In recent years I’ve met and spoken to hundreds of marketing executives at B2B companies. When I ask them to describe their challenges as marketers, the common denominator is a very strong and genuine desire to succeed in the role met by frustration with management who’s not on board with their initiatives for implementing new processes.
The explanations I get are usually along the lines of management’s lack of understanding of the CMO’s role or the lack of cooperation and desire to invest in the resources needed for the CMO to succeed.
What’s in a Title?
These challenges of the marketer have been covered in-depth many many times before. But this only proves that the role of the marketing manager is the most challenging role at the management levels and the most difficult to maintain over time. Research shows that the marketing manager’s position lasts for approx. 42 months, which is in comparison, half the time other managing roles.
Furthermore, there are companies such as Johnson and Johnson, Uber and Hyatt Hotels that have decided to completely eliminate the role of Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and convert it to more general role definitions such as company Growth Manager or Customer Success Manager.
Is the Role of CMO Facing Extinction Or Rebirth?
Let’s first try to understand the reason for friction between the marketing manager and upper management mentioned above.
It begins with the digital revolution that has transformed the marketing world. If once companies had few means of reaching the customer and only companies with enormous budgets could advertise and stand out, today every company can reach its entire potential clientele, sometimes, at the cost of cents.
This new reality created possibilities for the rapid growth of unprecedented proportions which we’ve seen from the mega brands of today from the likes of Google, Facebook, Amazon, Airbnb, Uber and more who’ve gone from small startups into giant corporations at meteoric speed. This new reality changed the business world completely, and marketing as well.
A Source of Friction with Upper Management
On the one hand, it’s easier to reach your audience accurately and cheaply. But on the other, it’s much more difficult to stand out and get your audiences’ attention. This sets the ground for friction when companies struggle to grow today despite all the many media and advertising opportunities.
What then, differentiates between companies with amazing growth and those who stay stagnant? And how does this relate to the marketing strategy?
The answer, in my opinion, lies in a very common tendency of senior management, as well as marketing managers, to seek quick solutions. When it comes to using social media or advertising with Google whatever it might be – a “results now” mindset creates a difficulty when building a solid strategic plan.
The CMO of the Future
The CMO of the future will understand that no matter how easy and fast digital marketing can help the company grow, it will ultimately fail if the tactics used don’t have a long term strategy behind it.
The CMO of the future will also know that in order to further accelerate growth, a system needs to be in place for the strategy to be executed efficiently.
At StepUp our mission is to help you, the CMO of today become the CMO of the future by building the right strategy and implementing systems for accelerating your company’s growth.
As a CMO, part of your work is to uncover new methodologies and plans that can work for your business. You have done the research, and you might have even tested it out. Now you need approval from your managers to implement that shiny new B2B marketing plan.
Uncovering a B2B marketing plan that will work for the unique needs of your company is no small feat. However, the hard part may still be ahead of you. You want to make sure that your superiors are supportive of your work, understanding of the tasks at hand, and, perhaps most importantly, are willing to back you up with the budget that you need to execute it properly.
The very first step to implementing your B2B marketing plan is to let your managers know that it exists. Set up a meeting for your upper management team, and make sure the agenda is clear. It might be a good idea to send an email to give your meeting the attention it deserves. This is not the kind of meeting that you mention in passing to your supervisor in the hallway. Rather, this is the kind of meeting that requires a calendar invitation, and probably an email follow-up explaining the purpose of the meeting.
You want to let them know ahead of time that they will be presented with a new plan and a new budget. In your meeting invitation, including “teasers” about the plan, mentioning key elements or out-of-the-box components that will grab their attention. At the bottom of the email invitation, add a line about discussing a proposed budget that requires their approval.
Own it
In the B2B world, a lot of your meetings might take place without so much as a whiteboard. As the CMO of the company, in a digital world, you want to bring technology into the board room. You’ll want to wow your supervisors with a PowerPoint presentation – or even take the time to create an interactive presentation like one of the free templates on Prezi.
Include all of the relevant details of your B2B marketing plan, and be open to questions about the smaller details that you might think are obvious. Once your presentation is prepared, take the time to review it. More than once. You want to be the captain of the ship – and practice is key.
Follow up
After the flawless presentation of your ideas for implementing a new marketing plan, the room might sit silent. Or, your upper management team might have asked dozens of questions throughout the presentation, turning your 30-minute meeting into an hour and a half. However your meeting ended, you likely don’t have final approval from the managers. You might need an extra push to get that budget approval you’re seeking.
This is where your follow-up is vital. Sending out an email to those present at the meeting is a basic first step. Thank them for attending and for taking the time to meet with you. Attach a copy of your presentation PDF for their records. And most importantly, include a deadline for their response.
You’ve now given upper management all the tools they need to make a decision. Your next step is to make sure it happens. You’ll want to schedule a follow-up email close to the deadline, to check in on the status of their decision-making process, and ask if they have any additional questions.
