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When B2B manufacturing marketers promote a new product, reaching the target audience takes an organized plan of attack and someone dedicated to managing the project. The frequency of product releases is different for every manufacturer so whether it is something that happens every few weeks, every few months, or every few years, keeping a documented playbook handy makes the process smoother for everyone involved. It also ensures no channel is overlooked and over time marketers hone the digital strategy that yields the best results.

If you work in B2B manufacturing marketing, you put a lot of thought into how to reach prospective customers including what marketing channels are best and the messages to resonate with your target audience. Your sales team is actively engaging customers and leads at tradeshows and through regular contacts but that only engages the leads you know about.

Pages on a manufacturer's website that specifically name the industries you serve and how you solve problems for businesses in that industry are valuable content that serve many purposes. Manufacturing marketers can realize several benefits when website content is planned and built out around the types of businesses that use their product or services. The below menu is an example of how one manufacturer structured its industry pages.

Effective websites attract visitors to your pages over competitors’ but a poorly designed or non maintained website can actually drive away prospects. Your website is the face of your business and if done well, is the primary tool for capturing the attention of prospective customers.

The internet has the farthest reach of any advertising medium so if you want to get to the farthest corners of your market, generate good content about your products so those potential buyers can find you. We often hear that a manufacturers’ products are so niched that the best way to reach a target market is through networking and at tradeshows. Networking with current and prospective customers in-person will never be wrong, but remember that your prospects and customers ARE on the internet, searching for solutions to their daily manufacturing problems. Nearly 70% of engineers say they use supplier websites to research products and services (Trew Marketing & Global Spec 2022 Survey). Just like you, they read emails and social posts from leaders in their industry to learn about the latest innovations and market trends. They are searching for ways to improve production, reduce costs and impress their boss with the newest industry information. In addition to your networking efforts, your website is a 24/7 research tool; that if set up well, with robust content, will provide answers that put you in the spotlight as the subject matter expert. However, if your site does not answer product questions, or worse, is not ranked for the key search words and phrases, then your competition could snag your leads. In our 2021 survey of equipment manufacturers, content marketing ranked by far the digital marketing tactic that they were having the most success with.

We experienced quite a show in Atlanta on January 25 and 26 at the International Production and Processing Expo! If you missed it, here are some highlights of the event:

WebStrategies works with all kinds of equipment manufacturers. From food processing equipment that places pepperoni on frozen pizza to equipment that wraps pallets of goods to be distributed around the globe, we understand that manufacturing clients have to identify incredibly niche markets to sell their products. And yet, we often hear manufacturers claim that their product is too unique to be marketed online. In fact, that is not the case at all.

Manufacturers may face challenges when adopting and implementing a comprehensive digital marketing strategy. We’ll address four digital marketing challenges for manufacturers and explain how your business can overcome these obstacles.

We sometimes hear from equipment manufacturers that they have tried digital marketing in the past and it didn't work for their business. We are always disappointed to hear this because we've seen digital marketing increase qualified leads for manufacturers time and time again.