

As a top, Denver digital marketing agency loves these 10 Colorado manufacturing companies.

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Here are our top 10 lists of Colorado manufacturing companies

Take a look at what marketing tactics they’re using to break the mold:

1. RK Mechanical

RK Mechanical is one of the largest manufacturing companies in Colorado and has a track record of placing on the best businesses to work in Colorado list multiple years running. While being well known for their work on high-priority construction projects, RK Mechanical has branched out into custom manufacturing contracts, as well.

RK does something not many manufacturing companies do, and that’s maintaining a consistent blog.

colordo manufacturing companies

A company blog isn’t just for writing about achievements and events – though it is an excellent outlet -, it allows you to expand your digital footprint.

With over 57% of the buying process happening online without the guidance of a sales rep, a growing digital footprint is a key to any business’s success. Just take a look at RK Mechanical’s steadily increasing organic website traffic over the past year. 

colorado manufacturing firms

That is over a 5x increase in website visitors per month from blogging efforts since June 2016. When thinking about a sales pipeline more web visits means more leads and ultimately more sales. What manufacturer doesn’t want that?

2. Hercules Industries

Hercules Industries is a top producer of high-quality HVAC sheet metal products and equipment. They’ve been in operation in Denver since 1962 accumulating four manufacturing factories across the State.

As a company that deals heavily in steel products, Hercules prospects have multiple customized variables that require immediate answers when determining if their needs can be met.

That’s why Hercules Industries created their Galvanized Steel Chart tool. Through picking, gauge thickness, and sheet size prospects can quickly calculate their project requirements in terms of sheets needed per pound.

colorado marketing firms

This tool is geared towards increasing visitors to lead conversions. The calculations help viewers create a scenario that matches their own and can be sure that the results are accurate.

The calculator’s purpose is to eliminate the barrier to purchase as Hercules helps buyers make their own decisions while on their website.

3. Qualtek Manufacturing

Qualtek Videos

Qualtek is a metal services company out of Colorado Springs, specializing in metal stamping, project planning, heat treating, and finishing services.

They’ve made a name for themselves in the local contract manufacturing industry over the past four and a half decades.

Qualtek clearly understands the importance of investing in video marketing.

The number of companies utilizing videos to reach their message across the chasm to customers has recently skyrocketed. It’s considered to be one of the fastest-growing digital marketing trends in 2021.

It’s a well-known fact that consumer attention spans are dwindling and most written content is quickly skimmed.

Adding video options to your content plan allows users who aren’t interested in reading the long text to get a full view of what your products have to offer.

Qualtek has capitalized on the video marketing trend by creating high-quality videos featuring their metal stamping, EDM, and integration processes.

Qualtek Videos

4. FHE

FHE Catalog

FHE is a manufacturer of service pressure control equipment. They’ve won the Colorado Excellence Award and consistently been placed on the Top 250 Colorado Private Companies list.

Even more impressively, FHE has been featured as one of the nation’s fastest-growing companies on Inc’s top 5000 list six years running. This Colorado manufacturing company is obviously doing something right.

As you dig into their website, you’ll notice the further you move away from their product pages the more predominant the CTAs become. FHE makes a concerted effort to create a web of interconnectivity between its subpages and the main product pages.

Many businesses don’t realize how easy it is to lose viewers when they become lost within the site architecture. A precisely set CTA helps redirect users who might be lost and trying to find the main offering.

colorado marketing firms

Additionally, they offer ungated resources like the FHE product catalog. In an industry that isn’t quite inducted into the digital world being able to download and print a physical catalog makes prospects feel comfortable.

The free giveaway acts as an extension of their website giving viewers more time to digest and reflect on working with FHE.

5. Avery Brewing

Avery Brewing 4k Run

Taking a step away from the traditional manufacturers and into the food manufacturing world, Avery Brewing is rocking the Colorado craft brew scene.

Their growth has been so strong that they’ve been placed on multiple nationally recognized brewery lists. Essentially, they are known as a must-have in Colorado.

Part of the reason they’ve become a household name is due to their willingness to engage in event marketing. A Fourth of July 4k race is simple enough.

However, as an event sponsor, Avery has done all the right things to promote brand awareness. Who doesn’t want to replenish after a race with a cold beer and hot breakfast? Not too many people.

