With even small businesses set to spend at least $75,000 this year on digital marketing, businesses are looking for innovative ways to market themselves.
Manufacturing companies are no exception to the complexity of competing for marketing space. With the right perspective, you can market your company online and offline for less money than you think.
Here are 5 of the most important ways you could be marketing yourself.
1. Start a Blog
Lots of people are curious about the manufacturing process. While many wish they could understand how most products are made, not everyone knows how to get that information. Your site could become the answer to all of those questions by creating your own blog.
A blog is a great way to constantly be creating new content for your site. It will help you increase your search engine rankings by keeping your site relevant, answering search user requests, and increasing traffic to your site.
When people use a search engine, they’re searching either for a specific product or the answer to a question. A blog can serve both purposes by giving out information about solutions to answers and offering the writers’ own products as the answer. There are very few marketing tactics that are as powerful as this one.
Creating your own blog allows you to communicate with your potential audience and get feedback about the services that you provide. When you’re in the world of manufacturing, you might think that your sales are an indicator of how well your products are received. The truth is, it’s the questions people ask about your products that tell just how successful you are.
2. Create Video Content
While you’re answering questions, you could be making videos about the process of manufacturing common products. Most people don’t really know how the most common products are manufactured but would be interested in watching videos showing them how.
Given that video is slated to comprise over 80% of all traffic on the internet in the coming few years, users in every demographic are proving they love video. No matter what kind of product they’re looking for or which demographic they’re in, they’re going to want to see video.
Answer their request by creating videos at your manufacturing company. Surely someone knows how to hold a camera, someone knows how to write, and someone else can edit it all. That means it should be easy to create interesting video content.
Don’t be afraid to have fun and be yourself in your videos. Your video content could be reflective of your brand’s personality more than anything. If your videos don’t feel interesting or unique, people won’t build a strong connection with you.
Learn a little bit about content marketing so that you can find ways to make sure your video content connects.
3. Be on Social Media
Social media is how a growing number of people first hear about a company. Your manufacturing company is no different than any other and could be using this avenue to get the word out.
Your company should be on every social media channel possible.
Each social media app has its own style and purpose. You and everyone at your company should be on LinkedIn in order to network with other people in your industry. You should have accounts on Facebook and Instagram to share business information and video content respectively.
When your business posts to social media, make sure you have a single unified voice. Every brand needs to have a voice and a perspective to interface to the world with. When you’re on social media, you’re representing your company. Avoid personal or petty conversations that could distract from who you are as a manufacturing company.
Use your social media profile to make people excited about your company and what you have to offer.
4. Connect to Other Local Businesses
One of the best ways to market yourself is to use the efforts of other companies to get the ball rolling. Connecting with other local businesses allows you to use their audience and their momentum to get your own audience.
Once you’ve built up an audience, talk to businesses related to the kinds of services that you provide. You can work with one another to offer related products.
Companies that manufacture products in a certain industry could use friends who are in distribution. You could help one another out while also referring customers to one another.
If there are other manufacturers in your area, you could start a guild of manufacturing companies to keep each other aware of changes to the industry. You could work together to advocate for local or political issues that are relevant to the both of you. You never know what a relationship to another business could bring.
Check out this website for examples of a company that’s connected to the other people in its industry.
5. Sponsor a Team
One of the best ways to market yourself locally is to sponsor a local sports team of some kind. Kids soccer teams and local softball teams are always in need of sponsorship or some kind of help. Your manufacturing company could pay for their uniforms in exchange for putting your name on the front.
If you want to make an impact locally, you’ll be able to market yourself in a strong way by being where people least expect you to be. By taking up space in people’s leisure time, they’ll remember you when they need manufacturers like you to help with a business project.
Manufacturing Companies Can Market like Anyone Else
If you look at what other manufacturing companies are doing to compete for space, you’ll see lots of good and bad examples. Every company will have their own style and soon learn what works for them. Listen to your customers as well as your staff when you’re building your marketing plan for ideas that will ensure you connect with your audience.
To ensure that you are always reducing your risk with each marketing campaign, be sure to follow our guide.