Why Manufacturers Should Embrace Digital Marketing

Marketing is something that most businesses understand they should be implementing in one way or another, but many have an opportunity to increase the effectiveness of their marketing efforts in a more strategic way.

Enhancing one’s digital footprint is a great place to start—now, more than ever, when more and more businesses and consumers are working in an online, remote capacity.  

For manufacturing organizations, digital marketing can play a vital role in business operations. It can impact sales, products and even pricing. Whether you’re looking for high-quality leads, to increase sales or to expand to new markets, planning and launching a strategic marketing campaign can help your organization achieve each of these goals. 

At C-leveled, we’ve seen great success for our clients through focusing on content marketing specifically. Quality content serves as the foundation for every successful inbound marketing campaign, which involves meeting the needs of your audience through providing them with educational resources. Long story short, inbound marketing helps an organization “butter up” their potential customers before a sale even takes place. It lets the consumer choose to make a buying decision on their own time, at their own pace, while helping them along the way.

Inbound marketing not only positions your organization as a group of thought leaders, but also helps you to build trust with the consumer—which any good business leader knows is invaluable. 

So where do you begin? Defining your audience is a great place to start, while keeping in mind that you can (and should) designate multiple groups to position your content towards. In manufacturing, this might include CEOs, plant managers and supply chain directors. Once these targeted groups are defined, decide which topics they care about most and are likely to be searching for. 

Next, decide the format and distribution plan for the content you will soon create. For example, when planning our content campaigns, we include a mix of blog articles, social media content and emails. We also suggest optimizing your website and updating content as needed, as it’s where consumers will ultimately land. 

Blog articles and other resources such as white papers and e-books will live on your website. These helpful resources will not only help educate your audience, but can increase your chances at being found in a search. This of course depends on specific keywords that are inserted throughout your content, which is something a strategic marketing partner can help with. 

Think of your social media posts and email marketing efforts as building blocks for your long-form content such as blogs and other educational resources. By including the same keywords and optimizing the content for each specific channel, these additional pieces will help drive more traffic to your website. 

While creating quality content is a large part of the equation, timing is of upmost importance. There has to be a strategy behind when and why you’re pushing out content to your audience. You must be careful to avoid overwhelming them with too much information, but also provide them with the resources they need at the optimal time. Of course, no strategy is fool-proof, but it absolutely helps in increasing your chances at reaching the right people and turning them into quality leads. 

At the end of the day, the number-one reason to invest in a marketing campaign is to grow your business. Your efforts will only be successful if you constantly evaluate what’s working and what’s not. Some KPIs (key performance indicators) you’ll want to track throughout the campaign should include cost per lead, visitors to your website, open rates on the emails you’re sending out, and engagement on social media posts. These measurements will serve the purpose of helping you focus on topics your audience cares about most, and eventually allow you to connect with new customers and form new business relationships.  

If you’re looking for a partner who can guide you through the process, we’d be happy to help. www.c-leveled.com.