Manufacturers aren’t consumers or even B2B Manufacturing ...€¦ · 3 | MANUFACTURING MARKETING improves quality, all of which benefits companies and their customers. Telling a

ManufacturingMarketing

ManufacturingMarketing

TIPS THATDON’T WORK

TIPS THATDON’T WORK

MOBILE-FIRST INDEXING

HOPE FOR MANUFACTURING

CHINA AND TARIFFS

Oct

ober

1-7

2018

Manufacturers aren’t consumers or even B2B

GROWING YOUR BUSINESS

COVER:

Making bad marketing advice more visible.

FROM THE EDITOR | October 1-7 2018 | Issue 15

1 | MANUFACTURING MARKETING

Read any of those generic marketing articles lately?

ManufacturingMarketingIssue 15

ManufacturingMarketing

ManufacturingMarketing

TIPS THATDON’T WORK

TIPS THATDON’T WORK

MOBILE-FIRST INDEXING

HOPE FOR MANUFACTURING

CHINA AND TARIFFS

Oct

ober

1-7

2018

Manufacturers aren’t consumers or even B2B

GROWING YOUR BUSINESS

Editor Dianna [email protected] Rachel [email protected]

Contact Manufacturing MarketingManufacturing Marketing is published by Huff Industrial Marketing and cre8d design37 Plaistow Road, Unit 7-245Plaistow, NH 03865(603) [email protected]

Subscribe to Manufacturing Marketinghuffindustrialmarketing.com/magazine

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RACHEL AND I trade a lot of articles back and forth within Slack. We both love reading and discussing what we read, so we often include a sentence or two about why we’re sharing an article.

In a recent exchange I found myself sharing what I called “generic marketing articles” where manufacturing has been inserted in place of B2B or consumer. I heartily dislike these articles because they’re full of misleading information.

In fact, it’s these types of articles, and others, that were the impetus for us starting this magazine.

In this week’s issue, you’ll learn how to spot these types of articles and become a more discerning reader of the “advice” the writers share.

—Dianna Huff, Editor and Rachel Cunliffe, Designer

Deep Hole Drilling Machines Made in America – Kays EngineeringDeHoff and Eldorado gundrilling machines feature a box way design and hand-scraped mating components. The result is superior vibration damping, improved surface finish, and unmatched tool life. View our entire line of machines: www.kays-dehoff.com/mmm

THIS WEEK’S SPONSOR

OPINION

2 | MANUFACTURING MARKETING

IN BRIEF

• The power of listening. When the CEO of Marlin Steel took a phone order one day, it changed the company forever. Read the story

• Training students for emerging technologies. An informative NYT piece about how higher education and industry are banding together. Learn more

• Hope for manufacturing. The best thing about IMTS 2018 wasn’t the new stuff. It’s that manufacturing is on the cusp of a comeback. Read more

• More women in manufacturing. Peter Zelinski of Modern Machine Shop notices more women at IMTS 2018. Read why

• “It’s not a war, it’s just business.” A US leather goods maker talks about the impact of China and tariffs on his business. Learn why

Becoming a Discerning Reader of Marketing Advice

Due to manufacturing being a daily news item, marketing consultants and agencies have now become “experts” with regard to advising small manufacturers about websites and marketing.

A simple Google search (“manufacturing marketing tips”) reveals that hundreds of consultants and agencies – including the USPS! – are pitching their ideas in an effort to gain new customers.

A careful reading of these articles / blog posts / etc. however, show that many of these “experts” have simply put a manufacturing spin on

overused consumer and B2B tactics. A few examples follow.

LEAD GENERATION “One way to generate

leads for your manufacturing business is to leverage on existing clients and customers you have. Try asking them if they want to upgrade their way of doing business with you by offering innovations every so often.”

Manufacturers typically innovate on a continual basis based on employee and customer feedback. Innovation is important because it lowers costs and production time, and

MARKETING

3 | MANUFACTURING MARKETING

improves quality, all of which benefits companies and their customers.

