3 Simple Ways Manufacturers Can Improve Their B2B Marketing
According to the 2016 B2B Manufacturing marketing study conducted by the Content Marketing Institute, only 4% of manufacturers surveyed considered themselves as having a sophisticated marketing maturity level. If you’re one of those manufacturing businesses with less than stellar marketing capabilities, you’re not alone. But remaining a marketing misfit does not have to be your lot in life. You can improve your B2B marketing if you’re willing to adjust the marketing strategies your manufacturing business uses.
Connecting with potential clients for your manufacturing business requires a dedicated focus on audience outreach. You can’t sit back and think that clients will magically find your facility or discover the products your team is capable of making. You must understand how today’s B2B consumer discovers information and how they prefer to make purchases for their company. If you want help improving marketing for your manufacturing business, consider adjusting your client acquisition strategy to include the following three components.
YouTube for Product Demonstration Videos
If your manufacturing business is not using YouTube for client acquisition, you are missing out on a huge opportunity. Not only is YouTube the #3 website in the world, its popularity as an information search engine is only increasing as more mobile-enabled consumers transition to a preference for video over text-based content. Since a growing number of B2B consumers conduct online data research prior to contacting a manufacturer for their production needs, savvy manufacturers using the power of video on YouTube will attract a greater level of attention than their competitors. (Plus video on YouTube is phenomenal for SEO!).
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Business Blogging
Blogging about topics of interest to your B2B customers is not only good for improving your placement on search engines, it is an excellent way to boost your thought leadership status within your industry. B2B customers seeking a manufacturer for their regular production runs are more likely to trust the expertise of a company that regularly showcases their knowledge on LinkedIn or their own blog versus a manufacturer with no informative content to review. When choosing one manufacturer over another, price is only one determining factor. Product knowledge and industry expertise will play a significant role when a product manager or project lead is making a purchasing decision. If your manufacturing company is not blogging, how will you prove your production and design expertise to potential clients?
Upgraded Online Product Inventory
You wouldn’t believe how many manufacturers either have no online product inventory information or have spec sheets and images that look like they were created in the ’70s. If a potential B2B customer reviews your website and can’t find the specific type of product they need, they will assume you don’t make what they need. Today’s busy B2B customers don’t have time to sit through long-winded sales presentations just to find out it’s not possible for you to make the product they need or you’ll need weeks to accelerate production on the items they require. They want to either be able to click on an item on their mobile device to purchase from your company or add items to an online shopping basket and check-out immediately and have their purchases shipped directly to their facility. The Amazon-experience is influencing commerce on a global scale, and this applies to manufacturing too. If your website doesn’t showcase your production capabilities in an attractive and easy-to-buy manner, you’re losing sales.
Learning how to improve your B2B marketing takes consistent attention to the needs of your potential customers. Sticking to the “we’ve always done it this way” of increasing your B2B sales isn’t doing your manufacturing business any favors. Integrate the above-listed growth tips into your B2B marketing strategy and you’ll be impressed at how quickly you notice an increase in your sales volume.
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