It’s an exciting time in manufacturing. Robots assemble, machine, and weld. Finished components are made with 3D printers. And Industry 4.0 brings the Internet of Things, cloud computing, and AI to the production floor.

You’re likely thinking about how the next advancement can make you run leaner and faster. Are you thinking about your marketing in the same way?

Digital marketing continues to evolve, and quickly. Younger generations of customers bring with them new habits of how and where they get their information. Search engines like Google become smarter with every search. And connectivity among devices gets stronger.

And while digital marketing in a B2C relationship makes sense, it makes as much or more sense for manufacturers. Why? During the long B2B sales cycle, while you’re waiting for customers to vet suppliers, talk amongst themselves, and make a decision, your digital marketing can be delivering information they need via your blog, email marketing, social media platforms, and search engine marketing ads.

After all, a single B2B salesperson gets only about 5% of a buyer’s total purchase time. Not only because they are talking to multiple salespeople from multiple suppliers. But because they do so much of their own research before talking to anyone. That’s what makes digital marketing for manufacturers so important. Here are more reasons to kick your digital marketing strategies into high gear:

• 67% of B2B purchases are influenced by digital marketing
• 90% of industrial buyers log on, such as through a Google search, to review and select suppliers
• 84% say the experience during the digital search, like the one your website provides, is as important as the products and services            they buy
  As you can see, digital marketing has no limits when it comes to manufacturing. Are you ready to get started?

Digital Marketing Strategies to Consider

There are numerous options to choose from when developing a digital marketing plan. We thought we'd take a look at a few to consider.

Geofencing

We Americans are hooked on our phones. On average, we check them about every 10 minutes or 80 times a day. This obsession with our phones—whether texting, emailing, checking social media, or surfing the web, is what makes geofencing worth considering. 

Geofencing is a location-based service, compatible with more than 90% of smartphones in the United States. Essentially, you can set up a virtual boundary using tech like GPS, WiFi, or cellular to track a person’s location in the area of your geofence. When people enter or leave the area, they are served push notifications, emails, text messages, or social media ads.

While geofencing is often used by B2C businesses to market locally, there are many ways manufacturers could use the technology. You could geofence a conference or tradeshow to drive people to your booth. You could geofence schools and colleges or job centers to drive employee recruitment. Is your primary competitor hosting an open house or customer appreciation event? Build a virtual fence and geoconquest to keep your brand top of mind.

Geofencing helps you deliver the right message at the right time. However, setting up a geofence can be complicated, and you need to consider privacy concerns. Talk to your local inbound marketing firm if you’d like to include it among your marketing strategies.

Social Media Advertising 

B2B advertisers are finding success on social platforms—83% of B2B marketers say social advertising is the second most successful form of advertising behind SEO.

The most common platforms—Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube—all allow advertising. Which platforms you choose for advertising depends upon your target audience. High-level leaders are more likely to engage on LinkedIn whereas designers and engineers may be watching YouTube for ideas. If you produce video or if your product has visual appeal, any of the platforms are worth considering.

Social ads provide a great way to promote your products as well as content customers need to help them make a buying decision. In fact, 85% of manufacturers include social media in their marketing plan. Plus, social is a great platform to A/B test images and messaging. Measure which ads get the most engagement and use what you learned in your overall marketing strategy.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is often thought of as finding the right keywords and developing copy around those words. But that’s only a part of the SEO equation. More important than keywords: relevant, well-written copy that people want to read. Besides being well-written, the copy should be skimmable with use of headers and bulleted copy.

And then there’s the website itself. Your website has to be easy to navigate, designed for mobile devices, and speedy. If visitors can’t get around easily or have to wait for it to load, they’ll leave. Google, for one, will notice.

Search engine leader Google also likes what are called backlinks. Make sure your social platforms and other sources point back to your website. Ask for links back to your website from industry directories, chambers of commerce, and anyone else that may be helping promote your company.

Consider your website an extension of your sales force. Become a thought leader through blogs and white papers. Expand on your key selling points with educational page copy. Answer customers’ most-asked questions.

And, then, be patient. SEO takes time to work. It can take up to nine months for web changes to start showing results and a year or more before you’ll see a direct ROI. However, once your website starts to rank higher, and as long as you work to maintain that ranking, the return on investment makes it all worth it.

Email Marketing 

Remember how often people check their phone in a given day? A big part of that includes reading emails. So why not get in on the email action?

Email is one of the best channels on which to personalize your message. Your emails can differ for each of your customer personas. You can develop an entire mail marketing campaign that takes prospects from awareness through the sales funnel as you convert them into customers. Email marketing also is effective at recharging inactive leads or former customers.

As you can see, email marketing isn’t just for B2C businesses. Far from it. B2B marketing emails have a 23% higher open rate than B2C emails and a 47% higher click-through rate than B2C emails. That’s a big part of the reason why email marketing is an effective digital marketing strategy for manufacturers.

An even bigger reason to add email to your marketing arsenal? Traditionally, email marketing offers a high ROI, which is why 59% of B2B marketers consider it a top channel for revenue generation.

It’s time to give it a try!

Speaking of ROI

We’ve been asked the question before. How can we be so sure digital marketing for manufacturers will provide a return on investment?

First, it’s less expensive than traditional advertising, such as industry magazine ads or billboards. Plus, it’s much easier to measure. How many people saw that magazine ad? And more importantly, how many people reached out because they saw the ad? It’s hard to say, unless you specifically ask. But following a click from a social ad or an email to a form submission and ultimately a sale is more easily tracked.

The great thing about digital marketing is that it evens the playing field, making it possible to compete with larger competitors. When someone conducts a Google search, for example, the search engine doesn’t care which company has deeper pockets. It cares about which company provides the most relevant content for the searcher.

Gaining revenue and making a profit is your goal. Digital marketing can help get your there through a long-term process in which campaigns can be adjusted to get the most out of your marketing dollar.

There are as many opportunities in digital marketing for manufacturers as there are for B2C companies. Each strategy is fully customizable and easy to adapt to your changing needs and the needs of your customers. Investing in digital marketing strategies won’t leave you in the dust with no return on your investment. Rather, you’ll see results when higher-quality leads are delivered to your door.

Why not get started today? We’re ready to help.