Want to call in an expert?
Sometimes, presenting your new marketing plan to upper management can seem daunting. Why not bring in an expert to do the hard part for you? At StepUp, our team can support you throughout your work – from presenting a marketing plan and growth strategy, to helping you implement it. Set up a call with a member of our team to consult on what kind of marketing strategy will work best for your B2B company. We’re here for you, every step of the way.
Are you ready to level up your goal setting game and crush your targets like a pro athlete crushes their training regimen? Well, strap on your game face and get ready to take notes because we’re diving deep into the world of SMART goals, and using the analogy of a professional athlete’s training to show you how to set and achieve your own big wins. Just like a pro athlete doesn’t just show up on game day and wing it, you too need a solid plan to crush your goals. So, let’s get started and turn you into a goal crushing machine!
Setting goals using SMART criteria when preparing for your inbound marketing can make or break your plan’s success. Inbound marketing requires a methodical approach in order to be successful and drive sales or any other specific goals. That’s where SMART criteria come in. They help prioritize work, monitor progress and make it possible to identify which points are in need of improvement. So here’s our approach of setting SMART marketing goals for an effective inbound marketing plan.
The SMART Criteria
The SMART criteria serve as a guide in setting objectives that are easy to understand, carry out, and monitor. They are a ubiquitous method used throughout a host of varying principles, in order to set goals in most any type of scenario. The acronym SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely.
“Specific” refers to avoiding ambiguity and communicating clearly all critical aspects of a goal such as what needs to be done, why is it required, who should do it, and when and how should they do it. “Measurable” means that a goal should have clearly defined criteria in order to assign a numerical value corresponding to its progress, usually a percentage of the current progress against the final goal. “Attainable” simply refers to set realistic goals that are within your reach in relation to your means and resources. “Relevant” specifies that any set goal should directly relate to a core aspect of your business. Lastly “Timely” means setting a satisfactory due date or duration for each goal. To help you set SMART marketing goals you can request a free one-on-one session with our marketing strategist.
The trick to setting marketing goals is converting them to numbers, committing to carrying them out, and monitoring their progress. Buzzwords like “engagement”, “visits”, or “conversions” can be ambiguous and unclear. This can result in confusion over what exactly needs to be done. What’s even worse is when these buzzwords are used to justify their own shortcomings. The solution is that by using SMART criteria, even abstract terms can be easily flipped into goals. Defining, for example, the goal to “increase conversions” as “X% increase of website visitors that proceeded to fill-in an interest form within the period of next quarter” immediately turns this vague statement to an actionable marketing goal.
Prioritizing Your Goals
Of the many goals that can be set for marketers, the most recurring ones are increasing visits, working on contacts, and acquiring customers. We believe that companies need to assess their current state and focus on just one of these accordingly. Firstly, if you are just starting off with your website or already have good conversion rates, you should focus on increasing your visits to ramp up your business. Secondly, if you have enough traffic but are not getting enough sales leads, you should focus on working on your contacts. Lastly, focus on customer conversion if you have enough traffic to your website. Visitors show interest in your products and services converting to leads, but just don’t proceed to purchase and becoming paying customers.
Determining Key Inbound Marketing Metrics
When setting for measurable goals, it is important to be able to determine a key metric for each one. Then, compare this key metric to a pre-set benchmark. Of course, the list of different metrics can be endless, since it’s dependent on the goal. However, we’ve found that it helps to have certain metrics in mind when setting your inbound marketing goals. With regards to blog posts, these are CTA (Call To Action) clicks, overall blog page views, number of shares on social media, and number of inbound links. When setting up email metrics, key metrics to watch are open & click rate, delivery rate, bounce rate, and unsubscribe rate. For measuring the effectiveness of content offers, it’s important to monitor the number of landing page visits, the readers to leads conversion rate, and social media shares.
Creating Your Plan
So you have set your SMART marketing goals, prioritized them according to your company’s current needs, and determine key metrics for each one. Now it is time to put it all together into an actionable plan to follow and implement. Consider this plan as a tool to assist you in concentrating all of your inbound marketing efforts around a single ultimate goal, and help you achieve it.
It helps to break down your plan into three main activity sections: attracting, converting, and closing. Firstly, attracting customers involves optimizing your marketing materials and web pages, defining your target demographic, crafting your message, and developing an ad framework by choosing the appropriate media and ad types. Secondly, for converting customers it helps having defined a clear conversion path to an offer, such as CTA, landing page, follow up emails, and top of the funnel offer. Lastly, closing a customer requires some type of marketing automation system, segmentation to specific groups, optimizing web pages, having appropriate content offers, and sending the right emails at the right time. These three sections are in line with the three sections mentioned in our one-page marketing plan article.
