Are you a B2B Manufacturer and want to increase Revenue by bringing in more Customers & Leads for your business?
Most manufacturers use a variety of offline or traditional marketing strategies to market their products.
But, do you know that about 89% of B2B Buyers use the Internet to know about your Manufactured Products?
Not only this, a B2B buyer does at least 12 different online searches and then thinks about buying your products.
It is understood from these Stats that today a Manufacturer does not need to remain offline only – he also needs to create his Online Presence.
In such a situation, the question comes that “How can you create your online presence?”
Well, this is possible with the implementation of Digital Marketing.
You have to implement some strategies of digital marketing in your manufacturing business.
Now what are these strategies, you will get the answer in this blog today.
So let’s start Digital Marketing For Manufacturers Blog and understand How To Use Digital Marketing Strategies For Manufacturing Industry.
Buying Cycle of Customers in the Manufacturing Sector
Before understanding Digital Marketing For Manufacturing Companies in detail, it is important to know what is the Buying Cycle of a Customer in B2B Industry i.e. which stages a Business Owner passes through before buying a Product from a Manufacturer.
A Prospect often passes through 6 Stages.
, Need → Research → Design → Evaluation → Shortlist → Purchase
- Buyer needs the product for his business.
- Buyer turns to Google to research the right product.
- If he sees a new design in the market , then the buyer does detailed research about it and sees whether this newly designed product is necessary for his business.
- Buyer evaluates different manufacturers.
- Based on some factors, the buyer shortlists some manufacturing companies.
- Finally, the buyer purchases the product at the right price.
Buyer does detailed online research to reach the right manufacturer and places the order only after detailed interaction & negotiation.
He visits your website, looks at your Online Business Listing, also looks at your Brand Reputation, Achievements & Clients Testimonials.
At all these steps, you have a golden opportunity to look the best from your competitors where you can tell why you are the best fit and how you can help your customers accomplish their goals.
To do all this, you have to understand How To Implement Digital Marketing For Manufacturers.
But, before talking on this we should know what are the Traditional Marketing Strategies which are often used by a Manufacturing Company.
Manufacturing Industry Using Traditional Marketing Strategies
Even today in this digital age, many manufacturers use some traditional marketing methods to promote their products.
But, as we talked about above, today most of the B2B customers are resorting to online mediums. That’s why it is not right to depend completely on Traditional Marketing Strategies.
Traditional marketing methods used by B2B marketers include the following methods:
Print Marketing
Print Marketing includes Magazines, Billboards, Newspapers, Journals to Brochures, Wall Posters etc.
Many Business Owners like to read Journals & Business Magazines in which you can Grab their Attention by giving your Ads.
Direct Mail Marketing
Postcards, Letters, Catalogue, Brochures etc. are used for marketing through this.
By implementing this strategy, a manufacturer is able to convey information about his company and product to his target potential customer.
Cold Calling
In cold calling, Prospects are often convinced to buy your products, for which Aggressive Sales Tactics are used.
Many times convincing in this way becomes costly for you and Prospects do not deal with you.
But, if your prospect is older and you have interacted with him before, then there is no harm in explaining your product to him over the phone.
But, success is often less in this strategy. Because, those Business Owners or Prospects do not have much knowledge about your product nor do they have faith with you.
Participating In Exhibitions
Product Manufacturing Company participates in different exhibitions to showcase its products.
Here the company gets a chance to show Live Demo of its product and which helps in attracting interested people.
Sending Your Sales Person to Prospects
Many times some Manufacturers arrange meeting with Business Owners to Promote their Products and send their Trained Sales Persons.
But, despite holding a meeting, many times the order is not received, behind which the Trust Factor matters a lot.
In such a situation, it comes that how to build trust or how to build your reputation?
Well, for this Digital Marketing For Manufacturers is the only solution which helps in increasing your reach from building your trust.
Let us have a look at some of the benefits of Digital Marketing For Manufacturing Business.
