Category: Content Marketing

Manufacturing Marketing in the Age of Industry 4.0
As I was researching the topic of manufacturing marketing for industry 4.0, I found a ton of online articles when I did a Google search for “marketing for Industry 4.0.” My search yielded 192,000,000 results to be precise. In short, there is a lot of information out there to the point of being overwhelming.

What I also found is a noticeable lack of information specifically on manufacturing marketing for Industry 4.0, which is a bit odd, since Industry 4.0 is all about the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This post is my summary on how to adapt some of the marketing strategies and tactics to manufacturing marketing, for engaging more effectively with engineers and technical buyers in this new age.

Introduction to Industry 4.0

If you need a primer on what Industry 4.0 is all about, let me direct you to an in-depth article on Industry 4.0 published by CADENAS PARTsolutions.

Here’s their infographic if you are more of a visual person.

(Infographic courtesy of PARTsolutions.com.)

Adapting digital manufacturing marketing for Industry 4.0

You’ve already got a head start if you’ve been doing manufacturing marketing with content, aka, inbound marketing. Digital marketing is a perfect fit for Industry 4.0. How, you ask? Let me explain.

Personalized content: Digital Manufacturing Enterprises (DMEs) are using advanced digital technologies such as AI and IIoT to shift their production processes from mass to more personalized production.

Does that sound familiar to you if you a manufacturing content marketer? You should be creating personalized content based on Buyer Personas, their roles and for different stages of the buyer’s journey.

The buyer is in charge: Today’s industrial buyers are in self-select and self-serve mode. They prefer to complete a large portion of their buying process online while remaining anonymous. You’ll be swimming against the tide if you force your sales team to spend their time in cold calling and prospecting at the top of the funnel.

This requires manufacturers to take a more blended approach where Sales and Marketing work together. Neither can do it alone because the buyer is in control for a larger portion of the sales process.

Customer-centric content: Here’s a quote from the report, Industry 4.0 engages customers published by Deloitte’s Center for Integrated Research, “Manufacturers can use Industry 4.0 technologies across their enterprise to transform customer relationships and create new value for both customers and channel partners.”

Datasheets and product catalogs still play an important role in meeting the content needs of Design Engineers and Specifiers. However, those by themselves cannot create true differentiation when there is parity in Value Propositions.

That’s why you need customer-centric content to address the needs and challenges of various stakeholders in the decision-making committee. This requires manufacturers to make a big change in their mindset from “what we have to sell” to one that is based on “how can we help our customers do what they want done?”

Earn trust: Engineers and industrial professionals want content that is technically accurate, presented logically and claims that are backed by evidence and/or proof of concept. Bring your Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to the forefront to earn credibility and trust. One engineer to another is a very powerful strategy for better engagement with your technical audience.

Importance of SEO and CRO: White hat techniques for Organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) become more important for attracting the right audience to industrial websites. Don’t stop there though, converting that traffic into leads is a whole different ballgame.

This is referred to as Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO). Even though they are related, they are not the same. See my post, “Industrial Lead Generation for Sales – It’s Complicated!”

Industrial blogging: An industrial blog must be an integral part of your manufacturing content marketing strategy. Yes, it takes a lot of hard work and time to create technical blog posts regularly and promote them actively, but the effort is worth it.

Here are the key benefits of blogging:
- Improve your organic SEO ranking with optimized blog posts
- Posts published by in-house Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) highlight your company’s expertise and experience (Marketing can ghostwrite them but must remain in the background)
- Blog posts are usually more customer-centric than product-centric as is usually the case with product and services pages
- Create thought leadership, build brand awareness, and earn trust by publishing regularly on topics that your readers care about
- 85% of manufacturers use their website/blog to distribute content (Source: The Content Marketing Institute)
- Content distribution using social media channels depends largely on fresh content published on your industrial blog
- Marketers who prioritize blogging efforts are 13x more likely to see positive ROI (Source: HubSpot, 2019)
Prepping manufacturing marketing for Industry 4.0

Of course, just talking about digital marketing is not going to help; you have to make some changes to get ready for it.

Here’s another quote from Deloitte’s Center for Integrated Research, “Creating digital customer connections typically requires strong coordination between the chief marketing and information officers to marry the customer knowledge and sales and marketing processes with the information technology capabilities required to design and build new platforms.”

It all starts with your industrial website—the hub of your digital marketing. Do an extensive audit of the website content, user experience and what you expect visitors to do after they land on your website. A complete industrial website redesign requires much more than just putting a pretty skin on an existing website.

Take stock of your existing content assets to identify gaps that need to be filled. Repurpose some and create new content as needed. Make sure you have or can create content for various stakeholders and for different stages of the buyer’s journey. This is a challenge according to the report published by the Content Marketing Institute—“Fewer than half (40%) of manufacturing marketers craft content based on specific stages of the customer journey.”

To get a better idea of what engineers are looking for from a supplier’s website, take a look at this chart from the 2020 Smart Marketing for Engineers® report published by IEEE GlobalSpec.

