Marketing for manufacturers – top tips!
In the second in our series about marketing for manufacturers, we give you another top five tips to make the most of your marketing budget.
Tip 1
Limit your spend on Adwords or Linkedin advertising
It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that by putting a budget to online advertising that all your marketing issues will be solved. What we know from our manufacturing clients is that often Adwords and LinkedIn advertising do not generate much revenue for b2b organisations. In fact, searches are usually so low for industrial products (less than 10 per month in UK or 100 worldwide) it is not worth targeting them in this way. You will find that with an Adword campaign you receive very few clicks-through. And, of course, any clicks you do receive, you will not receive any information about who has clicked, so you won’t be able to target them directly.
Tip 2
Invest in good quality photography
For manufacturers, we recommend holding at least two good photo shoots per year. Wait for an occasion, such as a company anniversary, then gather everyone together for some people shots.
You should also have a bank of head and shoulders shots of directors and managers within the businesses. At the same time, you should ask the photographer to take some commercial shots of the outside of the factory, showing your signage (a tech savvy photographer would be able to photoshop a good sign on the front without an issue). Product photography is useful for trade magazines, however most magazines are looking for application photographs. This often causes a problem because many manufacturers, eg for OEM applications, don’t get that close to the end customer. For example, it may be products supplied to a marine application where health and safety doesn’t allow pictures to be taken on a ship. This is where you have to be a little creative and look at where interesting shots could be taken in the factory, for example in the test laboratory.
Tip 3
Limit the number of exhibitions you attend
Exhibitions can be a huge drain on resources and with many of them there is no guarantee of the results you will get. Not only are they expensive to exhibit, but often they involve international travel, overnight stays and the need for a stand designer and builder. A better way is to visit the exhibition and set up appointments with clients and editors in the conference rooms at the show. This means you still get to meet the people but don’t have the expense of an exhibition stand.
Tip 4
Use e-newsletters and pdf brochures, rather than printing them, saving on print costs
These days, printed brochures and newsletters are becoming much less widely used. Manufacturers have recognised that as soon as a product is discontinued, or a new product is introduced, the current product brochure becomes outdated. It makes much better sense to have an online brochure, either as a PDF, or FlipBook, which can be updated more affordably and without the need for print costs. You will find that many customers prefer to receive information on email anyway, so they can store this on file for future reference.
Tip 5
Invest in your website – it’s your shop window
We can’t reinforce this enough – it’s your website where you should be investing and in online PR. Your website is the first place that customers look when searching for goods and services. If your website is not regularly updated and doesn’t look interesting and relevant, it is less likely to attract customers. You need to consider refreshing the design of your website at least every 2-3 years. Designs change for website and yours could soon start looking dated. An online PR campaign should be an essential part of your marketing mix. This is where we create regular content in the form of news pages, blogs and sending relevant information for posting on blog sites. This is essential to ensuring you retain a good Google ranking.
We hope you have found this of interest and if you have any comments, or would like to talk to one of our PR or marketing team, email us on hello@dragonflypr.co.uk or call 01709 300130.