Digital marketing is by far the most effective form of marketing for businesses. But digital marketing strategies differ from industry to industry. For manufacturers, the online marketing efforts you use will have varying degrees of success. In this guide, you will learn what strategies we recommend, as well as sample campaigns that you can begin to build yourself.

Who is this for:

  • Contract manufacturers
  • Electronics
  • Heavy equipment
  • Global manufacturers
  • Metals
  • OEMs
  • Plastics
  • Textiles
  • Valves
  • Liquid contract manufacturers
  • Building materials
  • CNC machining
  • Small parts

What digital marketing strategies are best for manufacturers?

Let us start with the basics. Online marketing is a huge umbrella with several different strategies, including:

  1. Search engine optimization (SEO)
  2. Search engine marketing and pay-per-click advertising
  3. Social media marketing and viral marketing
  4. Pay-per-click social media advertising
  5. Content marketing
  6. Affiliate marketing and influencer marketing
  7. Email and outbound marketing
  8. Mobile phone advertising
  9. Channel marketing
  10. Partner marketing
  11. Video marketing
  12. Website placements

With all of these different options, how do you choose? Of the forms of marketing listed above, we are going to eliminate the ones that you probably hear a lot about but that do not provide the most return for your team in terms of revenue.

Video marketing

You have probably heard and seen the stats on the effectiveness of video marketing. The problem is that the data that exists does not take industry into account. For your manufacturing business, it may pay off to have a couple of product or process demos. But the effort to create high-quality, entertaining videos will not be worth the return when you compare it to other forms of marketing.

Social media marketing

Social media is a great tool for certain industries to build awareness and generate revenue. Unfortunately for manufacturers, social and viral marketing is more often a bust than a boom. The problem is that your target market is most likely not actively looking to make purchase decisions, or even remotely interested in seeing your brand across networks like Instagram or Twitter.

There is a form of social media marketing that can be effective, but we lump that in with outbound marketing.

Mobile phone and SMS marketing

Do you like receiving text messages asking you to try products or learn more? We did not think so. Avoid SMS marketing on a general basis because it can do more harm to your brand than good. In certain situations and industries, such as fitness, gyms, and clothing that offer flash sales or reminders for services and specials, SMS can be incredibly valuable. But on a general basis, mobile and SMS marketing should not be in your immediate marketing mix if you are a manufacturer.

Effective marketing strategies for manufacturing

Now that we know which strategies to avoid, let us look at the ones that will be worthwhile for manufacturing businesses.

Pay-per-click advertising (SEM) for manufacturing

When you search for a service, what is typically your first step? For most people, it is typing that query right into Google.

PPC and SEM are high-performing strategies for manufacturing businesses, especially if location plays a part. However, keep in mind that the space can get very competitive for the most relevant terms. By competition, we mean your costs will increase per click because your competitors will be bidding on those terms.

Here is what we recommend for a beginner strategy to test the waters.

  1. Think of all the terms used to describe what you do. These will be your primary keywords that should drive visitors straight to a "contact us" form or conversion point. If you were thinking of starting with your primary term of "manufacturing," try taking it down a level and being slightly more descriptive with something like "manufacturing for X."
  2. Next, think about terms that your ideal customers are searching for that may not be exactly your service but lead to your service. For example, "how to pick an X manufacturer" or "how to prepare your X product for manufacturing."
  3. For the keywords in step 2, you can start building checklists or downloadable how-to PDFs that you can use to generate leads at a lower cost per lead. For example, create a landing page with an offer for a "Checklist to Prepare Your Product for Manufacturing," and set up an ad campaign for related keywords. You will start generating leads based on this stage of the buyer's funnel.
  4. Set your campaigns up for broad keyword match to give you a wide umbrella for searches your ads will show up in. Then use the search terms report to see the exact keywords showing up and which are converting. Add the ones that are converting, and add negatives for the ones that drive significant impressions but are irrelevant or do not convert.

As you get more comfortable with paid campaigns, you can keep building them out using different match types like exact and phrase.