Does that mean every webpage must be packed with thousands of words? The short answer is NO!

The same report from IEEE GlobalSpec also found that, “Engineers overwhelmingly prefer reviewing concise product or service information with links to in-depth content, as opposed to multiple paragraphs with detailed information or bulleted lists. Younger engineers (35 and under) are more likely to value imagery/icons related to the content and scannable bulleted lists.”

You’ve heard this before, but worth repeating, digital marketing is more trackable and measurable than traditional forms of marketing. That doesn’t mean it is easy to prove ROI, but it is easier for sure.

This post should help you get your manufacturing marketing ready for Industry 4.0.
November 11, 2020
Manufacturing Content Marketing Distribution and Measurement
Manufacturing content marketing for reaching engineers and technical buyers is an integral part of industrial marketing today. That shouldn’t surprise any marketer who is trying to reach this audience.

Several research studies have shown that more industrial buyers are now completing 50% to 70% of their buying journey online.
- Nearly 75% of buyers complete more than 50% of the buying process online
- 25% said over 70% of their journey is conducted online
- Younger engineers (ages 45 and under) spend even more time online before choosing to speak to someone at a vendor company.
Here’s a chart from the 2020 Smart Marketing for Engineers published by IEEE GlobalSpec and TREW Marketing.

Conversely, 65% of manufacturing marketers said that they are much or somewhat more successful with content marketing compared with one year ago. (Source: Manufacturing Content Marketing 2020 published by the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs).

That’s all very encouraging. However, there are some areas of manufacturing content marketing that are still proving to be challenging for many. I’ll focus on those problems in this post.

Manufacturing content marketing too focused on the top of the funnel

Many manufacturing marketers are too focused on the top of the funnel activities and measurements. Being found in Google and other major search engines is important, I’m not discounting that but I’m talking about obsessing about showing up on the first page of Google’s search results (SERPs in SEO).

First page rankings have gone down in importance over the years. That is not just my observation, the same research report from IEEE GlobalSpec found the following:
- 73% of engineers are willing to view three or more pages of search results before selecting one or starting a search over
- 28% are willing to view five or more pages of search results, up from 19 percent in 2018
- Only 5% of respondents stop at the first page for results, a trend that continues to decline over the years as engineers spend more time searching
- While younger engineers as a whole stop their searches sooner, they are still more likely to search past page 10, than stop at page one
While manufacturing marketers have become better at segmenting and developing different personas for their audiences, they are still struggling with creating content that is relevant to different stakeholders at different stages as they go through their buying journey.

You may not be using the full power of manufacturing content marketing if your sole focus is on top of the funnel and generating only Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) without nurturing them into Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs).

Manufacturing content marketing as sales enablers

I understand sales enablement is a vast topic and it means different things to different people. My focus in this post is on using manufacturing content for moving engineers through their buying journey in a logical manner. This is not the same as lead nurturing with content.

I’m referring to downloadable 3D CAD Models and Online Product Configurators. These are invaluable to manufacturers of industrial components that must be “designed in” by a Design Engineer. Studies have shown that downloaded CAD files lead to a sale 81% of the time.

Now, you may be thinking of creating a simple library of PDF files to post on your website. Those days are over!

I’ve downloaded an excellent e-book called “How to Sell More Products with 3D CAD & BIM Models” published by CADENAS PARTsolutions. It is packed with useful ideas and tips to help manufacturers use CAD models and e-catalog solutions.

Key takeaway for manufacturers: If you aren’t providing 3D models to customers, you are losing business to those that do.

Here’s a chart that shows the Industry Adoption of 3D CAD Models and CAD Catalogs.

Challenges of manufacturing content distribution

When it comes to distribution of content, manufacturing content marketers are using the usual suspects—company website/blog, social media channels, and email.

However, I have seen too many manufacturers rely 100% on posting their content only on their website or blog and then expecting their readers to discover the content. I call this the “post and pray” strategy. It doesn’t work very well these days when you are competing with so much information online. Think of making content distribution an integral part of your content marketing strategy and allocate budget accordingly.

According to the report from CMI, fewer manufacturing marketers take advantage of speaking/events (43%), media/influencer relations (33%), or guest posts/articles in third-party publications (31%).

Manufacturing content marketing success KPIs

Measuring the success of manufacturing content marketing and/or proving ROI is another area that is causing a lot of confusion and problems. Many in their rush to become data-driven marketers, are measuring all the datapoints from Goggle Analytics just because they can.

Unfortunately, traffic, pageviews etc. are great KPIs for marketers, but they mean little to upper management if you can’t show how they translate to sales and revenues.

Another challenge is the issue of attribution. Because of the long sales cycles and multiple stakeholders involved in the buying decision, some of whom remain invisible or rarely interact with your content, correctly attributing content marketing’s contribution to sales and revenues is complicated. As a result, many manufacturing content marketers are simply giving up on measuring ROI. See my post, Measuring ROI of Industrial Content Marketing is Difficult.

