There’s often a perception within the manufacturing industry that clients aren’t interested in newer methods of marketing such as content marketing, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, 85 percent of manufacturers use content marketing.
“Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action,” the experts at the Content Marketing Institute explain.
Out of the manufacturers who use content marketing, 68 percent rate their effectiveness as moderately or very successful. The top reason manufacturers are using content marketing is for brand awareness — which makes sense, since brand awareness plays a huge role in industrial lead generation.
To help you reach your audience with content, we broke down the best ways to market your organization.
Attract and inform an audience with blogs.
Blogs are an integral part of a content marketing strategy that drive traffic directly to a website. By blogging about specific topics, issues and trends tailored to their target audience, manufacturers can provide valuable solutions and position themselves as industry thought leaders.
Additionally, blogs serve as a great way to convert traffic into leads. Organizations can use call to actions to learn more or an offer to download additional content in exchange for names, emails and other information.
Repurpose blog content to get the most of your budget.
One of the issues marketers have come across is creating engaging content in high quantities. The challenge has grown significantly, and in 2016, 65 percent of manufacturers reported it as their top content marketing challenge. One way to aid this gap is by creating long-form, quality blogs that can be repurposed into other popular forms of content.
Currently, manufacturing marketers are using the following tactics as part of their entire content marketing strategy:
- Videos (87 percent)
- eNewsletters (85 percent)
- Illustrations/photos (82 percent)
- Case studies (75 percent)
- Whitepapers (70 percent)
By creating new titles and reusing parts of a well-performing blog to produce eBooks, infographics, whitepapers or other mediums, content creators can extend their reach and attract a new audience.
Engage with other manufacturers using social media.
Eighty-five percent of manufacturers report using social media as a marketing tactic. Social media allows engineers and manufacturing professionals to search or share information with their professional contacts and stumble upon work-related articles. LinkedIn, for example, allows users to stay up to date on the latest industry trends, network with other professionals and learn about new tools and insights.
One way manufacturing businesses can take advantage of LinkedIn is by using groups. These groups, which are specific to various topics, allow users with common interests to share content, find answers to important questions, view jobs and establish themselves in the industry. Great examples include Mechanical Design Engineers, American Society of Mechanical Engineers and The Engineering Forum.
Humanize a brand with video marketing.
By 2017, video content will represent 74 percent of all internet traffic. That’s because videos are a personal medium that allows companies to build an intimate relationship with their audience, are easily shared and ultimately help humanize a brand. Some ideas for manufacturing marketing videos include:
- Virtual tours
- How-to videos
- Safety videos
- Behind-the-scenes factory footage
- Customer testimonials
Manufacturing marketing: What’s next?
What manufacturing marketing tactics does your business use? What trends do you think will emerge in 2017? Let us know by tweeting us at@AppleRubber.