Why Industrial Marketing is Important in the Manufacturing Industry

Some industrial manufacturers face challenges in reaching their target prospects and promoting their brands to their target markets.

In contrast, some seem to have found and met the needs of sophisticated manufacturing customers. How? Believe me when I say that industrial marketing is the answer.

The type of business strategy you need depends on the kind of market you are involved in. Consumer market strategies are vastly different from those of industrial markets.

Industrial markets typically deal in bulk product sales, whereas consumer markets usually require breaking the bulk. For both types of markets, costing and marketing are critical functions.

Furthermore, with the rise of globalization, businesses themselves have gone global, and as a result, their marketing strategies have adapted accordingly. Companies must consider several factors in standard business strategies when considering going global.

Types of the Industrial Market

The industrial market (also known as the producer or business market) is the collection of individuals and businesses that acquire goods and services to manufacture other products or services that they sell, rent, or supply.

Agriculture, forestry, fisheries; mining; manufacturing; construction and transportation; communication and public utilities, banking, finance, and insurance, and services are the major industries that comprise the industrial market (business market).

What exactly do you mean when you say industrial marketing?

Industrial marketing is a subset of communications and sales that focuses on providing goods and services to other businesses rather than individual customers.

This occurs when one company sells industrial products or services to another. An industrial service or product is anything that aids in producing a finished product from raw materials.

Because industrial business marketing frequently involves large orders and long-term relationships between the producer and client, the process from first pitch to sale close is frequently more complicated than that between a business and a private customer.

Industrial marketing is business-to-business marketing (B2B) in its simplest form.

Today, this strategy is mainly done online and involves a plethora of complex components.

Examples

1. A sales-prepared website

Simple traditional websites are not hacking it anymore. Revamp your website into a lead generation machine that is responsive, ready, polished, and viewable from any device.

Why Industrial Marketing is Important in the Manufacturing Industry

2. Landing Pages

In the realm of marketing, landing pages are standalone from your other pages. Your landing pages must offer content that educates your prospects. And it is a follow-up to all the promises and guarantees you've made in your content. This is essential to your next step in turning a visitor into a customer.

3. Digital Forms

Digital forms take your visitor information. It will help your organization reduce costs, streamline processes, and dramatically improve efficiency.

Your competency and capacity to collect and analyze data efficiently are essential to your business's survival. Business organizations' success hinges on their ability to collect, process, analyze, and examine reports based on large volumes of data and use the information to their advantage.

4. Marketing automation

Efficiently furnish content to prospects, leading them to the purchasing path.

Marketing automation enables large-scale businesses to pander to the demands of a large customer base. It also allows small-scale companies to stay competitive and improve their audience base.

Thousands of marketers rely on automation to be more efficient and enhance the customer experience. It saves marketers time and allows them more personalized communication, thus boosting conversion rates.

86% of marketers have experienced an improvement in customer nurturing due to marketing automation. 66% reported that it enhanced personalization and targeting.

5. Email and Lead Nurturing

Leverage email marketing to nurture your leads down the funnel. Lead nurturing is an important marketing strategy that is one of the most effective methods of acquiring new customers.

Marketers send lead nurturing emails to move users from the consideration stage of the lead funnel to the decision stage.

6. Social Media

Social media is among the most dominant platforms in today's business arena. In this digital era, building a highly influential social media presence is the key to creating persuasive and appealing content that instantly connects with your audience.

You can promote your content, interact with customers, and demonstrate thought leadership with social media.

7. Industrial Blogging

Your manufacturing content marketing strategy must include an industrial blog. Yes, it takes a lot of effort and time to create technical blog posts and actively promote them regularly, but the effort is well worth it.

Features

It's highly complicated.

An example of this strategy is a clothing manufacturer selling tons of fabrics to boutique stores in contrast to a consumer market where a boutique store sells clothes to individual customers.

The former is much more appealing, but it is also more complicated. This process necessitates large orders and long-term relationships, making the initial pitch and sale difficult. Many people are involved in the business, so you must impress several people with various information.

1. Lengthier sales cycle.

This results in a longer sales cycle, as this marketing strategy has become more complicated. When pitching to a company, the entire process revolves around calculated decisions, reviewing, and analyzing.

Do not interpret this negatively; as you may have guessed, the result is well worth the complexity and length of the process.

2. The various types of marketing.

This marketing strategy can imply that you have a diverse product line. Every product necessitates a unique marketing strategy, and the differences can be dramatic.

To put this into perspective, selling a standard machine to a well-known company is very different from selling custom equipment to various companies.

The strategies you use for standard machines will not work for large custom machines. Finally, the possibilities for marketing are limitless.

3. Inadequate market knowledge.

Consumer products have access to a wealth of database information, including customer demographics. In comparison, information about industrial market niches is challenging to come by. And gathering useful market information necessitates a significant amount of industrial experience.

That being said, gathering the information you'll need to analyze the niche thoroughly isn't impossible.

It is essential to collect pertinent data like the number of employees, shifts, and line speeds, among others. By doing this, you can identify prospective buyers.

4. In general, advertising does not follow trends.

5. It is customary to bid.

Bidding is not something that the average consumer encounters daily. On the other hand, enterprise marketing revolves around quotations, specifications, and bidding. Specifying the product and prices to the smallest detail is essential as this will ultimately aid in closing a deal.

