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The digital landscape is constantly evolving. To remain relevant, businesses and marketers need to constantly pay attention. What’s hot today could be gone tomorrow, and tomorrow’s big thing may not even exist yet.

When you start using marketing automation software for your credit union, you want to choose a system that prioritizes the security of your member’s sensitive information. There have been numerous reports of data security breaches in which millions of people’s sensitive data has been compromised. That’s why security is always a top priority for credit unions. Your marketing automation software should be no different.

Content marketing is a powerful, long-term strategy for business growth in the manufacturing industry. Compared to other marketing tactics, it's one of the best ways to gain visibility from your target market. It enables you to drive more traffic to your website and solve those burning questions your potential customers have. However, content marketing for manufacturers is complex. It requires extensive research, planning, and development, making its cost vary widely depending on the scope of work.

In March of 2015, WebStrategies began a partnership with Scaffolding Solutions, a premier provider of system scaffolding, suspended scaffolding, mast climber platforms and decks, and other services to the construction and industrial manufacturing industries up-and-down the east coast. Beginning initially as a project to overhaul and modernize their website, this partnership has since developed into full, robust digital marketing and advertising strategy that has transformed Scaffolding Solutions’ online presence.

Pressured to show immediate success, or lacking deeper insight into marketing performance, it’s easy for credit union marketers to rely on vanity metrics to guide their decision-making process.  However, these metrics only support non-transactional marketing goals and don’t provide you with the entire picture of how your campaigns are performing. Your decisions should be backed by more sophisticated metrics like cost per application and funded loans to get the best results from your credit union marketing strategy. These metrics show the real impact that your efforts are having on your credit union, and allow you to make adjustments to where you focus your time and marketing budget.

In many cases, manufacturing companies will not have complex eCommerce platforms that allow their customers to purchase products directly from their website. However, that doesn't mean you shouldn't list your products or services on your website at all. After all, the number one reason for having a website for your business is to attract new customers. If those potential new leads that come to your site aren’t able to immediately find what they’re looking for, the chances of them disappearing and never contacting you are much higher.

An effective marketing campaign creates results. But how good are those results? What outcomes did they lead to? Every credit union marketing campaign needs to be analyzed to determine effectiveness. No matter how creative, interesting, or responsive it is, you have to ask what came of that campaign. Did it reach the goals you desired? Was it worth the investment? By analyzing the results of any campaign, you can then make decisions on how to further improve it to achieve an even better ROI. Analyzing campaign success leads to even better results next time. It also allows you to be more selective in your marketing.

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a recommended strategy for all companies, including manufacturing businesses. With SEO strategies in place, you can gain more organic traffic, quality leads, brand awareness, and, ultimately, an increase in revenue.

As one of the most effective tactics to build brand awareness and drive new memberships and loan applications, advertising commonly consumes a large portion of a credit union marketing budget. The advertising landscape has changed drastically over the last several years. There are now numerous options across both the traditional and digital advertising world, and credit unions must be strategic in how they distribute their advertising budget.

We regularly update this article with the latest information pertaining to marketing budgets for manufacturers. Last update: September 2020 (note: this information has been updated to include adjustments resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, but further changes could be made as the long-term impact become more clear.) We continue to provide advice about online marketing budgets in a variety of industries, and over the last several years we have been partnering with more manufacturing companies to help them generate leads and sales. Based on industry-provided research and our own experience, we’ve identified a realistic marketing budget calculation for manufacturing companies who are ready to more fully leverage the internet to generate business.