Telling a manufacturer to ask if customers “if they want to upgrade their way of doing business by offering innovations” is a real head-scratcher. Huh?

What this writer may be referring to is a tactic that works well for service-based businesses. A day spa, for example, offers a “Christmas in July” promotion where clients can purchase services in bulk and receive a discount – but only in the month of July.

The “innovation” is in the way the service is being delivered: purchase in bulk during the off-season.

Could this idea work for a small manufacturer? Maybe – but it would take some time to plan out the offer and then create the marketing strategy for it.

REVIEW SITES“Reviews on sites such as Yelp

can help establish the reputation of your brand.”

Yelp is best known for reviews of consumer-based businesses – and a knowledgeable manufacturing marketing consultant would know this, and thus wouldn’t recommend the tactic as way to establish the reputation of a manufacturer’s “brand.”

The only benefit of having a Yelp listing is that DuckDuckGo, an alternative search engine to Google, uses these in place of

Google My Business listings.To determine if a Yelp listing

might benefit your company, you would need to analyze how much traffic is coming from DuckDuckGo. (Based on in-house data, this would mostly like be nil).

Instead of spending limited time and energy hounding customers to leave reviews, a small manufacturer could ask for testimonials to add to the website and other marketing materials.

This tactic ties in with a well-developed website and content marketing strategy because prospects visiting a manufacturing website expect to see testimonials.

Testimonials also help build crucial trust and credibility in conjunction with other content: Company history, bios, industry certifications, capabilities, etc.

BLOGGING“Secure conversions with

a blog. You can increase lead volume by up to 4x and traffic by 3x. Make sure your content is relevant and entertaining.”

When blogging first came onto the scene, it was a terrific way to stand apart and get your message out there. Today, however, with the content marketing explosion, thanks in part to the proliferation of blogs, it’s very difficult to “be heard.”

Consistently creating blog content is also labor intensive and requires time and people resources – two things small manufacturers, with limited or no marketing staff, have in very short supply.

Besides which, do buyers come to a supplier website expecting to be entertained?

Figure 1: “Metal stamping companies, Worcester, Massachusetts” – Yelp

MARKETING

4 | MANUFACTURING MARKETING

No. They want to take care of business and move on.

But what about the assertion lead volume can be increased? There is truth to this statement, but it’s due to consistently creating technical content that answers prospects’ questions: FAQs, application notes, case studies, and tech tips.

Over time, this type of informative and niche content appears in the search results – because Google wants to provide searchers with great content that also matches their search intent. As more people find it and click through to read it, the content generates leads – which are easily tracked in Google Analytics.

EMAIL MARKETING“Email marketing needs to

be a part of your marketing mix because it’s still widely used and because of its low cost.”

Yes, email marketing is widely used and it does have a relatively low cost, but what exactly is meant by “email marketing”? More to the point, how does a small manufacturer make it part of the “marketing mix”?

This writer may be referring to the type of email sent out via marketing automation tools (Figure 2), but the advice is so generic, it’s hard to tell.

What can work for a small manufacturer is a professionally designed, well-written monthly newsletter sent to the in-house list. As with website content, it can help with generating leads over time.

SMALL MANUFACTURERS AREN’T CONSUMERS OR EVEN B2B

The tactics that work for consumers don’t translate to the small manufacturer, who is usually an OEM or job shop. Their own specialized niche, job shops are part of the national and/or global supply chain and have their own unique challenges.

When searching for a vendor, small business owners, engineers, buyers, etc. are all looking for specific information that lets them know the prospective company might be able to solve their challenge. Using consumer-based marketing strategies to create this content leads to failure.

Although small manufacturers

Figure 2: Marketing automation emails

are technically B2B, this label can be applied to any company that sells to another company. Thus, tactics that work for a B2B software company won’t necessarily work for a job shop.

And last, while marketing has changed significantly, one thing hasn’t changed: Trust.