What metrics are manufacturing marketers tracking to measure content performance? This chart from CMI provides the answer.

That’s my take on the challenges faced by industrial companies with manufacturing content marketing distribution and measurement.
October 12, 2020
Adapting Your Industrial Content Marketing Strategy for COVID-19
Industrial content marketing strategy needs adjusting and fine-tuning to adapt to changes during this unprecedented time of COVID-19. Life and business as we know them have changed significantly. Some of these changes are highly likely to be permanent even after the crisis is over (Whenever that will be).

Not surprisingly, some companies will cut back on industrial marketing in response to the pandemic because of the of the dismal business conditions. That’s understandable.

While others will step up their industrial content marketing game and seize the opportunity to position themselves to be stronger than their competition. Am I crazy?

You are probably familiar with the findings from a McGraw-Hill Research study that looked at 600 companies across various industries from 1980 to 1985 and found that those businesses which chose to maintain or raise their level of advertising expenditures during the 1981 and 1982 recession had significantly higher sales after the economy recovered. Specifically, companies that advertised aggressively during the recession had sales 256% higher than those that did not continue to advertise.

Of course, times have changed. You are not going to convince your management to spend more on advertising or invest in new marketing technology in the current economic conditions.

What can you do as an industrial content marketer? In one word—ADAPT.

Revisit and refine your industrial content marketing strategy

You don’t need to throw your existing content marketing strategy out of the window, but you’ll need to refine it to adapt to the altered business conditions now and for the foreseeable future.

While your target audience of engineers and industrial buyers may not change drastically, their businesses most certainly have. Your content marketing may not be as effective if you don’t adjust it to meet their current needs.

Example: A distributor of electronic components that sells globally. The pandemic has caused major disruptions throughout the supply chain. How do you manage these disruptions to meet the “just in time” demands of your customers and at the right price?

Your content for digital marketing needs to talk about the changes you have put in place to meet demands from local warehouses to mitigate some of the logistical challenges. Write about drawing on your global network of sources to maintain a critical level of inventory to meet customers’ immediate needs which may be lower than usual since their operations have also been affected.

Use industrial content marketing to reassure customers

Smart manufacturing content marketers will take advantage to fill the void left behind by competitors who go silent because of cutbacks.

Create content that will reassure your customers about the operational changes you’ve made to keep customers and your employees safe by following guidelines set forth by local, state and federal agencies. Let them know about the changes you’ve made on the shop floor. Reassurance will go a long way in winning their trust and earning customer loyalty.

Example: A manufacturer of pre-engineered metal buildings and components uses both digital and print media to reassure their customers of minimal disruptions to their supply chain and operations while practicing social distancing on the shop floor. They are working with their customers’ revised project deadlines to ensure timely deliveries.

Leverage the power of content marketing tools you already have

Earlier in this post, I mentioned that management is probably not going to spend money at this time to invest in new marketing technologies. Why not leverage what you already have and use them to create a more powerful synergy?

I’m talking about combining email marketing with industrial blogging.

I’m suggesting emails because “Fifty-nine percent of respondents (engineers) indicate that they prefer to communicate with vendors over email. Twenty-four percent prefer phone conversations.” (Source: 2020 Smart Marketing for Engineers).

This is a powerful industrial content marketing strategy that I have used successfully with our clients. I have seen many manufacturers who’ve created a new section devoted specifically to COVID-19 preparedness. These are primarily blog posts published frequently.

Create emails that summarize these posts with links back to the blog to read the full article. This will drive visitors to your site. Add some exclusive content or an offer to your emails that only your subscribers can see.

Example: A manufacturer of safety equipment used in turnaround service for refineries and power plants, offers free consulting and evaluation to its email subscribers only along with a discount code for buying products directly from their online store.

Include a call to action with a sign-up form for new visitors who discovered your blog posts via search engines (SEO). This will generate new top of the funnel leads and grow your list organically.

Add webinars, virtual conferences and videos to your industrial content marketing strategy

In-person trade shows and large face-to-face conferences are not going to happen for a while. That doesn’t mean you cannot replicate a similar experience virtually.

Webinars are highly effective for educating younger and less experienced engineers stay current on technology. They are looking to their vendors to provide them this training. They probably will have more time to attend these webinars while working from home as versus when they are under deadline pressures while at work.

Similarly, you could develop specific content that your sales team can use during video conferencing or Zoom meetings. These content assets can be used for prospecting as well as providing new content to existing customers.

Free COVID-19 resources for manufacturers

Here are some free COVID-19 resources for manufacturers and they are from trusted sources.
1. COVID-19 Resources from the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM)
2. Covid-19 Resources for Manufacturers from Catalyst Connection
Yes, these are unprecedented and frankly, scary times. As industrial content marketers we can either adapt and come out stronger or try to survive by doing nothing and hope that it will soon pass. It’s your choice.

Stay safe and healthy!
May 8, 2020
Content Preferences of Engineers and Industrial Buyers
Understanding the content preferences of engineers and industrial professionals is crucial to your success with industrial content marketing. That applies to the content for industrial websites too.