Taking Your Inbound Marketing to the Next Level
A lot can be achieved through setting and implementing a good marketing plan yourself. However, B2B companies have to keep up with the increasingly competitive industry landscapes and their specialized needs. This is why most B2B companies have the tendency to drift attention to core operations rather than focusing on marketing efforts. We at StepUp have been helping b2b companies and industrial manufacturers in strategizing, planning, and implementing their inbound marketing efforts, while they focus on their bottom line and core operations. Contact us to claim your discovery session on how to create and implement a positive ROI digital marketing growth plan for 2020.
If you’re responsible for marketing, sales or business development for your B2B company, you have a unique and different set of challenges than businesses looking to market directly to consumers. While B2B marketing uses many of the same techniques as B2C marketing, the application is very different and marketing to other businesses requires a different content strategy focused on different channels. It’s essential to set good metrics and make sure you’re tracking the impact of your efforts. While there are a number of challenges of industrial marketing, here are a few common ones, and how you can overcome them.
Producing Quality Content
Content marketing, as part of a broader inbound marketing system, is an incredibly effective way to draw in an audience of potential leads, showcase your expertise, and get leads reaching out to you. However, producing that content, especially in an industrial setting, can be a challenge. The content has to be technical enough to show a clear understanding of the material without being so complex as to turn off potential leads who come from business backgrounds, like a VP Purchasing or CMO, who aren’t experts in the technical side of your product. The solution is to have content marketers work closely with technical staff to ensure that content produced is both accurate and readable. With the directive from upper management to participate, technical team members often enjoy explaining everything they do.
Promoting Your Content
Putting out great content is only the first step. Once you’ve written an article that you think will resonate with potential leads, you have to publish it in different channels that will get their attention. Your business needs to have a presence in a number of different content channels and plans to attract leads to your content. It’s key to think about your target market and to understand what channels they use most for industry learning and research. For example, in the US LinkedIn is a primary content channel for serious B2B companies. However, in India, Facebook and Youtube are extremely relevant even for highly technical businesses. Making a good content distribution plan based on your target audience before you start publishing content is a good way to ensure that what you write gets read by the right people.
Setting Expectations
Everyone, including upper management, reads stories about runaway successes with internet marketing, so it’s important before you begin your marketing campaign to research what is typical for your industry and set expectations accordingly. Then, revisit your plan periodically and compare your expectations to actual campaign metrics. Show how many people are viewing your content in different channels and how many are clicking through to your website or reaching out for follow up. If you can, work with your sales team to track how many of these leads convert into sales so you can show, with a dollar amount, the impact of your marketing efforts.
Maintaining Publishing Schedules
Once you’ve started a successful content campaign, you need to continue to develop content so that fresh material containing the correct keywords appears on your website and in your content channels. Someone on the marketing team has to take responsibility for researching and creating content and making sure it gets out on time. If you don’t have an in house marketing team, consider outsourcing your marketing to an external agency that specializes in B2B companies – sticking to a publishing schedule gets challenging if there is no one dedicated to the project. Don’t think you need to publish daily for success. Instead, focus on quality, reliability and applicability so that your articles have the biggest impact.
Trying New Channels
If your organization is having success with one content channel, it may be difficult to get them to consider trying a different or new channel. This is often a place where recycling old content can be useful to establish yourself on the channel or, if you’re looking at something like YouTube where you’d have to create video content, that content can then be used on your existing channels. Shaking up the type of content offered can get the attention of your existing audience and give you a great way to cross-promote your efforts.
While inbound marketing for industrial B2B businesses can be challenging, with good planning and execution, it can be very effective. Bringing in a team like StepUp can help meet this challenge. We take the time to understand your business and brainstorm content ideas that will resonate with your leads. Then we work with your staff to ensure our content is accurate but we take the responsibility for keeping the good content coming. If you’d like to learn more, reach out to us for a free marketing strategy session and learn how to apply inbound marketing principles to your business.
Digital marketing has become increasingly popular for B2B and manufacturing companies. The field of digital marketing has also evolved both contextually and technologically.
Marketers constantly need to consider how they incorporate the new online channels and platforms that are emerging. They also need to adjust how they work with their existing marketing tools which are also constantly being updated.
With all of this change, keeping up with the current marketing trends can be challenging. Even more so for marketers of B2B and manufacturing companies, where marketing can be a greater challenge due to the highly technical nature of the value offer. In this article, we present our top 6 picks for the most important B2B marketing trends to follow this year.
One of the most important marketing principles in B2B is content marketing.
The trend is moving from generalized “marketing speak” to presenting technical information in a educational, concise and easy to understand manner.
Educational content is found to be effective for all different types of formats: professional articles, videos, podcasts, and webinars.
2. Smart Lead Qualification
We are increasingly seeing more companies investing in smart CRMs, powered by artificial intelligence for lead qualification automation. These systems help in identifying qualified leads from early on in the process. When companies increase the effectiveness of their marketing and sales efforts in this way, they are able to allocate resources towards leads that are more likely to convert to paying customers.
