A Guide to Digital Marketing for Manufacturers

March 22, 2021

When it comes to digital marketing for manufacturers, you’ll need to develop a targeted marketing plan that’s a little different from that of other industries. However, creating a successful marketing strategy is much easier with a little help from WSI B2B Marketing. But where do you begin? Well, here we go over all of the ins and outs for creating a winning marketing strategy that delivers proven leads and sales.

A Few Questions to Ask Yourself Before We Start

Before we dive into the details, it’s important to consider a few things that will help you determine your needs and expectations, as well as give you a better idea of how you can connect with today’s modern buyers.

Ask yourself:

• Where do you want to be in a year?
• How do you see digital marketing; as a needed expense or an important tool to boost growth?
• How do you want to connect with your audience? Do you want to work with industry influencers or social media followers? Do you want to use your marketing plan to attract new talent?
• How do you want followers to view your online offerings?
• Where do you want to rank in local and global searches?

It’s important that your marketing offerings do more than simply highlighting a new product every now and then or sharing items whenever you have new webpages. It’s all about offering unique content audience members can’t get anywhere else, and making real connections.

Shifting Focus from Tactical to Strategic Marketing

For those who view their digital marketing plan with a more tactical approach, the results likely trickle in and are seen as more of a slow march over time; a necessary cost rather than a key investment. However, shifting this focus toward a more strategic approach can offer a number of benefits, getting you proven results and helping you increase your revenue more quickly.

So, once you’ve decided to implement a targeted marketing plan with a strategic approach, what comes next?

Determining Your Value

Before moving forward, you’ll first want to determine your business’s value. What can you provide your ideal customer with that they can’t get elsewhere? Then, you’ll need to identify how you want the online buying process to go, whether it be working potential customers through a targeted funnel or bringing over the business from paid advertising solutions. There are plenty of manufacturing firms out there, so what makes you different from your competitors? Once you’re able to answer this question, it’s time to determine the perfect customer for your products or services.

Identifying Your Perfect Customer

Identifying your ideal customer will make it easy to develop a targeted marketing plan in the manufacturing industry that really boosts your brand. You’ll be able to curate content and hone your message, offering things that truly resonate with their wants and needs, and solve the customer pain points that exist in your industry.

When performing customer research, be as detailed as possible when it comes to highlighting your ideal client.

• What type of buyer do you help the most?
• What makes your company different from other manufacturers?
• What are the behaviors of your ideal customer?
• What are your leading offerings or services?
• Do you already have a loyal customer base? Who are they?
• Are there certain people who are already recommending your products/services?

Drumming Up Qualified Leads

Highlighting your ideal customer will determine the direction of your digital marketing messages. But communicating that message will determine the success of your lead generation campaign. There are a variety of different ways manufacturers can communicate their message to generate leads, some of the most common include search engine optimization (SEO) and other inbound marketing tactics, like social media and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, creating blog content, and optimizing your website.

In addition to the inbound manufacturing marketing tactics mentioned above, there are also a number of outbound tactics to take advantage of, such as visiting industry-centered trade shows, working with advertisements and public relations professionals, and direct mail and email marketing campaigns.

Lastly, sales prospecting is another way to identify qualified leads. This includes several components, like referrals, networking, and warm and cold calls. Starting with a marketing plan that targets all of these things is the best way to generate results and drum up qualified leads.

Converting Your Leads to Customers

This is when the buyer journey comes into play. In order to capitalize on every lead, you’ll need to go into your audience’s mind to consider everything from how they consume information to what their favorite social media platforms are. What’s the most likely way for them to hear about your product? Can you determine what will inspire them to go from simply visiting your site to talking to a member of your sales team?

Also, consider how long it takes your current customers to convert to a sale and how this takes place, whether it be via a team of individuals, one salesperson, or another way. Then assess the experience they currently have going from the top to the bottom of the funnel; are there ways you can improve it? Can you identify things that might cause your customers to get caught on one page or another?

There are other ways you can move your lead through the funnel quicker, like by offering them sample products or demo services, presenting them with a downloadable sales guide, and other techniques.

Don’t Forget Your Current Customers

One of the things that will make your company enduring in the manufacturing industry is by developing long-term relationships with all of your clients. A solid digital marketing plan won’t just attract new customers, but it will also aim to keep your current ones happy and coming back to patronize your business, buying more items each time.

Well, keeping your current customers happy isn’t much more difficult than attracting new ones. Just hone your digital marketing offerings to reach them as well, creating a solid balance between the two customer segments. Keep offering your customers new products and solutions to solve industry pain points and connecting with them to offer education and unique insight.

Create a Reliance on Strategy

Before we go, we wanted to touch on one last thing: the difference between strategy and tactics. The two terms are often used interchangeably, but they’re actually two different components of creating a winning digital marketing plan. Strategy is where you place all of your research and come up with a plan of action, and the tactics are the tools used to put that plan into implementation. So, tactics consist of the meat and potato things like SEO, PPC, and other content and advertising solutions, and strategy is your overall angle (who you want to reach and how).

There are many out there in the manufacturing sector that frequently attend trade shows and have a well-designed website but no clear strategy when it comes to digital marketing. You can outpace such competitors rather easily by implementing a targeted plan to attract and retain customers. But again, you’ll need to clearly determine what value you’ll be able to provide that the rest can’t.

Contact us today for more about digital marketing for manufacturers!

At WSI B2B Marketing, our goal is to come up with a digital marketing strategy that truly works. We do this by working closely with manufacturers to understand their business strategy and customer base. We’re committed to bringing all of your customers and potential clients a pleasant experience online by highlighting your unique prospects and making your website user-friendly and informative.

WSI B2B Marketing primarily focuses on inbound manufacturing marketing that’s based on competitive analysis, extensive market research, and an in-depth internet analysis. We’ll discuss all of your growth goals and expectations, then come up with a plan designed to achieve results.

We can help those who:

• Value ROI from their marketing investment.
• Know that their competition is getting the better of them.
• Want more qualified leads to boost growth.
• Haven’t had much success with their own in-house marketing campaigns.
• Want a reliable partner to help build their business.

If this sounds like your manufacturing firm, we’d love to hear from you, so contact us online today or call 1 (800) 494-6212. We also specialize in offering marketing for medical device manufacturers, as well as B2B services.