Diving further, the event is well promoted on their website. There are three buttons, on the event page, all of which have a different, yet important role. The register now button stands out from the other two as a clear indicator to draw viewers towards registration.

To some the simple change is minor, but creating standout features, like color differentiators can significantly increase click-through rates and sign-ups.

The add to calendar button is crucial because everybody forgets! Just because you get a list of people to sign up for an event doesn’t mean they’ll show up.

Adding an event and a reminder to their calendar is the perfect way to follow up without being a pest. Lastly, the share of this event button creates a social conversation between attendees and the outside world. Each share has the potential to bring in new participants creating a chain effect.

6. Diversified Machine Systems

boulder manufacturing companies

Diversified Machine Systems is a manufacturer of 3-axis and 5-axis CNC machining centers. They’ve designed and produced machines for every industry from aviation, automotive, and marine. By just looking at DMS’s website you can tell they’re a customer-oriented company.

They‘ve pulled together a comprehensive resource center to help inform buyers of their decision process.

A LiveChat popup allows visitors to ask company representatives direct questions with a quick turnaround. And their social media presence is very impressive for a non-consumer-facing manufacturing organization, reaching 35,000 fans between their active networks.

All that being said, DMS’s most important marketing weapon is its landing pages.

A landing page creates an opportunity to capture leads who aren’t quite ready to buy but are still looking for more information. Without a submission form, viewers come and go from your site without a trace.

HubSpot reports that companies with over 40 landing pages receive 2x more leads than their next closest competition, and 5x more than those with only 1 – 5 pages. 

Landing Page Leads

It’s simple math. The more landing pages you have, the more opportunities there are for a website visitor to convert into a captured lead.

Nobody is after the same information when they start prospecting a business, so you’ve got to diversify your landing page offerings to match up with desired resources.

7. Alpen

denver manufacturing companies

Alpen is a manufacturer of thermally efficient commercial and residential windows and doors. Making it onto the Top Made in Colorado list for two years running, they are considered to be gurus of innovative product design. 

Alpen has one of the nicest designed websites of the companies on this list. They’ve taken the time to research UX and UI trends in order to create a site that’s not only easy on the eyes but just as easy to navigate.

Each page is laid out in a panel format with short and decisive leading text that guides visitors to the next segment in their buying journey. The content is just the right length making it easily digestible, yet still informative.

Many manufacturing companies often forget that their website is their digital representation. If it isn’t clean, sleek, and up to date then there’s the potential to lose clients.

Whichever channel you sell your products through, direct, OEM partners, resellers, or private distributors, there’s always another person on the other end of the transaction evaluating the full picture of your organization.

8. Aleph Objects & LulzBot

Aleph Objects, a Loveland Colorado-based manufacturer of desktop 3D printers aims to break the mold of the 3D printing market. Aleph has its sights on developing a high-performance 3D printer that is easy to use and provides people with the freedom to build how they want to build.

Aleph Objects website is on par, if not better than most manufacturing organizations, although it’s what’s happening in terms of off-page content generation that sets them apart from their competition.

Aleph Objects Backlinks

With over 47,000 backlinks, 70% of which being Follow oriented, Aleph Objects blows their competition out of the water where referral website traffic is concerned.

They’ve cracked the code of receiving links from outside sources. With Aleph’s largest product, LulzBot being open source, they’ve created a feedback loop of thousands of interested fans sourcing their material.

Often on-page SEO is given more weight by marketing professionals, and off-page SEO is put on the back burner.

However, regarding the importance, they both hold significant weight. When a website ignores its off-page optimization, they’re losing out on high converting referral traffic and a key ranking indicator in search algorithms.

9. Never Summer Industries

Never Summer Industries factory has been manufacturing Colorado skis, snowboards, wakeboards, and longboards for over 20 years. They are one of the last remaining ski manufacturers in the entire United States, let alone Colorado.

Never Summer is the producer of their own skis, and popular local brands like Icelantic, Fat-ypus, High Society and Rocky Mountain Underground.

So, Never Summer dominates the Colorado slopes, but what else do they do right? Well, for starters, they leave little room for competitors to outrank them for relevant SEO keywords.

When looking at some closely related brands from across the State, the closest competitor has a keyword universe less than half the size of Never Summer.

colorado manufacturing firms

To be that controlling over a keyword category puts Never Summer in a position to capture the most organic search traffic possible.