3. Personalization
Marketers are increasingly serving prospects with personalized content, rather than the traditional one-size-fits-all approach. Personalization tools can target content depending on personal information such as demographics, interests, and other profiling criteria. This type of targeted content resonates more with the audience, resulting in increased engagement.
4. Offline & Online Working Together
The benefits of participating in trade shows and industry meetups is multiplied when they are coupled with online marketing activities. Firstly, targeted online marketing efforts before a trade show can increase the effectiveness of the trade show. Secondly, by adapting and customizing online marketing after a trade show, a company will have an even stronger impression on their target audiences. When offline and online marketing activities are in sync, a company is able to optimize their effects and provide maximum returns in both cases.
5. PR & Influencer Marketing
Companies are increasingly turning to PR techniques for online marketing. For example, a manufacturer will select middle to high-level managers to publish guest posts on industry trade magazines. Another technique is involving renowned celebrity professionals in their marketing to strengthen their brand.
6. B2B2C
For B2B and especially manufacturers, it can be extremely effective to sell directly to the consumer. Even though they are not the ones who will be purchasing directly from you. The aim is simple, by educating you can influence the end consumer and thereby create demand in your market.
Although we see a technology shift in the industry, what most B2B and manufacturing companies still lack is a clear marketing strategy and an actionable plan. Moreover, there are so many marketing possibilities for B2B manufacturers to choose from. Structuring an actionable strategy that contains the parts that are right for your company can be difficult. This is where StepUp comes in, an inbound marketing agency for manufacturers and B2B companies in unlocking their full potential.
Our clients worked hard to achieve where they are today and we strive to build on that by helping them devise strategies that not only raise their visibility and competitive advantage, but also accelerate their sales and growth.
Contact us for a free consultation to hear how we can help you conceive and implement a solid online marketing strategy plan, tailored to your needs and budget.
In today’s B2B landscape, marketing presents an opportunity that is too good for manufacturing companies to ignore. However creating a marketing plan for manufacturing companies is key to achieving success.
Many B2B and manufacturing companies struggle with finding the right approach for their company. In this article, we’ll provide you with our manufacturing marketing plan template, broken down in five simple steps.
Time to get specific. The start of any solid marketing plan is setting SMART goals. This well-known acronym for goal setting (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound) should be overarching throughout the whole marketing effort. Setting specific and measurable targets helps manufacturers identify the strong and weak points of their plan. This way they can gradually improve upon their marketing strategy and become more effective, pivoting towards actions that are the most effective.
Aligning Marketing & Sales
When working on creating a marketing plan for manufacturers, alignment of marketing and sales goals is required. Oftentimes businesses overlook this factor and marketers end up working towards vague targets such as website traffic and SEO ranking. This is just one example of many activities a marketer can carry out without knowing how it will practically affect the company’s bottom line when there is no alignment with sales.
A good starting point is to define the required number of sales opportunities per period. Using that number and considering an assumed conversion rate, you will be able to define how many leads you need to capture through marketing. By setting goals in this fashion, marketing efforts will directly benefit the company in a clear and effective way.
Creating a marketing plan for manufacturing companies that is outlined for less than a full year is insufficient. Setting a full-year plan provides a structure that enables companies to move forward with marketing. It is most effective to segment the annual plan into 4 quarters, listing the general content topic and marketing direction for every quarter. This provides consistency and a better focus for the marketing efforts throughout the year.
This kind of annual plan is especially important for manufacturing companies who’s educational content will often involve highly technical industry jargon.
Creating a Detailed Quarterly Plan
Detailing Marketing Actions
The first step is to define the most impactful actions that will help reach our goals. Deciding which persona your company is targeting for each quarter and what content campaign is needed to run for lead generation. Moreover, it is important to have clear content and distribution plans. A content plan should include details beyond just the essence of the copy but also where will the relevant content be published. A checklist should be made for the factors to include for attracting the most qualified traffic to the website.
Creating a Content Plan
A clear content plan allows manufacturers to define exactly the content that will be created about each quarter’s topic. A well-thought-out quarterly content plan is the best way of ensuring systematic, timely publishing of high-quality content.
Defining KPI’s
Defining the quarter’s KPIs allows manufacturing companies to track marketing results. By working toward a KPI, marketers can focus on creating a funnel and specify which actions were most effective at converting leads to sales opportunities.
Measuring the Results
No amount of marketing effort is complete if it cannot be measured quickly and effectively. The recommended approach is to use a platform to track and analyze your marketing activities. Although many such platforms exist, we prefer using Hubspot because it provides us with tools to monitor and track results for any type of activity all in one place (for example social media, content, analytics, and SEO), all in one place.
Is Your Company In the Loop?