Is Digital Marketing For Manufacturers Is More Profitable Than Traditional Marketing
There are many reasons for using Digital Marketing in comparison to Traditional Marketing, some of which we have explained here.
You get Repeat Customers
Repeat Customer is the backbone of any Manufacturing Business because it is easier to retain the old one than to reach the new customer.
While implementing Digital Marketing Strategies For Manufacturing Business, you get a chance to engage with them through Social Media, Emails, Phone Calls.
This not only increases Customer Loyalty & Trust, but also makes them feel that you care about them.
Awareness of your company increases
As we also saw above that 89% B2B Buyers do their Deep Online Research before buying Products, so it becomes necessary to create your Online Awareness to reach them.
This is where the Role Of Marketing In Manufacturing Industry is seen, in which Awareness of your company can be created by using Social Media, Email Campaigns, Search Engine Optimization, Awareness Ads.
Your Reach Increases From Local To Global
By increasing Reach & Awareness, your company starts to have a different identity and Buyers prefer you.
Not only this, you can sell your products not only in the local area or from one city to another but also in other countries, due to which your name starts to become globally.
Lead Conversion Increases
Lead Conversion is a Challenging Task in B2B Business, because a Business Owner (Your Customer) wants to know about the product well before buying it.
For this, he visits the websites of many manufacturers, raises inquiries and communicates through email or phone.
With Digital Marketing For Manufacturers, you get the facility that by understanding the behavior of your Prospects, you can solve their Doubts through Email Marketing & Automation, which increases the chances of converting their Leads to Customers.
You can track your Online Marketing Strategies
With digital marketing, you can track your marketing processes.
This is a huge Advantage of Digital Marketing For Manufacturers, because by tracking Strategies, your expectation of getting better results increases manifold.
You can understand how many Prospects are reading your Email, how much Traffic is coming to the Website, how much Engagement is coming on Social Media Posts and many more.
Come, after seeing these Digital Marketing Benefits For Manufacturing Industry, let’s talk about Implementation Of Digital Marketing For Manufacturers.
Digital Marketing Strategies Implement For Manufacturing Businesses
Let us understand how good results can be achieved by implementing Digital Marketing Strategies in 8 Steps.
1. Digital Ecosystem Creation
We have discussed Digital Ecosystem many times in our blogs – after all it is so important.
This is a collection of all those Digital Strategies that help in giving your Manufacturing Business a distinct identity in your industry. With their help, you can reach your Potential Buyers Digitally.
It mainly consists of four components:
- Website Creation
- Organic Marketing Strategies
- Paid Marketing Strategies
- Lead Management & Retargeting System
Website Creation: Website is like your Online Warehouse or Store on which Interested Buyers visit and get information about your Products, Services and your Company.
That’s why it becomes necessary to design it professionally, which is also necessary to build your company’s reputation.
On this, along with Products Listing, you can Mention Existing Clients’ Testimonials, Reviews, Ratings, Achievements, Awards & Certifications etc.
All these elements are very important to win the trust of your Prospects and this increases their chances of doing Project Deal with you.
Organic Marketing Strategies: It is also called Inbound Marketing Strategy.
It includes three important methods – Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media Optimization (SMO) and Content Marketing (CM).
Under SEO, you have to optimize your website for Search Engines (Like Google, Bing) so that it can be ranked on the first page of Search Engines and whenever a person searches something related to your product, first of all he will get your View website.
In this way, Interested Buyers come to your website, by taking whose contact details you can start interaction with them.
Apart from this, do not forget to do Local SEO of your business.
Local SEO helps to connect your Manufacturing Business with Local Customers.
For this, you have to put the details of your Manufacturing Company on Google My Business.
You have to give information about company name, address, Opening & Closing Hours, Products, Contact No., Keywords, Tags etc. to Google.
Whenever an interested person searches your product related query in your area, then your company will appear first.
On the other hand, in SMO you have to share Knowledgeable Content on some important Social Media Platforms (Like LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube).