As the majority of consumers move to online purchasing, Never Summer’s only issue with sales will be how to resolve their production bottleneck to make room for their countless leads.

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10. Geotech Environmental Equipment

Geotech_Event.png

Geotech Environmental Equipment is a Colorado manufacturing company that produces equipment used for sampling, monitoring and remediating groundwater and soil pollution.

One would think that creating a social user-based competition in the manufacturing industry would be difficult. Though, somehow, Geotech has been able to find a way to create such a contest with terrific feedback.

The rules are simple. Take a picture using Geotech equipment in a real-life situation and submit it for a chance to win a $100 gift card. It looks like the competition took off, spreading their brand to all the right social circles. Since the end of 2013, they’ve posted a winning picture every single month.

Geotech_Event2.png

Social competition creates low-cost brand ambassadors. Every single one of these submissions was willing to share Geotech Environmental Equipment for the low price of possibly winning $100. As they share their involvement more viewers from the targeted audience become involved.

Presumably, Geotech is targeting users like Geologists to use their equipment. When a geologist shares or is tagged on a social site with their submission their friends see it as well.

More than likely, these friends have similar interests and will share excitement about environmental topics. Thus creating a chain effect of brand generating equity.

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Conclusion about the Colorado Manufacturing Companies

Every company can improve its marketing efforts, but these ten have shown to perform in specific categories exceptionally well.

If at any point during this list you thought to yourself, I’d like to see my organization perform better in that marketing segment then let’s talk.

This Denver marketing agency works in the industrial and manufacturing space.

Are there any Colorado manufacturing companies that you think should be on this list?

Since Colorado has many booming industries chances are I’ve left out tons of top-notch operations. Let me know in the comments below who make your Top Made in Colorado list.

We’re listening.

Have something to say about Colorado manufacturing companies? Share it with us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

Are you not getting the results you had hoped for with your current marketing agency? Let the experts at this Denver marketing agency help you generate more web traffic, converts more leads, and close more sales. Our team knows just what it takes to build and maintain a proven marketing strategy that drives high-quality leads.

General FAQ’s

What are the top 3 manufacturing companies in Colorado?

Examples of companies operating in this sector include Vestas (makes wind blades and turbines) and Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp (manufactures NASA products such as spacecraft and telescopes). Colorado is also home to some advanced technology companies such as IBM, Oracle, and Arrow Electronics. 

What are the major industries are there in Denver, Colorado?

Manufacturing is the chief driver of Colorado’s economy since most of the manufactured goods are exported. Both start-ups and Fortune 500 companies dominate this sector. One of the reasons why the manufacturing companies in Colorado are performing remarkably is their adoption of advanced manufacturing technology.

How can manufacturing companies grow?

Denver, Colorado doesn’t have a port yet they still get its products its destination. Minimize your risk and gain an advantage with an integrated marketing strategy that ensures you are in front of your active buyers. So that when they search for your products and services, they find you.


What is produced or manufactured in Colorado?

Computers and communications equipment are the leading types of machinery manufactured in Colorado. The state’s food processing manufacturing industries (beer brewing, soft drink bottling, meat-packing, and production of animal feed), rank third.
In 2020, the real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the federal state of Colorado was 351.07 billion U.S. dollars. This is a decrease from the previous year when the state’s GDP stood at 356.28 billion U.S. dollars.

How Systems Integrators, Consultants, and Manufacturers Can Use Twitter

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 manufacturing twitter

Do you know how to use Twitter for business if you’re in the manufacturing and industrial marketplace?

If you don’t know, the manufacturing industry has already started using Twitter as it is the new way to promote, connect, and brand a company. If you’re a system integrator, VAR, or consultant, and marketing in the manufacturing space, and not using Twitter then your company is missing out.

[Read more…] about How Systems Integrators, Consultants, and Manufacturers Can Use Twitter

The Changing Face of Marketing in the Manufacturing Industry

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Marketing in the manufacturing industry has changed more in 2 years than in the past 50 years.

 

Marketing in the manufacturing industry is similar to many industries and 57 percent is a number they watch. For some manufacturing consultants, system integrators, and VAR’s the figure may be higher or lower.

57% – that’s how far the average manufacturing buyer is through the decision process before engaging system integrators, VAR’s, and consultants?

This is an alarming statistic. 57% of your buyers are already in your buying cycle before you even know about it. But it’s especially distressing if you are in the manufacturing industry.

