Manufacturing marketing used to be about magazine ads, branding, bingo cards and trade shows.
That's changed. Today manufacturers strategically invest in digital tactics to boost their brands, understand buyers and markets, position product pricing and development roadmaps, generate leads, support sales channel, and empower their B2B sales people.
Industrial procurement is now the collaborative effort of multi-disciplinary teams. Each member of the buying team is a consumer whose buying preferences are shaped by their B2C experiences - and also a representative of their department which has its own priorities.
Manufacturing marketing and sales is the set of tools, tactics and thinking that enable manufacturers to engage with buyers virtually and collaboratively
You remember how you used to buy.
Decide what you need, turn to the volumes of green bound industrial registers to look for possible vendors, summon them for meetings and request quotes.
You don't do that anymore, and neither do your buyers.
But a website, some Adwords ads, a bit of SEO, a manufacturing blog and some "expert" who's never been on a factory floor don't get you there.
As every company in your space get's more sophisticated, the reality is that your industrial marketing is competing for the opportunity to educate buyers on how to improve their business.
That's means you need to build programs that talk about theirs, not yours. And that do it in ways which will help you get found and establish your firm as a helpful resource.....long before you worry about a "lead."
There was a time when cold calling and trade shows were the way industrial manufacturers sold and marketed.
Technology changed the former and COVID the latter.
Inbound lead generation is helpful, but outbound sales remains critical to growing predictably and profitably. Unlike the days of line cards and cold calling, today outbound sales requires technology and planning.
Account-based marketing (ABM) and target account selling represent the combination of marketing and sales which was innovated by technology companies and is gradually adopted by industrial manufacturers.
It's about coordinating the right contacts, with the right people, at the right companies, at the right time.
Crazy sounding. We get it.
But...when so much happens in the shadows of the internet before you are ever contacted by a buyer, that means that marketing has to be in front of buyers early and effectively.
Of course, you want to be remembered and you hope that your brand marketing and industrial public relations will be effective. That's expensive though and so it needs to overlap with efforts to reach buyers who are vaguely aware of and just beginning to wrestle with complex business problems.
That means that your B2B manufacturing marketing needs to coach, consult, educate, and inspire - and it also needs to enable your sales team to help prospects, buyers, and customers.
And that requires more of your sales people than they've had to give in the past. They must:
Buyers have a dim view of B2B sales people.
Recent research found that:
If manufacturing marketing is increasingly selling, then shifting sales budget to provide 5% of revenue for marketing starts to make sense
Many industrial manufacturers think of marketing as something that big companies and consumer brands do.
But now it's how you sell!
You define competition in meters/min, torque, HMIs, durometer, and horsepower.
Your buyers define it by your company's relative ability to help them improve their business.
Comfortable or not, digital tools and tactics are at the core of successful manufacturing marketing and sales today.
If you're not advanced, you're irrelevant.
You probably have separate functions. A small marketing group and a big sales team - direct, field and channel.
And maybe you still print fax numbers on business cards.....
Manufacturing marketing isn't a project. It's not a fix.
Success will depend on investing in, developing, nurturing and growing the technology and market savvy and the requisite sales skills.
Many digital marketing firms will focus on lead generation.
What good is a raft of leads that appear on a report....and just age off the bottom?
That's why we believe that manufacturing marketing and sales has to include the "sales" piece. Otherwise, it's folly.
The challenge is that most manufacturing companies believe they have great sales - and it's a difficult message to absorb. Often it takes some years of marketing success, and poor sales follow-through, to convince owners that they need to change the system holistically.
No. Consilium is Ed Marsh.
Ed is a business strategy and digital marketing consultant with years of experience in industrial and manufacturing markets and sales channel, and deep experience in digital industrial marketing and sales.
He's walked in your shoes - and he works with your team or another agency to deliver results.
Agencies - even those that discuss experience with manufacturing - are often just marketers who haven't lived on factory floors.
Industrial marketing is a grind.
That's the truth.
There is no sexy, flashy aspect to it.
It's the incremental improvement, step-by-step, of every aspect of your marketing and sales.
If you sell industrial products and capital equipment to manufacturers, I probably do. A well defined ideal customer profile is an important precursor to effective marketing for manufacturers.
Account-based marketing (ABM) works if the marketing and sales are top-notch.
That's what will determine success. Not your industry.
Short answer - yes, if done right, it will
Of course not.
It's up to your team to do the work. To:
And many industrial companies haven't caught up with B2B buying changes.
So we know that if you follow our advice, you'll grow. But that's up to you and your team.
HubSpot is a digital marketing, customer service and CRM software suite that many of our clients use to manage the manufacturing marketing process and improve sales performance.
Originally designed for technology, HubSpot for manufacturing is ideally suited for many capital equipment companies which are improving their marketing.
Absolutely. Sales channel marketing is an overlooked opportunity by most manufacturers.
Eventually it will.
However, it will take time.
It will be a grind.
You may find you have to replace your sales force (seriously.)
You're going to have to spend far more on marketing than you ever have. (Don't worry....far less than the 50% technology companies spend.)
Edward Marsh, Principal
Presidential "E" Award Winner
Consilium is a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business
“Ed will always be the first consultant I ever liked!” - Earl P., Sales Engineer & VP of Sales
© Consilium Global Business Advisors, LLC 2011 - 2017