Digital Marketing Pickle for Industrial Manufacturers

Jumping straight to the point, I wouldn’t be turning any heads or stepping on any toes if I say that Industrial Manufacturers is a sect which is accepting Digital Marketing at the slowest pace. Recent study concluded by marketing firm Authentia confirms the former statement.

It is quite fascinating that for a sector that contributed $1.87 Trillion to economy last year and is one of the biggest and fastest growing industries worldwide can turn such a blind eye towards Digital Marketing which is more or less turning into the Goliath of marketing platforms since the turn of the decade.

It takes a little bit of common sense and basic understanding of Manufacturing Industry aspects to uncover the reasons behind the mystery, which are:-

• Their audience is Engineers – Often, the critical decisions made in this industry fall in the work profile of an engineer. Educated, Experienced, Acknowledged, Traditional and Stubborn. With engineers, it is mostly about ‘Impress Me’. Cold calling won’t work on them. Emails and Texts go straight to the trash without even a read. Even pamphlets/brochure end up serving as coasters for their coffee mug.
• Why fix it when it is not broken – Most of the manufactures are highly experienced and were set up years/decades ago. Sales and Marketing methods which they employed in yesteryears are more or less still the same. There is a general sense among them the Digital Marketing is just a phenomenon waiting to phase out.

Alignment to immediate results – Any marketing strategy takes a stipulated time to be ripe. Industrial manufacturers put huge pressure on their sales teams for immediate results with sole goal as sales. For digital marketing the primary goal is fostering relationships with customers and then converting the same into sales.

Now the question arises as how to counter the above hindrances to make Digital Marketing a viable and successful venture for manufacturers. Simple answer: Change in attitude. With the new crop of current generation taking over the retiring regime, a tectonic change is expected in coming years towards marketing perspective.  What is required is to project manufacturing philosophies onto marketing philosophies which are as follows:-

• Spend more time with Customers – No industry takes more efforts in money and time, to understand customer requirements so that apt solutions can be provided. The same need to be done for marketing. To understand where the audience is, what are their behavioral tastes, what they seek and how to assist them in their needs.
• Do concrete testing – Before any product is launched into mainstream market, millions are spent on tests to confirm that the product is of no harm in whatsoever way to the consumers. Same level tests and reruns need to be done for marketing strategy so as to analyze response and then coming up with a wholesome marketing plan.
• Separate Quality assurance and Quality Control – In basic terms, Quality Assurance (QA) sets up the norms and statistics against which quality is measured. Quality Control (QC) measures the actual production against QA’s standards. Same needs to be implied towards marketing. What needs to be achieved and what is being achieved are two separate entities and should be handled separately so that conflict of interests and judgment doesn’t happen.
• Pay for mistakes – Volkswagen scandal is fresh in our memories. Fines and sanctions are part of the industry if a dysfunctional product does make it to the open market. Same needs to be implied for marketing. If there is a mistake, accept it, apologize for it and if possible, make up for it. Shying away, refusing to admit, or being negligent will only make is a worse.

Have the best training programs – Industrial manufacturers have the most sophisticated training facilities for new employees where their skills are polished and processes inbred into them. Same needs to be done for marketing. Sharpening the skills as per the industry and explaining the metrics against which marketing performance is measured.

So are there any quick fixes or some basics to tend to? Sure there are, notably:-

• Problem: Nearly half of the websites of Industrial manufacturers are based on static HTML web technologies. That means content cannot be easily changed by non-technical staff. This is the age of dynamic, fresh content, largely in the form of blogging and regularly updated sites pages. If your website is not being updated regularly with fresh content, visitors don’t have a reason to return and search engines will push your domain to the bottom of the list.

Solution: Convert your site to a Content Management System (CMS). CMS systems are abundant, competitive and can be low cost to deploy. Though there are elaborate systems offered by enterprise-class vendors, you can also convert your site to a CMS with little or no coding. For example, the do-it-yourself, WordPress CMS platform is enriched by a vast universe of themes (site designs), plugins (functional add-ons) and packaged code enhancements. You can also consider more robust marketing automation solutions that bundle CMS with extensive analytics, advanced search engine optimization capabilities, email marketing tools and social media marketing.

• 2) Problem: Nearly 80 percent of websites are not mobile friendly. Don’t think your customers use mobile phones and tablets to search the web? Your view is handcuffed to the HMTL static page website era. Smartphones are the go-to gadgets of people, even excluding tablets which Google lumps with desktops in its reports. We’ve been warned for years that mobile devices would eventually overtake desktop and notebook computers for search, and now Google has declared it is official. Mobile computing is not replacing the desktop, it’s an additional tool for search and conducting business.

Solution: If your website is not responsive, you’re missing leads and losing business. The good news is if you are committed to converting your website to a CMS platform or a marketing automation solution, the design will invariably be responsive. For a business, selecting a non-responsive theme or site design is just not practical.

• 3) Problem: You’ve built a great website with fresh, compelling content, but there’s no way to engage with customers and business prospects. The majority of websites in the survey did not employ common methods to gather contact information from prospects or readers to join opt-in mailing lists, which iscited as the most important sales tool on a website. In the new digital marketing paradigm, your website or blog is where you educate, inform and entertain. Your email listis your most direct way to communicate and engage with your followers, customers and prospects.

Solution: Websites need to contain opportunities for visitors and readers to receive content site updates via email. You can also gather information via registration for free newsletters, webinars or white papers. Deliver valued content to your email list and you’ll eventually develop opportunities to create solid customers. By the way, you may not like them or even find them intrusive, but opt-in pop-up forms work. Despite the grumblings, the reality is people respond to signup forms that pop, spin and shimmy on the screen.

Again, Digital Marketing is not a genie in a lamp that you rub today and all your marketing wishes are fulfilled by tomorrow. It is more like dating. You need to communicate with your audience, understand their interests and queries, provide them what they seek to keep them interested, breed loyalty in them towards your brand and then approach them for sales subtly.

You may be marketing in the “past tense” if you continue to operate in the old ways just because they worked in the past. Digital marketing for manufacturers can help bridge the gap between Baby Boomers and Adult Millennials.