Most marketing firms and advice are directed at Business-to-Consumer companies, but that ends up overlooking Business-to-Business companies such as manufacturers. If you want to expand your client base, you should take on a couple of manufacturing clients and help them promote their products, either to retailers or directly to consumers. You can start with digital marketing heavy-hitters like Search Engine Optimization, Pay-Per-Click advertisement campaigns and Conversion Rate Optimization before working on Social Media Marketing, event sponsorships and customer relationships.
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Search Engine Optimization
Websites and e-commerce solutions are as essential to B2B companies as to retail stores, but these sites’ SEO is usually neglected. Internet searches are the most popular way to find anything you are looking for, even if that thing is a manufacturer of a new type of extension ladder for your hardware company’s inventory. As a marketing professional, it is good to apply the same SEO techniques to your manufacturing clients you would for other customers. Ensure that the landing pages load quickly and effectively, that the font and layout provide easy reading for visitors and that you are tracking metrics on the right keywords and phrases.
Pay-Per-Click Advertisement Campaigns
Building a PPC campaign for your manufacturing clients can help potential customers find the items and services they are looking for at the top of search results, on the pages of related blogs and more. A Pay-Per-Click advertisement campaign puts your ads on search engine results pages and in ad space on websites your ideal customers visit regularly. These campaigns can, and should, be tied to your SEO efforts and can help you track how many clicks and sales conversions you are receiving from each keyword and ad.
Conversion Rate Optimization
Since digital marketing offers more opportunities for experimentation and less severe failures than more traditional marketing types, you can play with various elements to see which ones work the best. You can move page elements around and see how it affects your conversion rate for the next few weeks. If it raises the rate, you can make it a permanent change, and if your rate drops, you can change it back. This method is called Conversion Rate Optimization and encourages you to test different changes and learn from your failures.
Social Media Marketing
In marketing, social media is known as a place for big consumer brands to engage with their customers and each other for more attention and brand awareness. B2B companies, such as manufacturers, can also use Social Media Marketing to engage with customers and increase brand awareness. SMM does not necessarily mean creating a page on every platform and trying to keep a regular posting schedule. Still, it does mean determining where your customers are and establishing a presence there. You may be looking at industry-specific platforms, business networking sites, and other niche social media areas for manufacturing companies.
Event Sponsorships
One of the best ways to bring attention to your manufacturing clients is through sponsoring industry-specific events such as trade shows or educational programs. This sponsorship does not mean that you have to create the event yourself, as you can look for relevant events already scheduled and reach out to the organizers to see if they need sponsors. You can then negotiate a deal that is beneficial to the event and your client, such as providing funding in exchange for branding considerations. Remember that digital events are also a good place for marketing through sponsorship and look for webinars or online trade shows.
Customer Relationships
Customer relationships nurtured from the initial interaction will provide free marketing for your clients. Happy customers are more likely to recommend a company to industry contacts, engage positively with your client’s social media and provide references if needed. This nurturing can look like prompt responses to inquires, discounts or sales tied to loyalty and even responding well to feedback and negative reviews.
Marketing for your manufacturing clients does not need to look drastically different from marketing for B2C companies, but you will have to adjust some things. The social media or search engine keywords will be different for retail stores looking for items to sell than for consumers, so you will need to adjust your strategies.