Minimize your risk and get ahead of the pack through an integrated strategy that ensures you are in front of your active buyers. So that when they search for your products and services, they find you.

The prospects are experiencing and expressing symptoms of a problem. They know they have a potential problem, but they are unclear about how to solve it. They are doing research and you must be providing educational content to help them solve it.

At the awareness stage, media clutter is often a major bottleneck for brands, particularly new entries. The insufficient intensity or creative appeal from marketing communication can limit growth in awareness.

This might include a lack of distinctive or relevance to the target audience, drive-by gaps in real or perceived brand positioning.

You want to in front of RFI’s and RFP’s before they are written. Before they are even a twinkle in their eye.

I used to sell, cutting-edge digital security solutions, to the public sector, the FBI, airports, and public transportation. This was back when everything was recorded on analog VHS video.

I was always frustrated by the fact that the sales cycle was often over 2-3 years. But, by laying the groundwork and by adding our specification to their requirements we would typically have huge payoffs, for my company and the customer.

My specs would often be written into the request for proposal (RFP) well before the competition even had a look at the RFP.

It’s not that I wanted to trick the customer into buying something they didn’t need. It was that I spent the time talking with, understanding the problem, and developing a solution to solve their problem economically. It all paid off in the end, and that’s what I am talking about here.

 

57% of sales cycle

 

What are you doing about it?

Research from CEB’s Marketing Leadership Council shows that potential business customers are increasingly using digital channels to form opinions about major purchases.

Today’s business buyers do not contact suppliers directly until 57 percent of the purchase process is complete. The challenge for marketers is to be present in the right channels, with the right content, at the right time to educates buyers and help guide their commercial decisions.

 

What it means for the manufacturing ecosystem

CEB and Google explored this problem to learn what leading companies and their marketing teams are doing differently to thrive in a world where customers learn on their own.

Let’s break this down in into three segments:

  • Digital Integration
  • Content Marketing
  • Analytics
 

Digital Integration for Manufacturing Firms

“Integrating marketing communications is hard—and that’s not a new concept,” — Shelley West, Principal Executive Advisor at CEB, @CEB_News.

The report states, you can’t process your way out of a marketing structural problem. Your sales and marketing silos might be holding you back. Focusing on process changes won’t fix it. 

They have distinct challenges and very different solutions. Message and channel integration are critical just to get customers to hear your message through the clutter. But there are two kinds of integration. “Campaign Integration” and “Digital Integration”. 

However, there are two types of integration:

  • Campaign Integration
  • Digital Integration

They have distinct challenges and very different solutions.

 
 

Content Marketing for Manufacturing Firms

“Content marketing has a dirty little secret,” by Brent Adamson (@brentadamson), Principal Executive Advisor at CEB.

If you want to be found by your target customers in the noisy digital environment, you must meet consumer demands.

The system integrators, VAR’s, and consultants have the ability to provide valuable, highly relevant content with context. It’s the price of admission.

Even though you may have the greatest content, it may not be all that successful. Context is about how you have already engaged with your relevant prospect, the relationship you have had, what devices they are using, to have a more intelligent conversation.

Many marketing teams are settling for a fractured, over-engineered approach to content creation. The result? Mediocre content that only adds to the noise and doesn’t stand a chance of breaking through.

 

Marketing Analytics

“The missing ingredient? Savvy analytics talent with a nose for how marketing contributes to economic value creation,” by Pat Spenner Strategic Initiatives Leader at CEB

A story of humans over technology and big data. The quest for perfectly integrated data and the next best thing in analytic tools is endless.

In their quest, most B2B marketing teams are overlooking simpler, but useful analytics that can be utilized with existing tools. Have you looked at your Google Analytics account recently?

The missing ingredient? Savvy analytics people with a nose for how marketing contributes to economic value creation.

 

Conclusion about Manufacturing Industry-Changing Industry

Before you jump on the 57 percent bandwagon, be sure that you know what you are doing.

When do your manufacturing prospects want educational material like a blog post, white papers, and when do they want to see videos? Matching your customer’s need with the right content and right marketing channel is the biggest challenges in digital marketing.

 
 

If you want to do this right, it requires data on what content your customers are consuming and on what channel.

System integrators, VAR’s, and consultants are often not set up for those things. Typically, they’ve responded to digital with a fragmented approach where one team owns content creation for one product line, another team owns webinars for another product, and a third-team owns video for the entire firm, and so on.