6. The geographical and demographic rundown

The typical consumer market research for industrial markets does not work because the samples are too small.

Industrial market research almost always has to be both niche and broad. The most crucial aspect of industrial market research is gathering market shares and sizes.

To find valuable information, employ qualitative, unstructured interviewing, and field research.

Objectives

1. Diversify and broaden your clientele.

Manufacturers and industrial companies used to rely on trade magazines and tradeshows to reach their target audience.

Because so much marketing and sales now take place online, industrial product sellers have an opportunity to reach more prospects through targeted ad campaigns and their online presence.

2. Lower your overhead.

Suppose you've been spending a fortune on general marketing campaigns. In that case, you can get better results for less money by narrowing your focus and shifting to digital marketing, which has a higher ROI than traditional forms of marketing.

3. Increase your brand's credibility and recognition.

As most customers are online these days, an active online business presence will help you build your image and foster trust with followers who may become your newest customers.

However, understanding why you should concentrate your efforts on digital marketing is only the first step. You must also understand how to market your company in the digital age effectively.

Importance

Manufacturing clients expect to see detailed information like product specifications and datasheets.

This is the heart of what manufacturing is about, taking a whole load of relevant resources and inputs and turning them into something valuable.

This is the advantage, as this marketing approach allows your company to:

1. Add on value and manufacturing content.

You need manufacturing content marketing that builds strong relationships based on earned trust. In this way, your customers will see you as an added value, not just another supplier.

Buyers expect two things:

Sellers understand their buyer’s company, business, and products and help them with their pain points.
Sellers are thought leaders and experts. They know inside and out about their company's products and services.

Offer knowledge in the form of relevant and engaging content at the right time and the right place. Doing this will attract prospects along their journey to becoming your customers.

2. Enhance customer relationships.

The B2B industry is now shifting to a more customer-centric approach because buyers revealed in research that what they value the most is the kind of relationship they have with the manufacturers they purchase from.

3. Strategic evolution.

94% of manufacturers are changing their market strategies

57% already implemented online sales models

37% are in the process of implementing

Therefore, you have to leverage online tools to build better customer relationships. Train your marketing and sales teams to help optimize your company's online presence and prospects' online experiences. A sure way of strategic evolution is by investing in e-commerce solutions to meet customers' needs.

4. Ensure easiness and personalization.

As emphasized earlier, B2B buyers value a seamless online buyer's journey. They welcome easy and quick purchases without any challenges. As the nature of B2B buying is complex, this is one of the challenges that B2B manufacturers must meet and satisfy.

It is crucial to find an e-commerce solution that allows personalization to address these issues and make buyers not feel like they are just another number.

Platforms should quickly tabulate complex discounts and bulk order processes and ensure a smooth checkout.

Provide up-to-date, extensive, and relevant product data to reduce customer inquiries.

Doing all of the above will ensure that your buyers will have a positive buyer's experience and will help foster a strong business relationship. A satisfied customer will become your brand's advocate.

5. Prioritize reliable data.

Insufficient data is the biggest culprit in e-commerce breakdowns. There might be issues regarding separate systems not commuting data automatically or human error during input; lousy data is a cause of serious complications.

Manufacturers and buyers know this too well. Unreliable e-commerce solutions cause 35% of manufacturers to experience missed or lost orders. Correspondingly, 44% of consumers report the same issue. B2B buyers are experiencing online order errors with their top 10 suppliers at least twice a month.

As a manufacturer, you must ensure an e-commerce solution that provides reliable and accurate data throughout the buyer's online journey.

6. Responsiveness

Responsiveness means you are willing, ready, and available to help when your prospects and customers need you. It is undeniable that responsiveness is among the most significant factors for a business to succeed or fail.

Ask yourself this: do you know what's essential to your clients? Can you guarantee on-time delivery, meet specifications, and flex volumes?

Indeed, competitive advantage needs cutting-edge innovation, personalized service, and quick as flash responsiveness.

7. Agility

Let's be frank about it – being in business can be challenging, especially when you have a handful of competitors that seem to be doing things right. Notwithstanding, your company will see serious benefits from being agile in its operations.

Agility is crucial to succeeding in a dynamic business environment because it allows services and products to be tailored to the customers' needs.

Research reveals that a company's ability to deal with unexpected events in the buying process is the make or break of a deal. It is up to manufacturers to alleviate customers' fears and concerns by creating solid and adaptable strategies for their B2B customer experience.

The Final Note

You are in business to generate income. If your field is in the manufacturing industry, there is no more time to dilly-dally, or your competitors will leave you behind.

The overriding objective here is to create more content, convenience, and opportunities to solve prospects' and customers' pain points on as many platforms as you can to guide them through their buying journey.

Time is of the essence to adapt your marketing strategies. Once you figure out ways to show the right solution to the right person/company at the right time, you will gain customers, and those customers will become advocates.

Your business will surely flourish and thrive in 2022 and beyond. Let us help you create an impact and increase your brand awareness.

AI-bees is more than happy to be there for you. Don't hesitate to contact us, and one of our experts will attend to your needs right away.