Affiliate and influencer marketing

Affiliate and influencer marketing is a popular form of reaching customers through like-minded people: using industry people to help promote your brand in return for a percentage of the sale or a cost per opportunity. This can vary by manufacturing specialty, and if there are thought leaders or people who are regularly followed in your industry, these are great people to begin an influencer program with.

We recommend finding a few people with a high number of followers. Make sure to look at actual engagement. If your influencer has 10,000 followers but only averages 10 to 100 likes and no real comments, then they are not worth it. Send them some messages saying you regularly follow them and that you would love to collaborate.

Partner and channel marketing

This is one of the most effective forms of marketing. If you know of complementary services that work with your ideal customer, then you have an opportunity to build a partner and channel marketing program.

The goal here is similar to affiliate networks, but you leverage other professional service providers to cross-promote and cross-sell your manufacturing services to their customer base.

For example, if you know an IT firm that has customers who would be great for your services, you could have them refer business to you as a preferred partner. Additionally, if you manufacture a specific part for cars, you could partner with an automotive association or another company that manufactures a different part for vehicles.

Website placements

This is similar to PPC and SEM, in that most of the websites you will want to be featured on or post ads in will be pay to play.

Website placements are an effective way to drive high-quality traffic to your website. Look for websites that your ideal customers frequent: trade websites, association websites, and knowledge hubs where your ideal customers look for information. Those are all great locations to focus on placements that will increase your brand awareness and new customer acquisition.

Email and outbound marketing

Outbound marketing is one of our favorite forms of marketing. With outbound marketing, you start by making a list of your ideal customers. What are the companies you want to win? Here is a step-by-step process for running an outbound marketing program successfully:

  1. Make your list of ideal customers.
  2. Determine who the key decision maker is. Who is the person who will ultimately decide whether to use your services?
  3. Identify the decision maker's email address. Professional email addresses normally follow a usual format. You can also search the person's name along with their company domain, and there are tools that pull contact data from professional sources.
  4. After you have generated a list of email addresses for your ideal contacts, craft the messaging you are going to use. We like to start with an introductory sentence, then talk about the benefits of partnering with you (cost, speed, quality), and wrap up with a call to action such as scheduling a time to talk or getting a free quote.

With outbound marketing, you can even take this process into social media platforms and directly message your sales prospects. LinkedIn is a common place to do this, but do not be afraid to experiment with other sources.

SEO and content marketing

SEO is a popular term that gets thrown around when it comes to marketing. The problem is that most people who claim to be SEO experts have no idea what they are actually doing. SEO is also discussed like it is a magic-bullet solution that drives instant business. It is not. SEO is a foundational marketing element that you should start sooner rather than later. Your business may not see a return within the first 90 days, as it takes time for your changes to update within search engines and for you to gain authority.

However, once your website is viewed as an authority in topic areas, you start to rank at the top of search engines. That means when people Google something related to your industry, you turn up first.

SEO is a powerful marketing channel for manufacturing businesses because it is a gift that keeps on giving. Your website will continue to see traffic and opportunities come in via SEO growth, and as you continue to add content, you will see an exponential effect across all of it.

Here is a list of a few tips for doing SEO properly:

  1. Do keyword research. Figure out what keywords are being searched by your target customers to find services like yours.
  2. Include the most relevant keywords in your SEO title, meta description, H1, H2, and content.
  3. For the keywords that are popularly searched phrases, write articles to support those.
  4. Post new content frequently. It is important to post articles on a regular schedule to keep your rankings strong and to expand your reach of keywords.

By following the tips above, you will be doing better than most businesses online. However, there is always more detailed strategy and optimization that can be made to further boost your rankings.

Final thoughts: marketing for manufacturing businesses

Winning new customers is the goal for every business. While your personal network and word of mouth will help keep your business running, it is essential to leverage different digital channels to further increase growth. Using the strategies above, you should be able to make some headway. If you need any additional help or have questions, do not hesitate to reach out through our contact form or by emailing ronny@digital-astronauts.com.