Manufacturers, especially the small ones, take great pride in the relationships they’ve built with their customers – relationships that span decades and sometimes generations.

Communicating the importance of this trust, and putting it to work on behalf of their clients, is what true manufacturing marketers understand and value.

5 | MANUFACTURING MARKETING

QUESTION OF THE WEEK

Figure 4: Notice from Google regarding Mobile-First indexing

Question of the Week

If you’ve verified your website in Google’s Search Console, you may have received a message recently stating your website is now enabled for mobile-first indexing (Figure 4).

For years, Google relied on one index when crawling and indexing content: what’s now referred to as the “desktop index.”

Due to increased mobile usage, Google now crawls the web with two bots – Googlebot Smartphone and Googlebot Desktop.

If you have a mobile version of your website, Google will now use this version first when indexing and ranking your content for mobile searches.

Does this mean you need a mobile version of your website? No! If your website is a responsive website (meaning, it was designed to work well on mobile devices), then you’re A-Ok.

As you can see in Figure 4, in the last sentence before “more information,” Google is telling this company that the mobile and desktop versions of the website are comparable – and thus no action is needed.

What is ‘Mobile-First’ Indexing?

DID YOU KNOW?

You can easily learn if your website is mobile-friendly (or not)using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool.

If it’s not mobile-friendly, feel free to contact us. We’re happy to help.

MADE IN THE USA

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Editor’s note: In my old newsletter, I would share products I had found and used that were made in the USA. Many people wrote telling me they had happily purchased the products, and asked for more recommendations. In this issue and moving forward, I’ll share the Made in USA products I and others have found. —Dianna Huff

Finding furniture made in the US can be tricky since so much of it is now produced offshore. So it’s wonderful to find companies that continue to produce well-made furniture in the US – such as Room and Board.

The company has been providing quality modern furniture since 1980 – with 90% of it made in America using domestic and imported materials. They have forged partnerships with manufacturers who combine traditional craftsmanship with technology. The result is well-made furniture at a fair price. Visit roomandboard.com

Hat tip to Brandon Acker, Titan Abrasive. He reports the pieces he and his wife have purchased are fantastic.Disclosure: Neither I nor the magazine are asked or paid to promote these products.

Room and Board Furniture

BOOK OF THE WEEK

TechnoBrandsHow to Create & Use “Brand Identity” to Market, Advertise, and Sell Technology Products — Chuck Pettis

Although written in 1995, TechnoBrands is one of those books you read, absorb, and keep forever, because it’s the definitive work on a topic.

A practical book written for engineers and manufacturers, Pettis explains what is a brand and then lays out the steps and techniques for researching, defining, and applying brand to your company’s products and customer relationships.

We use his ideas throughout our website and marketing consulting with customers, so we know they work.

It’s out of print, but you can find used copies on Thriftbooks and Amazon.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Dianna will be attending the following manufacturing marketing events. If you’re based in the area and would like to meet up, email [email protected].

• Future of Manufacturing Symposium, October 4, 2018 – MassMEP’s first regional event showcasing the emerging technologies being developed by the Manufacturing USA Institutes. Learn more

• Manufacturing Day, October 5, 2018 – Always fun, Manufacturing Day is when companies open their doors to students, educators and the media in an effort to showcase today’s modern manufacturing facilities. Visit the Manufacturing Day website to see which manufacturers in your state are offering tours.

• 16th Annual Governor’s Advanced Manufacturing and High Technology Summit, November 2, 2018 – A day when manufacturers and government leaders come together to discuss the state of manufacturing in NH. Learn more

TURN YOUR UNDERPERFORMING WEBSITE INTO A SALES MACHINE

LEARN HOW

“ We recently closed on $75K in new projects in one week. One

of the projects should net us $750K over the next year. Our customers indicated they went with UI due in part to our website messaging – which was provided by Dianna and Rachel.

”KURT MOBERLY GM, URETHANE INNOVATORS