Compounding the problem is the fact that engineers from all age groups do not respond the same way to your content. While everyone wants to reach the final decisionmakers, you’d be making a serious mistake if you ignore younger engineers who are taking on more responsibilities.

These younger engineers have different content preferences and prefer to interact with vendors differently than their older counterparts. Understanding this age difference among engineers is important.

Reliable research data on industrial buyers isn’t easy to come by as in the world of B2C marketing. I know of only a handful of research studies that focus exclusively on manufacturing or industrial marketing. You probably know them too if you market to engineers and technical professionals.

One such report is the 2020 Smart Marketing for Engineers published by IEEE GlobalSpec in partnership with TREW Marketing. I’ll highlight some of the key findings related to content preferences of engineers and industrial buyers.

Content preferences of engineers and industrial buyers ranked by value

Look at this chart from the report, you may be surprised to find that good old product datasheets are still the most valued content preferred by this technical audience.

Now look at the data from the perspective of various age groups. Here’s what the research found:
- While engineers from all age groups found datasheets valuable, engineers aged 35 and under placed the most value on them.
- Engineers in the 36-45 age range found the most value in case studies when compared to other age groups.
- Engineers aged 45-55 preferred white papers.
Importance of content on industrial websites

You already know that these days engineers and industrial buyers complete a large portion of their buying journey online. Nearly 75% of this audience completes more than 50% of their buying journey by using the Internet. 25% said that they complete over 70% of the buying process online.

Again, there are differences among various age groups. Younger engineers (35 and under, and 36-45) place more value on YouTube than their older counterparts.

While social media is not irrelevant, it is dead last and has been consistently lagging for the past few years.

“For younger engineers, they’re more likely to source information from their social media accounts before they ever pick up a print magazine. For their peers older than 55, the opposite is true.” (Source: How Engineers Find Information 2019, engineering.com).

Don’t obsess over page 1 ranking for SEO

This may be another surprising revelation from the research report since manufacturing content marketers are always talking about ranking on page one in Google. Yeah, it’s a good goal but don’t base your entire content marketing strategy on SEO.
- 32% of engineers are willing to go 3 pages deep in search results
- 17% will go as far as 5 to 10 pages and 11% will go more than 10 pages
Using industrial content as sales enablers

Passive reading of your content isn’t going to help you generate better quality leads that turn into sales opportunities. I’m not talking about using email marketing to nurture leads.

You need content assets that I refer to as “sales enablers.” I’m talking about using downloadable CAD files and e-catalogs. These content assets save time, improve accuracy and minimize repetitive tasks for engineers.

As a manufacturer of components or parts, this is imperative because without your part being “designed in” you may not get to the RFP/RFQ stage. I have written several posts on downloadable CAD files that you’ll find here.

What is the big difference with downloadable CAD files? These are usually gated content (Need to fill a form to gain access). Here’s what the research found:
- 53% of engineers and industrial buyers are willing to enter their basic contact information in exchange for downloadable CAD files.
- Engineers aged 35 and under are most likely to provide contact information in exchange for CAD drawings.
- Engineers in the 36-45 age range are most likely to provide contact information for a webinar.
- Engineers aged 66 and older are the least likely to fill out a form in exchange for content.
Those numbers are huge because you are generating qualified leads and not passive visitors who take no follow-up action. That’s not only me saying that. Here are some key statistics on downloadable CAD files published by ThomasNet.
- CAD models create sales leads at a 2.5x greater rate than text-based product information
- 89% of designers only select components from manufacturers who provide CAD models online
- Up to 88% of businesses ultimately buy a part after downloading a CAD file
- 94% of designers will also specify that same part for future projects
Notice that webinars are good performers too because they are good learning opportunities. As in-house resources for training become more scarce because of cutbacks and retirements, the less experienced engineers are looking more to their vendors for that valuable training.

This post and the research finding should help you better align your efforts with the content preferences of engineers and industrial buyers.
March 12, 2020
Content Marketing for Manufacturers: Are You Using its Full Power?
My initial conversations with industrial companies about content marketing for manufacturers usually start something like this, “We can’t be found in Google or other search engines. We want to rank high. We’ve read that content marketing is the way to go. Can you help us?”

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that stated goal for industrial content marketing. This can apply to distributors and engineering companies as well, not just manufacturers.

So, what’s the problem?

This is a longish post, so grab a cup of coffee and sit back and read. Click on the links listed under the Table of Contents section to jump to a specific section if you are in a hurry. (Reading Time: 5 minutes.)

Table of Contents

Content marketing for manufacturers isn’t just for SEO

By basing your entire manufacturing content marketing strategy on Search Engine Optimization (SEO), you may not be using the full power or the potential of content marketing for manufacturers.

Why do I say that? The short and simple answer is, search engines are not your target, human visitors are.

