Why you should be thinking about digital marketing for your manufacturing company in 2018

Why digital marketing should be a manufacturing company’s focus

Know your geography, know your market position and set your goals

Wherever your business is based, you know who your competition is and where you sit amongst them, you also know that advertising within a saturated market is futile. If your company is set amongst other similar businesses on an industrial estate, to simply put up a billboard on the road outside would not be sufficient advertising to attract enough customers to meet your goals.

The same logic should and can be applied to your digital marketing strategy, but with far more efficiency. Manufacturing companies in particular can benefit from region-specific targeting. For example you might want to focus on areas that you distribute to, where you have other franchises or to target an area you see as a potential growth location.

We apply a specific strategy to help our clients rank for specific locations through creating web pages for those areas, by carrying out detailed keyword research, writing strong and dependable content in-house around that research (more on this later) and by backing that quality content up with targeted PPC ads aimed at the self-same search criteria. This way, when someone searches for ‘packaging manufacturer in Leeds’ for example, your company appears at the top of that list.

Content really does matter

The power of valuable and interesting content should never be underestimated as it offers a unique way to build relationships with your customers and clients. Optimising your sites content forms one of the cornerstones of SEO and should be seen as one of your core business activities because, by sharing useful information and solving your customers’ problems, you’re promoting yourself as a thought and industry leader.

But how do I put pen to paper? Where do I start?

We know that content creation can present a real challenge. Finding your voice and the time to write regular posts can be difficult alongside running your own business. We’re not all writers but by keeping things simple and focussing upon what your clients want to know is a good place to start.

These days’ people expect to be able to find the answers to their questions on your website. Manufacturing companies in particular should be directing customers towards a product or service they need or by providing advice, the right content is a great way to demonstrate that you understand their needs whilst demonstrating your expertise. Not only is this a ‘soft’ way to help sell your products or services, it will also help to position you as a market leader in your field.

It really is worth putting some effort into marketing your content as when written well, it will reward you by working exceptionally hard. Effective marketing content will represent your brand values, show that you’re up to speed on the latest developments in your field, attract visitors to your website and help to boost your search rankings.

Human after all

Through humanising your brand identity – showing the real people behind your efficient manufacturing machine – you can promote yourself as the company with a difference.

A great place to start is a ‘meet the team’ section to your website, you can keep this as formal or informal as you like, but through having real pictures and even the smallest injection of personality, you can add relatability and value to your company. Social media is an often overlooked tool that manufacturing companies can use extremely effectively to re-market themselves as not only an industry leader, but an approachable one.

Use social media to roll out a ‘meet the team’ campaign and give your employees the opportunity to sell themselves and in turn sell your manufacturing company, without going for that ‘hard’ sell – which is so often a turn off. The key to a successful social media campaign is in creating engaging content that your target audience will want to look at, but also to engage with your audience regularly, humanising your social media presence.

Its all part of the process

Our manufacturing clients have witnessed first hand the power of digital marketing through the various services we offer, the use of any one of these techniques will see an improvement in traffic to your site, more enquiries through email or even more online orders, but utilise all of them together and watch your business grow.