Studies have shown that 94% of B2B buyers research a product before purchasing it. So, it’s safe to say that customers are shifting from making onsite purchases to looking for you online.
Most of the manufacturing marketing trends indicate the need for digital transformation.
Based on a study by Deloitte, manufacturing brands spend around 8% of the overall company budget on marketing.
Some manufacturing firms have started incorporating simple marketing strategies like sending email promotions, having linked accounts on social media sites, and even paid ads.
Nevertheless, to acquire higher-value sales leads and wider reach, manufacturers need proper marketing plans.
Let’s study 5 effective marketing strategies to supercharge your manufacturing brand.
Conduct a SWOT analysis
As a manufacturer, conducting a SWOT analysis is the first and most important thing to do for your brand. It helps you to evaluate your brand’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats within the industry.
It is important because it can see where the business is in a given industry, and it will be easier to determine issues with strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in the marketing environment.
Besides, it is good to know your strengths while exploring your weaknesses and to take advantage of opportunities while mitigating threats.
This will keep you ahead of your competition and help you prevail in the business.
For instance, a tire manufacturing firm has plans to improve the visibility of their website in different countries as part of its overall marketing strategy will hire an SEO agency to conduct a SWOT analysis, which will encompass site audit and competitor analysis.
SWOT analysis can reveal strengths such as the availability of quality and durable materials and weaknesses such as the high cost of manufacturing, and the shallow supply chain.
With this knowledge, they can eliminate their existing shortcomings such as cost and distribution, and boost their sales and overall profit margin.
Identify target markets and segments
As a manufacturer, it is important to know your target customers and what niche your brand will focus on. This is the next step to take after conducting your SWOT analysis.
To identify who your target customers are, ask yourself and find answers to the following questions:
- What age, education, gender, etc do my target customers belong to? – Geographically, where are they?
- What kind of industries and jobs do they own?
- What are their likes, interests, and beliefs?
- What values and thought processes do they hold dear?
- How do they communicate or what communication channel do they love to use?
- What are the challenges they face?
- What is the reason behind their purchases?
- Have they used other products of your competitors in the past?
Answers to such questions will help you define your target customer profile for your manufacturing business and create the right marketing strategies that correspond to their needs and wants.
Outbound, inbound, or both?
There are two marketing approaches available for businesses to choose from: Inbound and Outbound.
Research shows that 94% of buyers always research the product before deciding to buy it. This behavior shows the need for a strong online presence, which you can achieve with inbound marketing.
Inbound marketing relies on valuable, relevant, and personalized content and therefore draws in customers naturally. This can be used to reach certain audiences on your site, enhance brand awareness, and provide quality sales leads in a short time.
According to business.thomasnet.com, about 57% of B2B purchases happen online and over half of the buyers have already made up their minds before contacting a sales rep.
Inbound marketing can help your manufacturing business in different ways:
- It gives lead generation with affordable content marketing.
- It aligns marketing, sales, and service teams as you need all these department experiences to craft a marketing strategy.
- It focuses on content peculiar to your audience which helps you gain their trust.
Determine your ideal inbound marketing channels
When deciding the right channel that fits your intended marketing plan well, you should use the one most utilized by your target audience.
Some available channels for manufacturing businesses include email marketing, social media, and official websites.
You should utilize these channels to emphasize your brand’s meaning and identity to your target audience.
Also, the content of the message when using these channels cannot be ignored. Hence, the next step is to craft your content.
Create a content marketing plan
Marketing cannot be done without content. It is the gap that stands between businesses and their target customers, which determines whether a product is purchased or not.
Your content can pull your target audience’s attention, whether it is an email campaign, landing page, paid campaigns, social media posts, webinar presentations, etc.
With content marketing, manufacturing businesses can promote their brand in a better way.
While crafting content marketing strategies, one thing your manufacturing brand should note is to address industry-specific pain points while presenting value.
Conclusion
To achieve your marketing goals as a manufacturing brand in this digital era, consider investing in tactics like content marketing, email marketing, and paid online advertising
With the 5 steps highlighted above, like how your business can be a solution in the target market, who your ideal customers are, what type of content you should craft, and your top marketing channels, your brand can achieve all its marketing goals.