Don’t assume that visitors who find you in Google and come to your site, will automatically convert into leads. Converting visitors to leads happens only when engineers and industrial professionals trust your content and find it relevant to their needs.

They will subscribe to your list and/or contact your salespeople only after that happens. Understanding the difference between discovery optimization (SEO) and conversion optimization (CRO) is very important.

That’s why your manufacturing content marketing strategy must be based on the entire sales funnel and not just ToFU (Top of Funnel) activities. Traffic by itself means zilch if you can’t convert it into real opportunities.

Proving ROI of manufacturing content marketing

Manufacturing marketers use content marketing to achieve a range of goals as seen in this chart from the report, “Manufacturing Content Marketing 2020” published by the Content Marketing Institute.

85% of manufacturing marketers have used content marketing successfully in the last 12 months to create brand awareness.

Goals Manufacturing Marketers Have Achieved by Using Content Marketing Successfully in the Last 12 Months

Wow, that’s impressive! Hang on though, measuring brand awareness is difficult. Sooner or later, you have to prove how that translates into tangible business goals—leads, sales opportunities and wins.

As a manufacturing content marketer, you have to go well beyond increasing name recognition. Your efforts must span the entire sales funnel or the buyer journey. You have to tie together conversations with sales, RFQs, opportunities that convert into sales, and customer support (loyalty).

Just publishing blog post and/or other content won’t cut it. You have to continue to market to them with helpful and relevant content. That all starts with gaining a valued subscriber to your list, so you have their explicit permission to send them your content.

Engineers rank email as a preferred means of acquiring information. (Source: How Engineers Find Information 2019 from engineering.com).

Now, go back and look at the chart again. Notice how “Build a subscribed audience” is second to last. I’m sure by now you can see the challenges of content marketing for manufacturers.

What else can manufacturing content marketing do for you?

The list is long, so I’ll highlight just three of them here.

Earn trust: As I’ve mentioned earlier in this post, you have to earn visitors’ trust first before they’ll sign up. Make it a value exchange—helpful content in exchange for their basic contact information. Bring your in-house Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to the forefront. I have found one engineer to another to be a very powerful strategy for earning trust and credibility. For more on this, read my post, Industrial Content Marketing that Engages Engineers.

Nurture leads: Unless you are selling industrial consumables and/or standard components, your sales cycle is probably going to be long and will take multiple touches with different stakeholders. This is particularly true of manufacturers of custom-engineered systems. Use email marketing to stay in touch by providing your subscriber list with relevant and helpful content that will move them closer to the final decision in a logical manner to make a more informed decision.

Create true differentiation: Good manufacturing content marketing can differentiate you from your competition when there’s parity in Value Propositions. This in turn will set the table for your sales team so they can have more productive conversations instead of cold prospecting. (See How Manufacturing Content Marketing Sets the Table for Sales).

Here are a few other statistics from independent sources that show the usefulness of content marketing.
- Marketers who prioritize blogging efforts are 13x more likely to see positive ROI. (Source: HubSpot, 2019)
- Content marketing gets three times more leads than paid search advertising. (Source: Content Marketing Institute)
- The top 2 types of content manufacturing marketers use are social media content (92%) and videos (81%) (Source: Content Marketing Institute)
- Prospecting is the most difficult part of the sales process for salespeople. (Source: HubSpot)
Content marketing for manufacturers is not just blog posts

Don’t forget conventional content assets that manufacturers have been using before the age of digital marketing. I’m talking about product datasheets and specifications. These are still very important, especially if you are targeting Design Engineers.

This chart shows what forms of content engineers find valuable while researching information for making a buying decision. (Source: 2020 Smart Marketing for Engineers, IEEE GlobalSpec and TREW Marketing).

Use premium content such as white papers, guides and e-books to generate targeted leads by using a content-centric lead generation strategy.

Save busy engineers time, minimize repetitive tasks and reduce errors by providing downloadable CAD files. This is a powerful content marketing strategy especially for manufacturers of industrial parts and components. (See my post, Industrial Content Marketing for Engineers to Make a Buy Decision).

According to CADENAS PARTsolutions, there are five major trends in downloadable CAD files that will affect industrial marketers in 2020 and beyond:
1. 3D modeling is the #1 ranking CAD trend.
2. High-quality product data, instant configuration and native CAD downloads.
3. 3D product catalog adoption moves into “Late Majority” stage.
4. More opportunities to market and sell to architects with BIM files.
5. More users are downloading 3D models online than ever before.
Download their free e-book, How to Sell More Products with 3D CAD & BIM Models.

I hope this post convinces you about the strong benefits of manufacturing content marketing if you are still sitting on the fence. Look around this blog and you’ll find over 300 articles on industrial marketing; many of them focus on content marketing.

Need help creating technical content? Content creation is the number one marketing activity (87%) outsourced by manufacturing marketers. If manufacturing content marketing sounds too daunting and time consuming, then take a look at my new technical content creation service for industrial companies to help you use content marketing more efficiently.
February 17, 2020
Technical Content Creation for Manufacturing Marketing
Technical content creation is a big challenge for manufacturing marketers of all sizes. Is it any wonder that content creation is the most commonly outsourced content marketing activity by manufacturing marketers?

