A Digital Strategies Guide to Help Propel Business Growth for Manufacturing Companies

With an increased demand for supplies, equipment and basic materials over industries such as housing and the automotive industry, the manufacturing industry has seen widespread growth, not only in the United States, but also abroad.

As per a 2017 CMO survey report, it was found that manufacturing companies reported that 7.9% of their product offering sales took place online, which was far below the average threshold of business-to-business industries.

This showcases that despite there being some growth in the manufacturing industry, there’s still plenty of room for more growth and modernization.

The Benefits of Digital Marketing

The disproportion between other industries and the manufacturing industry is fantastic news for manufacturing company owners, as it shows that with simple modifications and changes to the scope of operations, one can realize significant growth.

This can be achieved by top-level management prioritizing digital marketing expenditure when planning for budget allocations for the other departments, as it provides a wide array of benefits to the company, which include but are not limited to:

• A broadened clientele base: manufacturers such as those who specialize in the manufacture of conveyor belt equipment and choose to focus on conventional methods of marketing (such as industrial trade shows) can benefit from reaching a wider market scope.
• Reduced overhead costs: digital marketing has led to a reduction of ROI for companies specializing in many different niches. Despite marketing overhead costs being relatively low for manufacturing companies, the costs can be further decreased.

Should manufacturing companies desire to reap the above-mentioned perks, they may need to take certain marketing risks and allocate sufficient capital towards digital marketing strategy research. Here is an overview of the digital strategies that manufacturing companies can use to boost their business growth.

Allocating Capital for Website Development

In the present digital era, having a company website is paramount to the successful implementation of your marketing strategy.

You will be amazed to know that even a website that doesn’t have a lead capturing page can still aid in sealing lucrative deals, as it acts as a digital business card.

Thus, manufacturers should endeavor to ensure that they conduct an overhaul on their outdated websites in order to keep up with the current pre-set industry standards.

Manufacturing companies can go about this process by conducting reconnaissance on their competitor and partner websites in order to help generate a general idea of what they would like their website to look like.

A well-designed website tends to possess specific elements such as simple and modern design, call to action (CTA) sections, lead capture forms, and e-commerce storefronts.

Employing the Use of Digital Advertising

Manufacturing companies prefer spending their marketing funds on traditional advertising methods such as trade shows, and magazine and television advertisements.

While the conventional means of advertising tend to generate substantially great returns, manufacturers should note that they are being outdated and don’t present a good competitive advantage as compared to the present digital advertising methods.

Digital advertising can take various forms such as pay-per-click (PPC) ads, social media ads, display ads, and video ads.

These are programmatic forms of advertising that can enable a manufacturing business to efficiently target specific customer demographics without having to previously know them.

Final Remarks

The digital universe tends to be very dynamic and at times it can be difficult to keep up.

It is for this specific reason that manufacturing companies should seek to hire specialized marketing professionals who can aid in providing their manufacturing businesses with the foundational digital marketing strategy knowledge needed to revamp their business.

This would ultimately help manufacturers remain sustainable and competitive in their chosen niche.