How effective is your company’s marketing plan? Does your strategy provide enough sales leads, separating you from the competition?
At StepUp, we offer marketing services designed specifically for B2B and manufacturing companies like yours. With a diverse team of seasoned inbound marketers and content specialists, we help build authority and create predictability for increased sales.
In the last couple of years, industrial B2B companies are increasingly investing in content marketing. The first step they take is to regularly publish content appealing to their target audience. However, even though this is a logical first step, much more is required to maximize the effects of content marketing for manufacturers.
The biggest challenge is devising a strategic content marketing plan, which can convert good content into sales leads for your company. In this post, we will outline the core principles of an effective content marketing strategy, and 5 prominent examples of content marketing for manufacturers.
The Buyer’s Journey
A core principle of content marketing is serving prospects the right content, at the right time. To achieve this requires an understanding of “the buyer’s journey,” a core inbound marketing concept. It begins at the awareness stage when the customer is getting overall acquainted with your offerings and solutions. Next is the consideration stage when the buyer is considering your solutions or technologies. Finally is the decision stage in which the buyer is seriously deciding whether or not they will proceed with a purchase or cooperation.
Each stage requires a different marketing approach, along with its own type of content. As with most marketing concepts, the three stages follow a “funnel” pattern. Did you know that 97% of your audience is at the awareness stage? Most of your prospects will spend time researching information online before they move to the consideration stage and decision making. And even though the content is proportional to this trend, it is important to have content materials aimed at every stage, in order to result in sales conversions.
The most common and most important type of content is blog posts. Best published in regular (usually weekly) intervals, blog posts can cover a wide range of concepts and work best for prospects in the awareness stage. A good blog example can be found over at Suzuki’s blog.
2. Product Datasheets
Equally good for both awareness and consideration stages, product datasheets are a basic form of content marketing for manufacturers that summarize the performance and technical characteristics of your product offerings. Erez Technical Textiles marine safety product datasheetis a good example of an informative document that supplies engineers with the required level of technical detail.
3. Specialized Guides & Learning Center
A learning center containing specialized guides can bridge the gap between the awareness and consideration stages. This will contain detailed information targeted at a specific issue or product/solution. Take a look at DRTS website for an example of a learning center.
4. Case Studies & White Papers
Case studies & white papers detail real stories, showcasing your products and offerings in real life applications. These are best suited for the advanced consideration stage, as they instill confidence to interested prospects. They can be published through a learning center or even as a part of the blog, as in this Quasar medical devices case study.
5. Presentations & Demo Videos
Presentations & demo videos are usually targeted at buyers in the decision stage. They are the most visualized type of content, allowing technical companies to showcase their products in an appealing and easy to comprehend way. Here is a good example of a product demo video from Schneider Electric.
Conclusion
It is important to consider the buyer’s journey when building a content plan structure. It will provide a basis to facilitate the outlining of an effective content marketing plan. This way you will serve the proper content to all types of buyers, yielding better results.
Nowadays, strategic marketing for engineers and industrial professionals has changed dramatically. Engineers mostly use the internet for seeking information about technologies, products, or services, which is why industrial marketers increasingly turn to online and content marketing. And as GlobalSpec’s 2019 Smart Marketing for Engineers Survey demonstrates, the importance of digital marketing cannot be overstated. In this article, we take a look at the survey’s most effective strategies, show you exactly how engineers prefer to consume your marketing, and how to gain a competitive edge using this information.
It is clear that engineers regularly seek to consume content, most of it in digital form. This runs the gamut from vendor websites to trade publications, newsletters and so much more. That’s why content marketing is an integral part of any successful industrial marketing strategy.
2. Use Alternative forms of Content
Datasheets, cast studies, product demos, and how-to videos are the most preferred content types for engineers. And it makes sense, knowing how engineers are bottom-line thinkers, always looking for informative, dense, to-the-point content.
3. Use Newsletters
When it comes to newsletters, the statistics are hard to argue with. Across all age groups, 86% of engineers are subscribed to 2 or more newsletters, 87% of which they browse through or fully read. So maintaining a regular newsletter and inviting engineers to subscribe, is an opportunity that is too good to pass up.
4. Keep an Up-to-date Website
The survey shows that engineers find supplier/vendor websites the most valuable source of information, outranking even search engines and technical trade publications. This is why companies must have a website with a professional look and feel, coupled with informative and original content. These factors are important in building trust with engineers and can highly influence their decision-making.
5. Strive for Brand Awareness
Maintaining a uniform brand presence throughout all media is very important. For uniform visuals, invest in your brand’s logo & visual guidelines. Equally important is to invest in having a content marketing style guide, to ensure uniformity of content as well. With those two combined, you are guaranteed to keep your message consistent. This will ultimately breed brand trust and familiarity with engineers and industrial professionals, to your benefit.
