B2B Blogging Gaining Acceptance by More Industrial and Engineering Companies

For a while now, marketing consultants have been preaching the benefits of making B2B blogging the cornerstone of inbound marketing. It is difficult nowadays to find a marketing company or an independent expert not using a business blog to attract and engage with its target audience.

I use this blog to reach a wider audience than before, drive more traffic to my industrial marketing company’s Website and establish my expertise in this niche.

But are industrial and engineering companies getting the message about B2B blogging?

GlobalSpec recently conducted a Social Media Survey of engineering, technical, manufacturing and industrial professionals and found that only 24% of these companies have a business blog.

In an earlier post, I had written about three industrial companies that were using business blogs very successfully. Those are well-known companies and their success stories in using content for inbound marketing are well documented. What about other manufacturers and engineering companies?

For this post, I researched and found many more industrial and engineering companies that are actively using B2B blogs. These are some more industrial and engineering blogs that I found and liked:

• Nikon Metrology – manufacturers of a full line of metrology products
• Kinetic Die Casting Blog – makers of aluminum die casting parts
• Kubotek – developers of 3D geometry-based engineering software
• CSC Scientific Blog – a blog about test equipment

It seems more and more industrial and engineering companies are beginning to accept and use blogging as an effective marketing tactic.

Business blogging among B2B companies in general is more widespread but less than half of B2B companies currently have blogs. That was one of the findings in the new report, “B2B Blogging Trends in 2011” from Tony Karrer and Tom Pick (co-creators of B2B Marketing Zone and Social Media Informer).

So there are plenty of opportunities for more B2B organizations to adopt blogging and Jay Baer says, “2011 will be the year that the B2B companies widely recognize the importance of having a viable blog.”

Other marketing experts have weighed in with their own thoughts about B2B blogging. Some that caught my attention were:

• “Blogging positions the company as a thought leader, an expert. It is also ideal for search – frequent updates vs. static websites.” Jeff Ogden
• “B to B marketers to be successful in the world of blogging, you must be focused on your target market.” John Sonnhalter
• “If you don’t have a corporate blog, you are way behind the curve.” Kristin Zhivago
• “The blog will need to be part of an integrated marketing and communications plan.” Chris Abraham
• “Story-telling is important.” Blake Landau

You can download the full report from http://www.aggregage.com/b2b-blogging-2011 (doesn’t need registration).

If you are still sitting on the fence, read my post, “Why Your Sales Funnel May Run Dry Without a Business Blog.”