Category: Industrial Marketing Strategies

  • E-commerce: An Important Channel for Industrial Sales

    I am seeing more and more manufacturers and industrial distributors using e-commerce as a sales channel for growth. The adoption rate has been much slower as compared to the online retail industry but B2B marketers are catching on fast.

    According to a survey conducted in 2011 by BtoB and Rainmarker Systems, while only 35% of B2B marketers are involved with selling directly online, 58% of those companies have an increasing commitment to the channel.

    Manufacturers have used e-commerce to sell components, spare parts and off the shelf industrial products for a long time. However, I have noticed a growing trend among industrial companies using e-commerce as their primary sales channel.

    Industrial sales are different from online consumer retailing and so the e-commerce experience has to be different too. Manufacturers and industrial companies need to be mindful of differences such as:

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  • Industrial Companies shouldn’t Replace Email Marketing with Social Media

    Right off the bat let me say that this post is not about email marketing versus social media. However, I’ve had conversations with manufacturers and industrial companies where I am asked if email marketing is still relevant and effective since all the talk these days is about social media. Yes, social media generates all the buzz but discarding email marketing, a tried and true workhorse would be a mistake and here is why.

    In a March 2012 online survey of US marketing professionals, trade publication Chief Marketer found that the most popular tool in digital campaigns, according to 78% of the respondents was email marketing followed by Email newsletters (59%) and a close third was social media at 58%.

    Here is a chart from emarketer.com showing the growing number of tools used by marketers to improve Website engagement.

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  • Industrial Content Marketing with Purpose

    In my last post, I talked about using content to convert website traffic into leads and customers. In this post, I want to continue with a similar theme and talk about why your content marketing must have a purpose.

    With the abundance of content available on the Internet these days, it is difficult to rise above the noise and get noticed. Manufacturers and industrial companies cannot be content with just publishing content, their content marketing needs to drive the sales process.

    Telling owners and C-level executives at these companies that inbound marketing with content takes time to produce results will only hold them off for so long. They expect, and rightfully so, that their marketing investments produce ROI sooner rather than later, now would be even better. (See Content Marketing: Think Like a Publisher, Act Like an Investor).

    However, creating content that will convert traffic into leads in one fell swoop is a challenge since industrial sales typically have long sales cycles and a multitude of stakeholders are involved in the purchase decision.

    Consider these suggestions then to overcome the hurdle – change the purpose of your content marketing from conversion to action. What am I talking about?
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  • Industrial Marketing Company Celebrates 25 Years in Business

    April 2012 marks a milestone for my industrial marketing company Tiecas, Inc. We are celebrating 25 years in business! It has been an incredible journey so far. Come along with me as I take a trip down memory lane…

    I remember registering my DBA as “Tiecas Type & Graphics” on April 14, 1987 with the Harris County Clerk’s Office in Houston, Texas. I had read an article in Inc. Magazine about a coming revolution called “desktop publishing.” That was the impetus for me to quit my management job with an oil country tubular goods (OCTG) manufacturer and take the plunge into starting my own business.

    I owe a big debt of gratitude to the late, great Steve Jobs and his innovative products. I could not have launched my company without the Apple Macintosh Plus, Apple LaserWriter Plus with a PostScript interpreter from Adobe and PageMaker from Aldus Corp.

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  • Do You Believe in Industrial Websites?

    Just like the classic ’60s hit song “Do You Believe in Magic?” by The Lovin’ Spoonful, I am wondering if manufacturers and industrial companies believe in their industrial websites.

    I am not so sure manufacturing companies are fully convinced that their website is a real sales tool. My doubts stem from some of the things that I hear in my regular conversations with these companies. Here are a few actual sound bites:

    • We are still using our first website that was created by our president’s 23-year old son-in-law
    • We didn’t want to spend too much money so we hired an offshore programmer from a freelance site to design our company’s website
    • We spent a lot of money on SEO and PPC programs but our site hasn’t generated good quality leads
    • We are not very happy with the look of our site and we want a good designer to make our site look really “cool”
    • We put up a website because all our competitors have one
    • We don’t really use the website because 80-90% of our new business comes from referrals and repeat business

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  • Manufacturers: Don’t Start a Lead Generation Campaign without Sales

    Every manufacturing or industrial company that I talk to wants more leads. However, there is a serious disconnect between sales and marketing when it comes to defining a qualified lead.

    This is not a new problem. Google sales and marketing disconnect and you will find thousands of articles written on this topic. I am here to tell you that it is very real and thriving within manufacturing companies.

    Recently, a manufacturing client retained me to help them improve their industrial lead generation campaign. This company had spent thousands of dollars in Pay-Per-Click (PPC) and banner ads in niche industry eNewsletters. They had received a fair amount of traffic from those efforts but had little to no conversions. In short, very poor ROI from their lead generation efforts.

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  • Manufacturers Use Evaluation Kits for Effective Lead Nurturing

    Lead nurturing plays an important role in industrial lead generation programs because it is rare that an industrial sale is completed on the first call or the first visit to the manufacturer’s website.

    Forrester, CSO Insights and Marketo reported that lead nurturing produced much better results. Here are some of the significant findings from their research studies:

    • Reduced the number of marketing-generated leads ignored by sales to as low as 25%
    • Raised win rates on marketing-generated leads by 7% and reduced “no decisions” by 6%
    • Helped 9% more sales reps make quota and shortened ramp up time of new ones by 10%

    Still not convinced? Read my earlier post, “Lead Nurturing Is Not A Marketing Option, It’s A Sales Necessity.”

    Lead nurturing is usually done by sending out helpful content to prospects and moves them from the top of the funnel (ToFU) to the bottom of the funnel (BoFU) where they are ready to make a purchase decision. Some refer to this as “drip marketing.”

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  • Align Industrial Websites with Sales Process

    If you want your industrial website to generate qualified leads and drive sales (Who doesn’t?), make sure the site is aligned with your sales process. Without this critical link, your newly redesigned industrial website may be nothing more than eye candy that does very little for your sales.

    In my daily conversations with manufacturing and industrial companies, I find the mindset is still very much centered on marketing the old way. They want their site visitors to call and their crack sales team will take care of everything to close the deal.

    Even though these people have read all the industry studies, they have a very difficult time accepting the fact that their buyers are no longer willing to engage with their salespeople until they need a quote. Now it boils down to price and delivery time.

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  • Industrial Marketing Content that Helps Buyers

    It is very common to find marketing content from manufacturers and industrial companies that is all about how great their products are or that their technology is innovative. Sellers may be too close to the forest to see the trees and firmly believe their marketing content is helpful to their buyers.

    Buyers can easily find information about your products and that of your competition from their online research. So ask yourself this question, “Is my industrial marketing content really helping my buyers make a more informed decision and is it moving them closer to an RFQ?”

    I suspect most of you already know the answer otherwise I wouldn’t be hearing and reading the same objections to content marketing from so many manufacturers and industrial companies. They know the “why” but are having a difficult time figuring out “how” publishing content will help them sell more of their industrial products.

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  • Create a Content Series for Industrial Marketing

    Happy New Year!

    This is my first post in 2012 and I want to start the New Year by answering a perennial question about content marketing for manufacturers and industrial companies. The question – what do we write about?

    The answer – create a content series.

    Just like popular TV serials, you want to create a series of short blog posts that revolve around a common theme. There are many advantages to this content marketing strategy. The most important ones are:

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