6. Reach Out to Prospects Fast
Engineers are constantly dealing with challenges requiring immediate solutions. Once an engineer shows interest in your product or service, reach out to him as soon as possible. The ideal response time is immediate and up to 8 hours, although not always possible in our connected world of different time zones. However, as a rule of thumb, it’s best to reply within 24 hours.
7. Engage With Them Regularly
A large portion of engineers are either decision makers themselves or influence the purchasing decisions of industrial companies, mainly influenced by online content. That’s why it’s important to regularly engage with engineers through valuable and informative content, mainly achieved through inbound marketing and publishing material such as articles, newsletters, blog posts and white papers.
Gain a Competitive Edge
Research clearly shows that targeting engineers and industrial professionals is a very effective strategic marketing method for b2b companies. However, companies are often hesitant to take a deeper dive into this area. After all, targeting highly technical audiences requires specialization and skill, which can be challenging to master.
Now is your chance to act on this information. Today more than ever, getting the attention of engineers from all over the world can be achieved easily and quickly, using customized inbound marketing methods. But at the same time, you need to act fast, while the market is still new to inbound marketing targeted to technical audiences. This will ensure you stay ahead of the competition, giving you a competitive edge.
Do you want to create a proven industrial marketing strategy?
Originally published June 2019. Updated September 2026.
Somewhere in Ohio, a plant engineer is scrolling past an ad for a pressure valve. She will not click it. She has never clicked an ad in her life and would like that on her headstone.
Industrial advertising has always lived in two worlds. In one, the trade show booth: a ten-by-ten patch of carpet, a bowl of branded stress balls and a sales rep who has been standing since seven. In the other, a dashboard reports that 48,000 people saw your ad this week, a suspicious number of them in countries you do not sell to.
The best industrial ads turn up exactly when someone is specifying a part, and they speak fluent spec sheet. The worst are a stock photo of two hands shaking in front of a wind turbine. (Nobody has ever closed a deal in front of a wind turbine. It’s far too loud.)
It’s a strange job, marketing to people who distrust marketing.
The pressure comes from above, as usual. The CEO’s niece ran Google Ads for a dental practice and got 212 new patients in a month, so surely a company that makes industrial compressors can do the same with $2,000 and a spare afternoon. (Somewhere, a sales director is already clearing her calendar.)
Truth is, industrial buyers do respond to advertising. Just not the kind built for dentists. They research for months, decide as a committee and remember the supplier who explained something useful before anyone asked for a quote.
So if industrial advertising is in next year’s budget, it helps to know what it’s for, where it works and how to reach the people who sign the purchase order. This guide covers all three, plus how to measure it without fooling yourself.
What is industrial advertising?
Industrial advertising is paid promotion by manufacturers, industrial suppliers and technical B2B companies, aimed at the people who specify, approve and buy their products. Those people are engineers, plant and operations managers, procurement teams and, for bigger purchases, executives.
It covers more channels than most people expect: trade publications and industry newsletters, trade show sponsorships, Google search ads, LinkedIn ads, industrial directories, remarketing and video.
The role of advertising in industrial marketing differs from consumer advertising in three ways. First, the audience is small. A company selling specialized pumps may have a few thousand real buyers worldwide. Second, buying is a group decision, so one ad rarely reaches everyone who matters. Third, the cycle is long. A purchase can take many months, sometimes more than a year, and buyers often form a shortlist before they talk to any supplier.
As a result, industrial advertising works best as a steady presence over months. Short bursts tend to end before the buyer is ready.
The functions of industrial advertising: 5 reasons to advertise
Industrial companies advertise for more than sales. In practice, advertising does five jobs, and a good plan decides which of them matter most this year.
1. Build awareness before the buyer starts looking
Most industrial buyers have a shortlist in mind before they contact anyone. If your name is not on it, even the best sales team never gets the call. Advertising in the right trade publications and on LinkedIn keeps your company familiar during the months when nobody is buying yet.
Remarketing helps here too. These are ads shown to people who already visited your website. However, set a frequency cap. An engineer who sees your valve eleven times in one afternoon starts to wonder if the valve is following her.
2. Reach the whole buying committee
An engineer may find you first, but procurement, operations and finance all get a say. Each of them cares about something different. So use advertising to reach the people your sales team cannot easily get a meeting with. LinkedIn is useful here, because it lets you target by job function, industry and company.
3. Capture demand that already exists
Some buyers are searching right now, for a part, a specification or a fix for a specific problem. Search ads put you in front of them at that moment. In industrial markets, the best keywords are often long and technical, such as “stainless steel ball valve for food processing” rather than “valves.” They usually cost less, and the people typing them know what they want.
4. Support deals that are already in motion
Industrial deals stall. A champion leaves, a budget moves, a committee meets once a quarter. Ads aimed at the specific companies your sales team is working with, often called account-based advertising, keep your case studies and proof in front of everyone involved while the deal waits. Think of it as follow-up that does not need a phone call.