“64% of manufacturing marketers outsource at least one content marketing activity; content creation is the activity they’re most likely to outsource (87%).” (Source: Manufacturing Content Marketing 2020 by the Content Marketing Institute/ MarketingProfs).

You’d think most manufacturing marketers would need outside expertise in formulating their content marketing strategy, but that isn’t the case. It ranks second to last at 19%.

Technical content creation is not the same as copywriting

In the previous year’s report, 68% of manufacturing content marketers reported creating content for multi-level roles was their top challenge. That has come down to 53% in the recent report.

Unfortunately, I have seen too many manufacturers rush to create content for the sake of manufacturing content marketing. As a result, they tend to think of content creation as nothing more than copywriting and clever wordsmithing.

Content creation for industrial content marketing for lead generation requires much more than just basic copywriting. Assuming that you have a documented content marketing strategy and have a clear understanding of your buyer personas, (I seriously doubt it since I haven’t come across too many manufacturers who have done this), you still need to provide detailed instructions (project brief) to your outsourced copywriters.

More importantly, the copywriter needs to take the time to understand your project brief and have the necessary experience to communicate well with engineers and technical professionals. And that is only the beginning.

Content creation vs. content marketing

Creating the right kind of content requires several steps and careful planning. Creating well-defined buyer personas and understanding their work-related challenges is the first major step. This takes time and your active participation. It will help you plan your content or editorial calendar.

Create content that addresses those challenges. In other words, don’t go inventing problems to fit your products and services (AKA, solutions). It may be difficult for you take this step back and think from the perspective of your customers. Keep in mind, it should be about them and not you (Address their WIIFM concerns).

Doing keyword research should follow. After all, your target audience needs to find your content. However, discovery optimization (SEO) is not the same as conversion rate optimization (CRO). Create explicit calls to action if you want your readers to take action instead of passive reading and then leaving.

Next step in your planning should be content distribution. Publish and promote your content actively. Don’t rely 100% on your own website and/or blog for the audience to discover your content. Promoting new content via social media channels is the bare minimum these days. This important step cannot be an afterthought.

Once you’ve got an efficient content creation system in place, you need to rinse and repeat the process every time you create new content. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel each time. Think of ways of repurposing some of your blog posts into high-value content giveaways for lead generation.

It should be very clear by now that technical content creation for industrial content marketing requires many steps beyond copywriting.

3 tips for outsourcing technical content creation

If you’ve found a qualified copywriter who is also a good content marketer, hang on to him or her because they are worth their weight in gold. Outsourcing technical content creation can be a little tricky. Here are three tips for a smoother experience:
1. Review your copy thoroughly and ask the copywriter to make your edits and changes until you are satisfied. An automated spellcheck is the bare minimum
2. Have your in-house Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) review the content for technical accuracy and to ensure that it is current
3. Make sure you have a good way to detect plagiarism, don’t get caught up in copyright violations
If all this sounds too daunting and time consuming, then take a look at my new technical content creation service for industrial companies to help you use content marketing more efficiently.
February 5, 2020
The State of Manufacturing Content Marketing 2020
Manufacturing content marketing has come a long way since it is early years. There are many positive trends as seen in the latest research report, Manufacturing Content Marketing 2020, Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends published by the Content Marketing Institute. Yet, challenges remain as the survey shows and the reality that I see with my manufacturing clients. Reading Time: 4 minutes

I just finished reading the research report, Manufacturing Content Marketing 2020, Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends published by the Content Marketing Institute. This is CMI/MarketingProf’s annual report on manufacturing content marketing and I have read every one of their past reports.

I’ll summarize my thoughts here and talk about how some of the findings compare to what I see on the ground by working regularly with manufacturers.

To better understand these findings, here is the methodology and the demographics of the survey.

The 2020 survey is based on a total of 1,798 recipients from around the globe—representing a full range of industries, functional areas, and company sizes who replied to the survey during June/July 2019. This report presents the findings from the 108 respondents who indicated:
- Their organization is a for-profit manufacturing company
- Their organization has used content marketing for at least one year
- They are a content marketer, involved with the content marketing function, and/or someone to whom content marketing reports.
The majority of the respondents were B2B manufacturers based in North America.

Manufacturing content marketing strategy

There has been a significant improvement in the number of manufacturers who reported they have a documented content marketing strategy, 41% this year as compared to only 21% last year.

Keep in mind that a To-do List is not the same as a manufacturing content marketing strategy, even if it is an elaborate Excel spreadsheet with lots of details. Such lists tend to focus on “What to do” rather than “Why are we doing it?”

Manufacturing content marketing activities: In-house vs. Outsourced

Nearly half (48%) of manufacturers operate with a small marketing or content marketing team, typically it is one person who is responsible for the content needs of the entire company.