How do you solve the problem? Rather than investing the time and money to implement uncertain marketing models that attribute specific leads to specific pieces of content, Marketing should do two things: Simpler, more actionable models, and analytics talent.

If you can get digital integrated with your broader mix, get the message right, and pick the right format for those messages, you’ll be well on your way to generate leads in the manufacturing digital landscape.

Share your comments below and share this with a friend! 

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General FAQ’s

How do you market a manufacturing company?

Top 5 Strategies For Industrial B2B Marketing
1. Marketing research and competitive analysis
2. Establish a communication architecture and clear uniques value proposition 
3. SEO-friendly website tuned with call-to-actions
4. Paid search can help boost your web traffic quickly
5. Content marketing is critical
BONUS: Use marketing technology to scale and reduce cost


What has changed in and manufacturing industry and marketing?

Marketing in the manufacturing industry has changed more in 2 years than in the past 50 years. Leading manufacturing firms are going through a digital transformation and using modern digital marketing strategies.


What does it mean for the manufacturing ecosystem?

The manufacturing ecosystem included many players and stakeholders like tier 1, 2, and 3 suppliers, system integrators, consultants, and more. 

 

The Top 10 Manufacturing Blogs On The Web

· ·

The Best Of The Best Manufacturing Blogs

What makes the best manufacturing blog? That can signify a rather subjective question that remains dependent on whom you ask.

There are hundreds of manufacturing publications, many of which deserve acknowledgment for their unique positioning and industry perspectives.

Lucky for you, though, I love digging through analytics and putting data points behind my decisions.

This top manufacturing blogs list has pulled the most read, talked about, and shared websites to one location so they can duke it out for the first place spot. 

You’ll find no conjecture or speculation here. This table draws on a multitude of measures to produce a complete picture of how well the best industry content writers are connecting with their readers.

The criteria displayed are combined to formulate an overall score out of 100 for each blog. The basis for each category is as follows.

1. Twitter Followers

I know, Twitter is described as being in a social media free fall. They’ve been reporting a decline in monthly active users since I can remember, but it still provides distinct real-time value to readers. As a consumer, you are more likely to receive a response from brands on Twitter than any other social platform. There is something quite powerful about being able to connect with the people you are writing for.

2. Facebook Followers

There’s no such thing as a bigger platform than Facebook; they are the monster in the room. An influential manufacturing blog has the best potential to reach viewers and drive website visits on Facebook than any other social site. Bloggers even have the new option of using Facebook Notes to write posts directly to their followers.

3. Follower to Share Ratio

The follower to share ratio isn’t displayed below, though it is an important part of the equation nonetheless. By taking the total social reach and dividing by total social shares, you get a number that represents an ability (or lack thereof) to grab audiences attention. The higher the ratio, the better quality content, and defined target readers.

4. Social Shares

Buzzsumo is a great content marketing tool that tracks and analyzes a domain’s social shares. It is one of the essential accessories to determine what content is doing well and who are the top influencers in the industry.

5. Alexa Rank

Alexa has numerous marketing tools, including a free domain ranking system. A website’s position is measured by using a mixture of average daily visitors and web page views over the past month. The higher the combined averages, the better rank a domain receives.

6. Domain Authority

Moz Open Site Explorer estimates a domain’s search ranking authority based on a combination of backlink metrics. The domain authority score has a base of 100. More quality inbound links a website has, the greater influence it holds in search rankings.

Here are the top manufacturing blogs across a varied array of manufacturing disciplines.

Share the top manufacturing blogs table below

 Blog
Name		Twitter
Followers		Facebook
Followers		Social
Shares		Alexa
Rank		Search
Authority		Overall
Score
#1
Stratasys
 Stratasys		 52,90078,70028,84236,7937297
#2
Manufacturingnet
 MFG.net		26,500 1,42753,14344,8247393
#3
thomasnet
Thomas		14,500  3,500 22,4197,5117789
#4
MadeInAmerica
MAM 		15,900 114,500 84,064 408,9003882
#5
ACL
ACL		26,700 17,200 11,886 80,2675881 
#6
AmericanMFG
AM		10,50052,00083,400366,7005177
#7
MFGInnovation
 MI		4,5008,5004,4022,997

77

76
#8
Cerasis
Cerasis		10,8001,02562,76074,2254372
#9Shopfloor
Shopfloor
40,30027,9009,322382,00057 70
#10
Rethink
RR
15,8006,1502,907134,00064 65

What do you think?