5. Test messages before you commit to them
Advertising also gives you fast, cheap answers to questions that would otherwise take a year. Does “30% less downtime” beat “installs in one shift”? Run both for two weeks and compare. Then use the winner on your website, your trade show booth and your sales deck.
Where industrial advertising works: the channels
No company needs every channel. Instead, pick the two or three where your buyers already spend time, and run them well.
Channel
Best for
Watch out for
Google search ads
Buyers searching for a part, spec or application
Broad terms burn budget fast. Use exact technical phrases and a list of excluded terms.
LinkedIn ads
Reaching specific roles, industries and target companies
Clicks cost more than on most platforms, so offer something useful instead of a sales pitch.
Trade publications and industry newsletters
Credibility with a niche, technical audience
Hard to measure. Ask the publisher for audience data before you buy.
Industrial directories such as Thomasnet
Buyers comparing suppliers
Your listing has to be complete and current, or it works against you.
Remarketing
Staying visible through a long buying cycle
Too many impressions feel like being followed. Cap them.
Trade show sponsorships
Face time with serious buyers
Expensive. Plan the follow-up before the show, not after it.
Industrial advertising strategy: how to reach the right buyers
Targeting is where most industrial campaigns go wrong. The ads themselves are often fine. They just reach the wrong people.
Start with your ideal customer
Before choosing a channel, write down which companies you serve best: industry, size, region and the problem they are trying to solve. If you do not have this written down yet, our guide on how to create an ideal customer profile walks through it. Everything in your targeting follows from that document.
Map the buying committee
Next, list who is involved in a typical purchase and what each person needs to see.
Role
What they care about
What your ad should show
Engineer
Specs, tolerances, proof it works
Data sheets, test results, CAD files
Operations or plant manager
Downtime, installation, support
Case studies, installation time, service terms
Procurement
Lead times, certifications, total cost
Certifications, delivery times, pricing logic
Executive
Risk, growth, supplier stability
Customer names, track record, results
Each role gets its own message, because a single ad written for all four usually lands with none of them.
Use their words, not yours
Engineers spot marketing language immediately. So take your wording from sales calls, customer interviews and support tickets. Our guide to B2B market research shows how to collect it in four weeks. If customers say “changeover time” and your ad says “operational agility,” they will scroll right past.
What industrial product advertising should say
Good industrial product advertising leads with the application. “Seals rated to 300°C for continuous kiln operation” tells an engineer in two seconds whether to keep reading. By contrast, “innovative sealing solutions” tells her nothing.
Next, include one specific number or proof point: a tolerance, a certification, a result from a real installation. Specifics signal that there is an engineer behind the ad, and technical buyers trust that.
Finally, offer a useful next step. Industrial buyers rarely want a sales call from an ad. They will, however, happily download a spec sheet, a CAD file, an application note or a sizing calculator. Send the click to that page, never to your homepage.
Here are three industrial advertising examples that follow the pattern. They are composites, not named clients.
A filter manufacturer runs search ads on one application, hydraulic filters for injection molding machines, and sends each click to an application note.
One components supplier runs LinkedIn ads to maintenance managers at 200 target plants, offering a downtime checklist.
A machine builder sponsors a trade publication’s newsletter with a short video of the machine running at a customer site.
How much to spend, and how to measure it
There is no correct number. Instead, start with a test: one product line, one or two channels, a fixed budget and 90 days. That is long enough to learn something and short enough to change course. Our B2B marketing budget guide shows how to fit advertising into the wider plan.
Then measure what matters to sales. Clicks and impressions tell you the ads ran. They say little about whether anyone useful saw them. So track these instead:
Which search terms and audiences produce real inquiries
Spec sheet and CAD downloads by channel
Sales conversations that started from an ad
Engagement from your target accounts
What it costs to start one qualified sales conversation
Add a free-text “How did you hear about us?” field to your forms as well. A lot of industrial buying is shaped by forwarded emails and private conversations that analytics never sees, which we cover in our guide to dark social.
Finally, judge the results over a quarter, not a week. Industrial cycles are long, so an ad that runs in March may turn into a purchase order in September. Set one objective for the quarter with two or three measurable results, and review it every month. That way, advertising becomes part of your marketing plan instead of a line item nobody can explain.
Common mistakes in industrial advertising
Most wasted industrial ad budget comes from a handful of habits.
The most common is sending every click to the homepage. The buyer asked a specific question, so the ad should lead to a specific answer.
Broad keywords come next. “Industrial equipment” attracts students, job seekers and competitors, while long technical phrases attract buyers.
Then there is the single message for everyone. The engineer and the CFO need different reasons to care.
Many teams also stop too soon. Four weeks is rarely enough to judge anything in a market where buying takes a year.