Now take a look at what manufacturing content marketing activity companies outsource vs. do them in-house. It will put everything in context for you.

64% of manufacturing marketers outsource at least one content marketing activity; content creation is the activity they’re most likely to outsource (87%).

The problem I’m seeing is that too many manufacturers are ready to jump into content creation without spending any time or thought given to strategy. I have said this before and it is worth repeating, content creation is not the same as content marketing. Just pumping out content for the sake of manufacturing content marketing, won’t help you achieve your goals.

Manufacturing content creation and distribution

Manufacturing content marketing is challenging, there is no doubt about it. I see too many manufacturers still have a campaign mindset. They still think of it as a one-off campaign to fix slow sales. They are not willing to listen or believe that content marketing is a process that takes time to gel before it can produce measurable and repeatable results.

Decisionmakers put too much pressure on their in-house teams or outside consultants to prove ROI quickly. As a result, these manufacturing marketers concentrate on relatively easy results to produce by focusing on top of the funnel activities. My observations and experiences are backed by the results of this survey.

50% of the content produced is for the early stages of the buyer’s journey (top-of-the-funnel).

What channels are manufacturers using to distribute their content? A majority of manufacturers use both non-paid and paid channels for content distribution. That is a very positive sign, but they are also ignoring a few other valuable channels such as speaking/presenting at trade events and publishing guest posts or articles in industry portals that have a large captive audience of engineers and technical professionals.

Manufacturing content marketing budgets for 2020

There is some good news here and it matches with what I’m hearing from my clients. They are willing to invest more in manufacturing content marketing but want to see results as quickly as possible. Patience and budgets seem to be polar opposites.

43% of manufacturing marketers expect their 2020 content marketing budget to be higher than it was in 2019.

More than half (53%) of the manufacturers still use paid traditional advertising (TV, radio, billboards, print ads etc.). However, 40% of those have also said that they have shifted paid advertising dollars to content marketing in the past 12 months.

Stay tuned, I’ll be publishing more posts about manufacturing content marketing where I’ll dig deeper into some of the survey findings.
November 14, 2019
How Industrial Distributors Can Use Content Marketing
Content marketing for industrial distributors can be very challenging. The biggest problem I’ve seen is that there is very little differentiation between distributors serving the same niche. Their competitors show the same line cards and unless they sell online directly, site visitors can’t see prices, nor do they have any idea about the lead time.

Yes, I understand some distributors use this as a strategy to force people to call them, but it usually isn’t very effective. I say that based on my experience working with industrial distributors. Here’s what I’ve seen or heard:
- “We quote our best prices, but never hear back from them”
- “We don’t want to compete on price or be the lowest bidder”
- “We don’t want our competition to undercut our prices”
You can see the disconnect here; the only content on your website is product descriptions, features and may be some benefits which come straight from your principal manufacturers. This content is exactly the same as your competition. Your customers have no way to differentiate you other than on price.

Content marketing for industrial distributors helps your customers make informed decisions

Industrial buyers are in self-select and self-serve mode these days, they don’t want to or need to talk to your sales team just to get product information, pricing and lead times. They have access to countless online sources to get that information. Content marketing for distributors can go a long way in setting you apart and bringing out some of the key selling points. In other words, set the table for your salespeople to have more productive conversations that go beyond pricing.

Examples of effective content for distributors
- Highlight your experienced salespeople who are much more than just order takers. They help your customers find difficult to find parts, unusual materials or sizes
- Bring to the forefront your USP – Are you a stocking or a master distributor?
- Provide online resources that your visitors can use to find the exact part number from your extensive inventory based on their parameters
- Give them access to cross-reference guides to locate equivalent products that you carry of discontinued or end-of-life components
- Describe the engineering or technical services offered by you that add value to your customers both before and after the sale
- Create an online resource of user manuals, Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) and how-to videos
- Provide valuable time savers such as downloadable CAD files and easily searchable online catalogs
- Talk about “lunch and learn” training that you may provide or online webinars
- Create an online technical forum where customers can share their own experiences and ask questions
- Set up a blog where your in-house subject matter experts can talk about unique applications and/or problems solved
Value added services is a very strong differentiator and will help distributors sell a complete solution instead of just hardware. This doesn’t necessarily have to be about services, you could also talk about how you help your customers make a more informed buying decision.

I can list many more content ideas to add to this list, but you get the picture. I have come across many distributors, both clients and others who are using content marketing to differentiate themselves from the competition. Check online, you’ll find many good examples of well-known distributors that are using industrial content marketing very effectively.

What I’ve described here does require a commitment of time and money, but the payoff can be huge when it comes to generating sales qualified leads. If there is parity in value propositions, good content marketing for distributors that’s relevant to your customers will establish your brand and earn you their trust which in turn will help to sell more of your industrial products.
October 7, 2019
Webinar: Prove ROI and Make the Business Case for Industrial Content Marketing
Industrial content marketing for engaging with engineers and technical professionals can be challenging. I’ve written about these problems in the past. Why not join me for a free webinar to learn first-hand about these challenges, tips on how to prove ROI which is necessary to make a strong business case for getting buy-in from management.

