When it comes to the manufacturing industry, marketing becomes an integral part because it helps to connect manufacturers with sellers, distributors, other manufacturers to ensure that your product is reaching its target audience.
In India alone, with a rise in initiatives like Make in India & its promotion through digital marketing, the annual growth rate of production in the industry was over 14 percent during the fiscal year 2017.
However, 2019 faced a slow pace in terms of growth rate both in India & the world.
Manufacturing Production in India decreased 1.20 percent in December of 2019 over the same month in the previous year.
According to the UNIDO report, 2019 indicated the manufacturing output growth rates of industrialized economies rose by a mere 0.4 percent compared to the same period in the previous year.
However, for an industry that is gradually progressing towards automation, the marketing efforts are still out on the edge.
If looked in a broader spectrum, countries in South East Asia have increased their growth rate, especially China whos growth rate has reached 7.3 percent in 2019.
Frankly speaking, there is a huge scope of marketing that can be done for the manufacturing industry.
Manufacturers contribute over $2.3 trillion to the economy of the United States every quarter.
But before that, we need to understand the buying cycle of the industry.
What is the industrial buying cycle?
In the manufacturing industry, everything starts with the buying cycle.
It is a six-step journey articulated to focus on potential buyers who can come from anywhere, towards making an informed decision.
And as a manufacturing unit, it is your responsibility to guide your buyer through the journey.
These steps include:
- The buyer identifies their need for a product or service.
- The buyer researches different solutions to collect more information.
- If creating a new design, the buyer researches product data.
- The buyer evaluates potential suppliers for their desired solution.
- The buyer makes a shortlist of the best suppliers.
- The buyer purchases from the supplier they deem the best fit.
Now, the main focal point is that with each & every step, you have the opportunity to prove why you are the best fit for them to buy a particular product they are looking for.
Some of the factors buyers take into consideration when evaluating a product:
- Product quality
- Brand reputation
- Your website
- Market presence
- Social media
Now have you noticed that customers rely on online presence a lot before buying any product?
How to build your niche audience?
We cannot stress this point enough!
Thoroughly understanding your buyer and their motivations is critical to making content that will be relevant to them and keep you top-of-mind throughout their journey.
Who exactly are your buyers? What are their habits, goals, and challenges? What are they responsible for in their roles?
As a manufacturer, you must have a database on all these criteria to understand the “need” of your buyers.
Need for humanizing your brand
Customers have enough of the cold & corporate manufacturing website, it has become stale now.
Humanizing your brand is a powerful way to edge out the competition. It is the best way to connect with your audience. They want value and conversation, and they want to be engaged.
For instance, something like “team lunch” or a small Q&A session, or contests to win a prize will lead you a long way.
Why should you focus on content marketing?
Content is the backbone of all your inbound marketing efforts. Remember the buyer’s journey we were talking about?
Content marketing is where you need to focus on the “research” part. Creating content through blogs, videos will aim to demonstrate your company’s perspective towards your buyers.
They will provide the needful information, make it convincing for the customers to buy from them.
You can offer with- informative blogs, ebooks, newsletters, buyers guides, case studies & so on.
For videos, you can start with- product reviews, innovative engaging stories, video tours, 360-degree videos & others.
Keep your customers well-informed. Make them believe that it is through your product that they can find the exact solution they are looking for!
Why you should update your website?
For inbound marketing especially, a website is the center of the universe. It’s where all of your marketing channels should drive to — and it should be loaded with great content for your prospective buyers.
It is where the “design” part plays out.
Here are some points for your references:
Does it have a professional look?
A clean & well-maintained website will make it look more professional.
You can very much use colors that it apt with your logo or brand color but better to stick to a cohesiveness so that customers won’t get confused while searching for information.
Is it mobile responsive?
In 2020, there are 3.5 billion smartphone users around the world.
Creating a mobile responsive design will ensure your site looks great on any screen size so that you’re meeting your customers on their preferred device.
Your website should score around 80 to 90-speed limit when checked online.
Use technology & automation
The whole world is moving towards automation, then why not your marketing?
Automate your marketing efforts as much as possible — so you can spend most of your time focusing on the bigger picture.
- Use CRM software which gives you a clear, real-time view of your marketing funnel and sales pipeline.
- Use virtual guides, voice recognition assistance for your audience.
- Use chatbots on your website.
How to promote the manufacturing industry?
Create a well comprehended digital marketing strategy that encompasses SEO, PPC, Display Ads, Social Media & others to guide through the “evaluation” & “shortlisting.”
Whether it’s a magazine, website Facebook, YouTube, Instagram or Linkedin ads, or influencer sponsorship, ads can be a highly valuable way to generate leads.
Also, infographics can be a fantastic way to get information to customers and would-be customers! Interesting drawings, bright complementary colors and clear text help draw a reader’s attention to your information.
Think of influencer marketing. Influencer marketing acts as a bridge between the manufacturing sectors & its customers via someone who has a loyal fanbase.
Paid advertisements like PPC or display ads can be a great way to generate quality leads.
SEO & PPC
SEO includes crafting headers, text, as well as web page addresses to help the search engines understand the goal of the website and who may be interested in it.
PPC (pay-per-click) is used for increasing paid search results rankings. PPC ads are a great way to get to the top of search results by bidding on keywords.
The importance of reporting
So to check your business growth you need to regularly check back and see if it’s working.
There are tools that help you monitor the health of your website by tracking site metrics such as unique page views, session duration, and bounce rates.
And make sure that you keep a close relationship with your customers. This can help you to draw the final thread of the “deciding” stage for the customers.
Even though you’re doing all you can to try to bring buyers to your website, it’s important to also put yourself where they are elsewhere online. Maintain an ethical value to help your bind your customers & gain “fans”.
This is where email marketing can help a lot.
Use your newly developed content marketing to acquire emails and then follow-up with related updates or info.
Email marketing allows a company to share valuable content & offers; a great way to build a personal relationship with your buyers.
Now that you have the ultimate guide of how to market a manufacturing industry you can start by planning the essential goals & motives.
For the strategy building? Contact Us at Skyram Technologies.
We will help you to build a tailor-made digital marketing strategy for your business.
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