These are exceptional examples of successful manufacturing blogs. That doesn’t mean I’ve uncovered every thriving work of fabrication art. Do you think there is a blog I missed?

Did I avoid a popular manufacturing discipline? Is there an organization, association, or group of industry leaders that deserves to be listed? Drop a line in the comments with details about where to find my next manufacturing inspiration.

Related Reading: 10 Things To Include In Your Manufacturing Marketing Strategy

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Have something to say about your thoughts on the top manufacturing blogs table? 

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10 Things to Include in your Manufacturing Marketing Plan

· ·

A couple of weeks ago we put into place the first five steps of our manufacturing marketing plan (Check it out here!). We took into overall account strategy and then started to dive into the tactical underlying processes for each section. To recap, we discussed the importance of:

  1. Situational Review
  2. Current Marketing Report
  3. S.M.A.R.T Goals
  4. Buyer Personas & Target Audience
  5. Software Stack Selection

Snapshot

The first half of your manufacturing marketing plan must be airtight before moving onto the next step. Within the succeeding section, we will begin to review the significance of:

  1. Inbound Marketing Activities
  2. Outbound Marketing Activities
  3. Sales & Marketing Process Identification
  4. Marketing Budget
  5. Measure Return on Investment

6. Inbound Marketing Activities

Marketing has been relatively straightforward for its history. Inbound is simple industry jargon for a core base of activities that result in a positive and constructive buyer’s journey. The buyer’s journey is the act of turning complete strangers into paying customers and even self-promoters. Hubspot has done a great job breaking this process into four phases; Attract, Convert, Close, and Delight.
Inbound beds marketers operations around the same actions we take to build our personal relationships. People will not inherently like or trust you, so giving them a reason to is important. So, what are these activities that build a company’s authority and trustworthiness? Each of these could use their own article to explain, but here is a quick run through:

Attract Phase

  • Blogging
  • Social Networking
  • Website Development
  • Search Engine Optimization

These outlines all have one thing in common, and that is driving SPECIFIC traffic to your product or services. As a manufacturer why would you want somebody on your site that is looking to purchase a pizza? The short answer, you clearly wouldn’t. The right people are the designated buyer personas we created previously.

Convert Phase

  • Landing Pages
  • Forms
  • Call-to-Actions

Getting the right eyes on your website is great, but if these visitors aren’t submitting contact information you miss out on the most valuable form of marketing currency. You need to provide beneficial information or goods that your target market will relate with. Not gaining a viewer’s information is the equivalent of watching a potential customer walk out of your brick and mortar storefront without a purchase.

Close Phase

  • Marketing Automation Technology
  • Inbound Email Workflows
  • Sales & Marketing Alignment

You have the right target market and convert visitors into viable leads, but nobody is satisfied until you have paying customers coming in. Persuading leads to switch to purchasing your products is part creativity, part data analysis. There are an endless amount of marketing automation tools to support this process. These systems can be utilized for anything from lead nurturing, email marketing, contact tracking, content creation, and actually, anything else you can imagine.

Delight

  • Social Monitoring
  • Surveys
  • Smart Dynamic Content

If you forget about clients once they’ve handed over their payments, you’ll miss out on a great opportunity to either up-sell or cross-sell. Engaging with customers after the fact builds an invested fan base. Some of the best companies on Twitter are regularly connecting with their followers.

7. Outbound Marketing Activities

There are common debates on the differences between inbound and outbound marketing techniques. Primarily, inbound is nurturing leads that have come to you organically, and outbound is generating new leads by actively getting out of your direct sphere of influence. A comprehensive manufacturing marketing plan will, therefore, consist of a combination of these actions.
There is some overlap here and there but the most typical outbound marketing activities are:

  • PPC Advertising
  • Email & Direct Mailing
  • Guest Appearances
  • Print, TV, & Radio Advertising
  • Events & Tradeshows
  • Press Releases
  • Social Media (a cross between inbound and outbound)

Inbound marketing builds a foundation to launch marketing campaigns while outbound marketing is a leaf in the stream, only there as long as you continue to pay for it. None the less, it helps to communicate messages to a wider audience. Any healthy marketing plan will have a mixture of both inbound and outbound.