By optimizing your social media profiles and sharing relevant content, you get noticed by other business owners.
This not only increases your networking, but also contacts many such buyers who run a big company and are interested in your product.
Content Marketing means Creating Customer-Centric Content and Distributing & Promoting it.
Publishing Informational Blogs on Website, Uploading Posts on Social Media Platforms, Uploading Videos on YouTube, all are an important part of Content Marketing.
Paid Marketing Strategies: Under this, you can reach Interested Customers by running Paid Marketing Campaigns.
In this you can run Awareness, Lead Generation & Conversion Campaigns.
This is done in two ways – by running Ads on Google + YouTube and by running Ads on Social Media.
Running Ads on Google & YouTube is called Search Engine Marketing.
Running Ads on Social Media Platforms is called Social Media Marketing.
Lead Management & Retargeting System: Leads are very important for any business. But, it is more important to manage them properly and retain them after becoming a customer.
Lead Management & Retargeting System is often used for this.
Following up with leads via email, telling them why your product is the best fit, interacting through social media, and holding online meetings are all an important part of a lead management system.
On the other hand, Retargeting System is used when Lead to Customer Conversion is done.
Every business owner wants his customer to become a permanent customer and always sign the project with him.
For this, the customer sees your Product’s Quality, Communication & Support, Delivery Time etc. and if you are offering him some Additional Discounts from time to time, then the chances of him staying connected with you for a long time increases greatly.
2. Create Your Business Related Content
You can reach your Potential Buyers by Creating Content Informative & Knowledgeable.
This means that when any Prospect visits your website, he should get the right information about your product and he should understand how your product can solve his problems.
You can adopt the following strategy to deliver the right content:
- You can create your Industry Related Content on different pages of the website.
- Instead of making your Blogs a Sales Tool, you can make Informative and share information about your Products, its Working, Manufacturing Processes etc.
- By making Reels of your Exhibition on Social Media Platforms, you can Share & Distribute by making Infographic Posts and Short Videos and you can Attract Potential Buyers by Sharing Content about Industry Related Topics.
3. Do Not Forget LinkedIn & Twitter
While applying Digital Marketing For Manufacturers, you need to pay more attention to LinkedIn & Twitter.
LinkedIn is also called the Facebook of Professionals, on which users prefer to interact with professional people, talk about business and share industrial knowledge rather than entertainment.
Similarly, on Twitter too, Business Owners do Networking with Like Minded people by creating their Profile.
Being active on both these platforms not only increases your networking, you can reach the Decision Makers of your Target Companies and sell your products to them as a Trustworthy Manufacturing Company.
4. Avialable Inquiry Form on Your Business Website
Embedding Of Inquiry Generation Forms can be called one of the best Digital Marketing Strategy For Manufacturers.
With the help of these forms, you can take the details (Name, Email, Contact No.) of all those visitors who have visited your website and spent some time.
When they give their details to you, it is a signal that they are interested in your product and want to raise an inquiry about it.
After raising the inquiry, the Pre Order Stage starts, under which their team collects proper information about your product.
When your product qualifies their Criteria, you can make them your customer by doing Final Negotiation.
5. List your Manufacturing Business on B2B Marketplaces
According to a report, India’s B2B e-commerce market will reach $1 trillion by the year 2014.
From this you can imagine that how many millions of products are sold every year on these B2B Marketplaces.
Although there are many B2B Marketplaces
All these Marketplaces allow a Manufacturer to list its Products on which your Target Companies are also active.
The most special thing about these marketplaces is that here your products are available 24 X 7 and you keep marketing yourself.
6. Keep doing Email Marketing
Email Marketing is called a Highly Personalized Digital Marketing Strategy for Manufacturers.
Whatever Visitor gives you his details, you can follow up with him by running Email Marketing Campaigns which is helpful in increasing the Customer Conversion Rate.
By subscribing to your Email Newsletters, you can share Product Related Information to your Potential Buyers.
