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Manufacturing Digital Marketing – What IS Digital Marketing?

November 24, 2015

Are you in a manufacturing company in the B2B space? Are you interested in growing and taking advantage of the recovering economy? If so, I would guess you are hearing a lot about “digital marketing” as an emerging “must do” for your company? Let’s define what that means in a narrow context of a “growth oriented”, “manufacturing company”, and “selling B-to-B products and services”


3 Pillars of Manufacturing Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing is best understood by clearly explaining the business processes that it addresses. For this narrow niche of b2b manufacturing companies, the three principal processes that digital marketing interacts with to create growth are:

  1. LEAD GENERATION – Prospect interest through becoming a sales qualified lead – This process starts with a qualified prospect becoming aware that he or she has a problem that may be solved by your products or services. This typically starts with a discussion with peers (social media) or a Google search for solving the problem. For us, Digital Marketing starts even before the prospect first visits one of your web properties. There are lots of steps on this process from website visits, lead nurturing emails, and eventually declaring the lead qualified and sales-ready, the end of our first process.
  2. CUSTOMER COMMUNICATIONS – Every digital communication with customers, prospects, ex-customers, friends of the company year in and year out – Here we are talking about email communications, your website being an industry resource, and social media.
  3. BRAND MANAGEMENT – Online branding efforts, social media, and reputation management – The old style mass marketing branding efforts just won’t work like they used to. Trade shows, brochures, and industry niche magazine advertising are quickly being replaced by online advertising, great websites, social media, and customer reviews as being the biggest impact on your brand.

 In these three processes, we are limiting our definition to activities on digital devices, specifically excluding TV and radio. This is likely to get very grey in the next few years, but for now TV advertising, radio, PR, print, billboard and the more traditional marketing activities are outside what we consider digital marketing. These traditional marketing outlets are all “push” marketing and mostly mass-market, not targeted nearly as much as digital is.

 In fact, adding “Pull” marketing into the mix is probably the biggest improvement digital marketing brings. It can put you in front of prospective clients early in their research phase when they are first looking for solutions.

What’s unique to manufacturing internet marketing as we describe it? Here are some key areas that make what we do truly unique:

 So, no digital definition discussion would be complete without the Wikipedia definition, so here goes: Digital marketing is an umbrella term for the targeted, measurable, and interactive marketing of products or services using digital technologies to reach and convert leads into customers. The key objective is to promote brands, build preference and increase sales through various digital marketing techniques. (Underline emphasis is mine)

 The CULTURE SHIFT of digital marketing is vital to understand. As businesses shift from traditional marketing to digital marketing, managers have to shift culture, often the hardest thing of all. Here are my Top 10 Culture shifts of the Digital Marketing age:

 Thinking MOBILE as this is the biggest culture shift of all

  1. Giving away massive amounts of great, free content
  2. Measuring your marketing results, actually calculating ROI for each campaign
  3. Being truly interactive with your customers 24/7 on whatever device they choose
  4. Hearing what your customers have to say in reviews. Wanting the bad news with the good.
  5. Customer has control, not marketing or sales
  6. Fully recognizing your “online competition” in addition to your traditional competitors
  7. Using inexpensive YouTube Video to augment your professional video production
  8. One-on-One marketing like never before (since the neighborhood store)
  9. Every company has to have a robust marketing budget beyond brochures and trade shows to compete and grow


 Here are some of the other terms used in digital marketing for manufacturers, most being subset components of Digital Marketing

 

My favorite “common sense” definition is from Ryan Arnholt, Director of Digital Marketing at Optum when he said “Digital marketing starts with really rich content that people actually care about – including killer images. Then it’s delivering that content when and where your customers want it in hopes they like it and tell all their friends and followers. And make sure they can see it on a device that they use everyday, especially the one attached to their hip. But above all, don’t overwhelm people with your sales pitch. Keep it simple and teach them something so they consider you a valuable resource not just a company pushing product.”

 

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Frequently Asked Questions

B2B search engine optimization (SEO) is a specific type of online marketing tactic/service that can help a website of a B2B business gain more traction in order to increase their search engine rankings on Google, Bing, etc. What differentiates B2B SEO from B2C, is that for B2B SEO keywords focus on specific words and phrases that business/vendors search. A B2B SEO agency like WSI B2B Marketing can provide you with leading B2B SEO solutions.

Yes, with the right SEO strategy your B2B business will not only improve its search engine rankings, but it will also expand its online reach, and build trust for your brand. There is no better way to show potential B2B vendors that your company is knowledgeable and can deliver the services needed, than having a website and online marketing content that is easy to find and trustworthy. WSI B2B Marketing is a leading B2B SEO agency that can help B2B companies. Contact their team for services.

The cost of SEO services depends on the B2B SEO agency and the services and payment model they offer. The average monthly cost can range from around $750 to $2,000, while hourly rates can go from $85 to around $200. For entire projects, prices range from $5,000 to $25,000 and up. Reach out to B2B SEO agency WSI B2B Marketing for more information and services.

A B2B SEO agency can increase your brand’s online presence and help attract potential leads to your company’s website. By increasing your search rankings and visibility, businesses will get more clicks and users to their site and can increase sales opportunities. An SEO agency like WSI B2B Marketing provides a range of online marketing solutions. Contact them to learn more and improve your online presence today.

Basically, B2B lead generation services will locate customers looking for the specific services/products that you provide and lead them to your website or e-commerce platform. Lead generation is vital not only for marketing teams but for B2B sales as well. B2B SEO agency, WSI B2B Marketing, provides lead generation and other SEO services designed specifically for B2B operations. Contact their team today to get started.