I’ve been invited by B2B Marketing Zone to present a free webinar on July 9, 2019 @ 12:30 PM PDT, 3:30 PM EDT. The webinar will be moderated by Hannah Flynn, Editor – Aggregage.

(Click on the “register for the webinar here” link below to download the free recording if you are reading this post after the webinar date.)

You can register for the webinar here.

I’ll share some of my experiences working with manufacturers and other industrial companies for the past 30+ years. Along the way, I’ll cite independent research findings to validate my ideas and recommendations.

In this webinar, you will learn more about:
- Unique challenges of industrial content marketing
- Measuring ROI and making a business case
- Building your industrial content marketing roadmap first
- Winning the engineer’s mindshare
- Working with technical Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
- “Post and Pray” is not an effective content marketing strategy
- Actionable Takeaways
I hope to see you there on July 9, 2019 @ 12:30 PM PDT, 3:30 PM EDT.

Register for the webinar today.
June 17, 2019
Manufacturing Content Marketing Can Be Confusing and Difficult
I regularly receive email inquiries from industrial companies needing help with their manufa cturing content marketing. These people are on the right track for wanting to use manufacturing content marketing for generating better quality leads that turn into sales opportunities.

64% of manufacturing content marketers say their organization’s content marketing is much/somewhat more successful compared with one year ago. (Source: 2019 Manufacturing Content Marketing Report).

Goals and objectives of manufacturing content marketing

Success in the above chart is defined as achieving their stated goals and objectives. These go well beyond just counting the number of leads generated.

Challenges remain in using manufacturing content marketing effectively

The findings from the report are certainly encouraging, but manufacturers face quite a few challenges in using content marketing effectively. I say that based on my actual conversations with owners, business development professionals and even a few in-house marketing people from manufacturers and engineering companies.

That’s not just my opinion, the CMI survey found similar challenges. Here’s one of their key findings:

“Manufacturers face long sales cycles full of multiple decision makers, and our survey confirmed that creating content for multi-level roles is a top challenge for respondents (68%).”

In my experience, the two biggest challenges faced by manufacturers are:
1. Lack of understanding who their target audience is (Buyer personas vs industries)
2. Lack of understanding of the work-related challenges faced by their audience( Product-centric vs customer-centric)
“51% of respondents said they always/frequently prioritize their sales/promotional message over the audience’s informational needs while creating content for content marketing purposes.” (Source: CMI report)

I’ve come across too many companies wanting to jump right into content creation instead of first spending the time to develop a fully vetted and documented content marketing strategy . Meaning, very little thought is given to developing buyer personas, purpose, calls to action, distribution and promotion.

Don’t get me wrong, product datasheets and specifications are very useful in industrial sales, but they alone can’t differentiate your company when there is parity in value propositions.

Please understand that there is a big difference between content creation and content marketing.

Let me give you an example to demonstrate what I’m talking about.

A To-Do list is not an industrial content marketing strategy

A manufacturer of specialty coating materials approached me to do their content marketing. They had created an elaborate Excel spreadsheet with topics and dates and wanted me to create the content for them. This was a long conversation that is best summarized in a Q & A format with me asking the questions.

Q: How did you develop your list of topics?
A: We think our customers would be interested in what we have to offer (product-centric topics).

Q: Who are you targeting with your content?
A: Our potential and existing customers.

Q: Who are they?
A: Huh, what do you mean? We know our industries well.

Q: Who or what job functions do people in your target audience perform?
A: We only talk to owners.

Q: Have you ever considered that there may be various stakeholders involved in the decision before you can get to the owners?
A: (Silence)

Q: Do you know what challenges your customers are facing that you can solve?
A: Our products are excellent, and they sell themselves. We offer exceptional customer service.

Me: (Silently) Then why do you need my help with industrial content marketing?

You know how the rest of the conversation went.

Key takeaway – Don’t create content until you know your audience well (buyer personas, challenges and their roles in the buying decision).

Leads from free content downloads are great for top of the funnel activities, but manufacturing content marketing must take you deeper into the funnel. Think in terms of content as sales enablers. See my post, Industrial Content Marketing for Engineers to Make a Buy Decision.

I hope the real-life example from my experience, as well as all the independent research findings will convince you that you need to put in a lot of thought into really getting ready for manufacturing content marketing.

Content Marketing World 2019

This year’s theme is Amaze Your Audience!

I have been invited to present at the 2019 Content Marketing World Conference and Expo to be held from Sep. 3 – 6 , 2019 at the Huntington Convention Center in Cleveland, OH. I’m part of the Industrial Marketing Summit. The topic of my presentation is “Unique Challenges of Marketing to Engineers and Industrial Buyers.” It is on Friday, September 6 around 11 am. You’ll find an outline of my presentation on the CMI World’s website. I hope to see you there.

Save $100 off the event registration by using the code MITRA19.

Register Now
May 22, 2019