The idea of combining a website with the benefits of a blog is very appealing to many industrial marketers. In my conversations over the past few months, I have noticed a growing acceptance of blog sites among manufacturers, industrial distributors and engineering services companies.
Blog sites as inbound marketing hubs
Industrial companies have realized the importance of inbound marketing and its impact on lead generation. They are beginning to look beyond a static informational website and are now seriously focusing on developing a more robust online presence for attracting qualified traffic, generating higher quality leads and positioning themselves as thought leaders in their respective niches.
If you are still not convinced about the power of industrial blogs and inbound marketing, let me highlight some of the facts and findings that I have written about in the past.
- B2B marketers with blogs generate 67% more leads according to a study done by HubSpot (See Why Your Sales Funnel May Run Dry Without a Business Blog)
- 39% of the engineering, technical, manufacturing and industrial companies plan to implement a company blog as part of their 2011 social media initiatives and 50% expect to invest more (compared to 2010) in company blogs according to GlobalSpec’s 2011 Trends in Industrial Marketing
- The ability to self-manage content updates with a built-in content management system (CMS) of a blog site is one of the most requested “must have” features of industrial website redesign RFQs
- The ease and cost savings associated with regularly publishing optimized blog posts over paying an SEO company to optimize static websites are difficult to ignore
- Integrating a blog into websites can be a big help for manufacturers that are trying to enter new markets (See How Blogs Help Manufacturers Enter New Markets)
To learn more about the benefits of industrial blog sites, read my earlier post, “Build Industrial Websites as Dynamic Blog Sites.”
Lack of content is one of the main reasons many industrial companies hold back from launching a blog or incorporating one into their exiting sites. However, this needn’t be the case. Here are two possible solutions to overcome the content challenge:
- Repurpose your existing content. Read my post Don’t Let Lack of Content Stop You from Blogging
- Content curation. You’ll find more about curation as a content marketing tactic in my post, “Is Content Curation an Easy Way for Content Marketers to Do More With Less?”
Blog sites are very flexible and can be just as effective whether you are an OEM, an industrial distributor, or a consulting engineering firm.
Do you use an industrial blog site or plan to develop one in the near future as part of your industrial marketing strategy?
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