In Email Newsletter, you can give information about Company Updates, New Product Launch, Existing Product Benefits, Special Offers etc.
According to Smartinsights, in the year 2021, Email Marketing was described as the Most Preferred Choice by more than 81% of B2B Marketers.
Today Email Marketing is seen in Best Digital Marketing For Manufacturing Business in terms of converting Leads or Prospects into Customers while Nurturing them.
7. Use Marketing Automation Tools
Marketing Automation means automating your Repetitive Tasks with the help of some tools.
These Tasks often include Sending Emails, Posting Content on Social Media, Collecting Leads.
By automating them, you can engage continuously with your Potential Buyers and have One to One Conversation.
You can use some marketing automation tools to continuously follow up with your leads.
They not only save your time, but also create interest for your product in the mind of your potential buyers.
That’s why it has also been kept in the category of Best Strategy Of Digital Marketing For Manufacturers.
8. Build a Sales Funnel for Your Business
Do you know what is the biggest role of marketing for manufacturing industry?
Define or decide your customer’s journey yourself.
It may sound a bit strange, but it is one of the best features of online marketing that you can decide your customer’s journey yourself.
You can define what to give them at which stage so that they follow your Call To Action and your Objective is also fulfilled.
This is called Sales Funnel.
In Manufacturing Business, this Sales Funnel works on the model of AIEEP.
A – Awareness
I – interest
E – Evaluation
E-Engagement
P – Purchase
Awareness: This is the first stage of the Sales Funnel. In this, you inform your Prospects about their Pain Points or Problems.
You tell them what are the factors in their business due to which their business is not growing.
For example, you can tell them what should be the quality of the product and what should be the technical specification to get better results.
You can take the help of Informational Blog Posts, Paid Ads, Social Media, Videos etc. to make you aware of the problem.
Interest: At this stage, your Prospect will be interested in finding out the solution to your problems.
But, it is not necessary that he understands your product. He would first like to know the What, Why & How of his problem.
Here you can generate Interest or Curiosity in your Prospects through Whitepapers, Newsletters, Product Pages, Product Centric Blogs, or Webinars.
When he gets interest in the solution, he will analyze your competitors apart from you.
Evaluation: Coming to the Evaluation Stage, you have to prove that your solution is the best fit for Prospect’s problem.
For this, you have to solve Prospect’s Doubts, win his trust, remove his fear and earn Credibility.
To do all this, you can show Case Studies, White Papers, Testimonials, Reviews, Award & Certification, Quality Standard Certificates, Product Documentation etc.
Engagement: After reaching this stage, Potential Buyer inquires about your product and interacts with your Sales & Technical Team.
Here you have to do Valuable & To The Point Conversation and give effective answers to each and every question of Prospect.
Basically, you have to build a strong connection with them and explain to them how choosing you can fulfill their business needs.
For this, you can take a tour of your product, show a live demo, give presentations, run an email marketing campaign or offer a special discount to bring it to the last stage of your funnel.
Purchase: This is the last stage of your Sales Funnel, which takes many Negotiation Rounds to reach.
Through all the steps written above, only an Interested Buyer reaches this stage and does Project Deal with you.
In this way, by implementing all these Strategies Of Digital Marketing For Manufacturers, you can get miles ahead of your competitors.
Using these strategies, you reach the decision makers of those companies who are probably looking for you. Your Online Reputation & Authority helps them to take a decision in your favor.
Final Thought:
Due to the expansion of the Internet, today every business wants to increase its reach and create a strong customer base.
But, even today there are many such industries which have not been able to use Internet Marketing properly.
Manufacturing industry is one of these industries.
Exhibitions, Print Marketing, Direct Calling, Referrals are often used in the Manufacturing Industry to promote their products.
But, all these strategies do not give such good results, which could probably be obtained from the use of any other strategy.
This is possible with the implementation of Digital Marketing For Manufacturers.
In today’s blog, we have discussed about the same and know how you can use these Digital Marketing Strategies in your Manufacturing Business.