8. Sales and Marketing Process Identification

There are numerous variables to balance in our day-to-day motions that often get overlooked or forgotten altogether. That is why creating a sales and marketing process is on our list. It’s time to figure out what measurable, scalable, and actionable activities will lead a business to the best process for their pursuits. The process you build should have a clear and unifying purpose for all future sales and marketing efforts.
Begin thinking of your marketing as a constant flow of connected actions. Marketing will not be beneficial in sporadic, one-off projects. If continuity is the goal, then marketers need to lay out the steps each project takes to complete for all future efforts.
Layout your marketing projects in a process roadmap format. This valuable tool creates repeatability, team alignment, and visibility to find improvements. Think about where each plan starts, who is responsible, what steps are involved, and the checks & balances in between.
Be detailed and thorough so that the next person to view your process could work through it without outside instruction. Here is an example of what Matrix Marketing Group goes through:

How-To: Setting up client’s new Facebook Page

Account Manager (5 mins)
Find a name that is free on every social platform
Use Name Checker
Account Manager (10 mins)
Create Business page & add administrators
Account Manager (30 mins)
Complete ‘About’ Section with detailed business information
Website URL should be the first thing listed
List other social channels predominantly used
Fully complete all Fields (founded date, site(s), products, services, company mission, overview, and description)
Account Manager (30 mins)
Create Cover Photo & Profile Photo
Correct Image Sizes To Use Here
Account Manager (15 mins)
Add Industry Appropriate CTA
Account Manager (10 mins)
Add company milestones & KPIs discussed with the client
Account Manager (15 mins)
Find pages to like that match ICP and Buyer Personas
Account Manager (15 mins)
Add to/Create Social Media management account – confirm with the client beforehand
Hootsuite
Buffer
Account Manager (10 mins)
Publish the first status update/wall post
Are these steps perfect? Probably not, but they provide a solid base for the account managers to start their Facebook Page creation process. They are meant to be adaptable to the situation but still easily understood.

9. Marketing Budget

The average small to mid-size company spends, on average, 10 – 15% yearly revenue on their marketing. Of course, with mega-corporations like Coca-Cola, that comes out to a cool $2 billion budget. It’s hard to compete against that kind of cold hard cash, so us marketers with a tighter budget have to be extremely conscientious of what leads our efforts are generating and where the focus should be shifted.
Either way, all organizations go through the same budget allocation process, no matter what their size or industry. If you rewind back to the third step in our manufacturing marketing plan you’ll remember the S.M.A.R.T Goals that we discussed. Are you focusing on lead generation, product awareness, content creation, or another combination? These goals that you set up should have a strong influence on where your marketing budget is spent. Think about the different inbound and outbound marketing activities that best suit your objectives and map that to an allocated master budget.
Here is an excellent example of estimated items by month and the actual comparative spend. This master budget is meant for a broad picture view, a 3,000-foot screenshot. You can always blow out each category under new tabs to get more definitive granularity.
Marketing_Budget.png

10. Measure Return on Investment

If you don’t measure your marketing’s ROI, then you have a serious problem. In all honesty, you are thrusting money into a mysterious pit with no real solutions or advancements coming from your troubles. It almost seems counter-intuitive; marketing budgets are tighter than ever and yet, a large chunk of B2B markets don’t measure their results!
The process doesn’t have to be difficult either. Begin by selecting an analytics tool; the most widely used is without a doubt Google Analytics. I highly suggest you take the training course and become certified if this is the tool you choose, it is an incredibly in-depth solution. Add a tracking code to the company’s website and you’re ready to start tracking results.
Then define the KPI’s that absolutely matter to your campaign progression. At Matrix Marketing, we track over 80+ different metrics for our operations, and these are always evolving. There’s no need to track all these metrics at once just pick the most relevant ones to your business.

marketing metrics

The best part of the entire manufacturing marketing plan we have laid out is, once you have collected the ROI data, you can use it to go back to the start, find the weak points and readjust accordingly. Today’s marketing is all about trial and error, with the data points to back everything up, of course. Go to the beginning fix the items that didn’t work and walk through the steps again.
What would you add to your manufacturing marketing plan to make it stand out from the crowd? Drop us a line below in the comment section for additional tips and tricks!
You might be interested in: Is There Any Way of Closing Deals in Today’s Corporate Marketplace? [Part I]

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