Marketing for Manufacturers – Tips to make It Simple

Over 60% of internet users search for any product they wish to purchase online. Thus, with over 3 billion internet users, marketing for manufacturing companies should incorporate an informed and efficient strategy to boost one’s digital presence. Therefore, today we are going to cover some fairly simple tips for manufacturers marketing their products online to follow that will help make their efforts more effective.

Go the Extra Mile with Your Content

In the past, when it came to online marketing for manufacturers, it was easy enough to rank in search engines by churning out low effort articles with little substance. This was because search engines liked to see new, “fresh” content being regularly created. It didn’t matter if that content was actually useful to anyone. As long as it was “new” and contained the right keyword density, it would rank for whatever keywords it targeted.

Nowadays, Google is a whole different animal, and it will actually penalize a website that contains thin, low quality content via Google Panda algorithm purgatory. Moreover, with the advent of Google Hummingbird, which was a complete overhaul of Google’s primary search algorithm in August 2013, Google now favorably ranks websites that provide highly useful, authoritative information within their content.

As such, make online marketing easier for yourself and choose to write longer, more in-depth content every time. In fact, according to QuickSprout, web pages on any top 10 search engine results have at least 2,000 words worth of high quality content on them. You may not yet be a recognized authority in your industry, but keep at it long enough with high quality content, and that will change.

Quick Tip(s): Need some ideas for topic creation? Check out this tool (just replace “hotel” with something relevant to manufacturing). Need advice on how to write content effectively? Check out Copyblogger.

Find New Leads through Social Media

When it comes to marketing for manufacturing companies, it’s easy to get caught up in search engine optimization, keywords and meta data and to forget about focusing on reaching out to actual people. If you focus solely on appealing to search engines, you’re likely missing out on big opportunities to directly interact with prospects and secure new clients. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t use technology to your advantage in the process. For example, arguably the best tool to proactively find relevant prospects to interact with is Twitter.  To do this, you can use these search operators to find real people who are looking for advice or information on manufacturing services like yours. For example, did you know that if you include a question mark (?) along with a search query on Twitter, it will return relevant Tweets that are in the form of a question? You can even filter Tweets by location and also leave out the tweets containing links, so you don’t have to wade through the spam made by other manufacturers marketing their businesses.

You can also join groups and communities on Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn that are relevant to your field. Participate in these communities by offering helpful advice and sharing your content, and you just may get a few new leads for your efforts.

Attend Local Events and Trade Shows

When it comes to marketing for manufacturers, you should also remember that nothing quite replaces the human element that comes with meeting and greeting prospects in person. If you happen to sell exclusive manufacturing technology or have anything to show off, then you should definitely have a presence at local trade shows and other relevant events. Set up a booth and shake some hands. Don’t hesitate to do a little Google research to determine which trade shows get a big turn out and which ones don’t, so you don’t waste your time.

One of the best ways to keep track of upcoming events is to manage a full, up-to-date Facebook Events calendar. Not only will this help you keep dates organized, it also helps those following your company on Facebook become aware of where you will be appearing throughout the year.

…You do have a page on Facebook for your business, don’t you?

Quick Tip 1: Facebook events can be promoted with ads. If you want to promote your presence at a particular event, you can create an ad that promotes your event page, and then you can target Facebook users that have interests pertaining to that particular event or trade show. This will also help more people become aware of your business. Alternatively, you can target users who are already fans of your page to try and get them to turn out and possibly convert into customers if they haven’t already.

Quick Tip 2: A seemingly obvious, but often overlooked, step in marketing for manufacturers is to create business cards that contain URLs to your website and social media profiles. You can even create custom QR codes for smart phones that provide direct links. When you hand these cards out at trade shows, or anywhere in general, it can promote a boost in your traffic and followers.

In conclusion, manufacturers marketing their business shouldn’t be afraid to reach out to people (both online and in person) and would also be doing themselves an enormous favor by investing in providing the internet with high quality content.

If you have any further questions about marketing for manufacturing companies, feel free to comment below or contact us.