And finally, there are ads that sound like marketing. Technical buyers trust specifics and tune out adjectives. We wrote more about that in marketing for engineers.
Frequently asked questions
What is industrial advertising?
Industrial advertising is paid promotion by manufacturers and industrial suppliers, aimed at the engineers, operations managers, procurement teams and executives who specify and buy their products. It includes trade publications, trade shows, search ads, LinkedIn ads, industrial directories, remarketing and video.
What are the functions of industrial advertising?
Industrial advertising does five main jobs. It builds awareness before buyers start looking, reaches the whole buying committee, captures demand from people already searching, supports deals already in progress, and tests messages quickly before a company commits to them.
Does advertising work for industrial companies?
Yes, when it is targeted and patient. Industrial buyers research for months and decide as a group, so advertising works best as a steady presence aimed at specific roles and companies, with a useful next step such as a spec sheet or an application note.
Which channels work best for industrial product advertising?
Search ads work well for buyers looking for a specific part or application. LinkedIn reaches specific roles and target companies. Trade publications and industrial directories add credibility with technical audiences. Most companies should pick two or three channels and run them well.
How do you measure industrial advertising?
Measure the inquiries, downloads and sales conversations that start from ads, plus engagement from your target accounts. Judge the results over at least a quarter, because industrial buying cycles are long.
The plant engineer in Ohio still won’t click your ad.
She will, however, download the spec sheet, forward it to procurement and put your name on the approved supplier list. The stress balls can stay at the booth.
Today’s industrial sector is well aware that digital marketing is an integral part of reaching and interacting with their target audience, prospects, and customers. And even though they are tasked with engaging in online and content marketing, the majority of manufacturers still fall short of demonstrating a positive return from their digital marketing activities.
In this article, we present the challenges that manufacturers face when it comes to digital marketing. We’ll also share our Industrial Marketing Methodology, a digital marketing strategy geared toward the needs of manufacturers.
The Challenges of Digital Marketing for Manufacturers
Even though manufacturers and B2B industrial companies recognize the value of engaging in digital marketing, they face several challenges in doing so:
Many manufacturers lack a clear plan on how to implement online and content marketing activities. A clear, actionable plan is the basis of all marketing activities.
Manufacturers rarely take advantage of tracking and measuring tools and therefore can’t demonstrate their digital marketing activities ROI (or lack thereof). As the saying goes, “you can’t manage what you can’t measure.”
In some cases, manufacturers don’t have the necessary experience on how to target, reach, and appeal to technical audiences. This results in inadequate planning and budgeting, as well as slow corrective or pivoting actions when it comes to optimizing their online marketing.
GlobalSpec’s 2019 survey on manufacturing content marketing demonstrates how engineers and technical professionals primarily use the internet to research products and services, before reaching out to a company’s sales team. This points to a meaningful shift in marketing that manufacturers have to make.
Digital marketing has become vital in the technical customer’s journey. Where taking part in trade shows and running trade magazine ads used to suffice, manufacturers must now shift towards digital marketing to achieve results.
The StepUp Growth Wheel
We at StepUp specialize in digital marketing for businesses, industries, and manufacturers that target highly technical audiences. In the last 4 years, our team has created a comprehensive Industrial Marketing Methodology, that guarantees company growth, generation of qualified leads, and building authority in the company’s corresponding industrial sector.
Here are the 7 steps of The StepUp Growth Wheel, chosen to help manufacturers dominate their market using digital marketing:
Brand Positioning: A determining first step is to set the brand positioning strategy & statement, market research, and annual marketing plan.
Infrastructure: Creation of clear visual and content guidelines, to maintain consistent messaging in all future marketing materials.
Content Strategy: Defining a comprehensive content plan based on target audience characteristics, such as the buyer personas and mapping of the buyer’s journey.
Media Distribution: Deciding on the most effective places and methods to publish and distribute content, in a way that resonates with your target audience.
Lead Automation: Employing lead qualification and nurturing techniques, together with marketing automation tools, to ultimately convert leads into satisfied customers.
Sales Enablement: The creation of seamless sales processes that guide prospects through your sales funnel and convert them into customers with minimal effort.
ROI Tracking and Reporting: Setting up the necessary infrastructure to properly track and measure all marketing activities, in order to continuously optimize and achieve the best ROI.
While some manufacturers are having difficulties implementing digital marketing tactics, others are seeing exponential growth, building authority in their sector, and dominating their market. Contact us today to arrange a free 30-minute custom digital marketing session to find out how you can utilize automated digital marketing systems that will guarantee your success for years to come.
The trick to setting marketing goals is converting them to numbers, committing to carrying them out, and monitoring their progress. Buzzwords like “engagement”, “visits”, or “conversions” ca
Digital marketing has become vital in the technical customer’s journey. Where taking part in trade shows and running trade magazine ads used to suffice, manufacturers must now shift towards digital marketing to achieve results.
We at