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Industrial Marketing Programs Pay Off Big for Manufacturers

The manufacturing sector is experiencing very competitive times. Competition is fierce, markets are global, pricing is declining, negotiations are tough, customers are reducing the number of suppliers they use, and more jobs and businesses continue to go over seas.

In the old days, trade publication advertising, direct mailers, exhibiting at various trade show events, and advertising in print directories and catalogs were enough to generate adequate, though not always, quality industrial sales leads. Over the last 5 years these methods have become less and less effective, typically generating marginal returns and more quantity than quality leads.

This scenario puts a tremendous strain on industrial companies to increase sales and profitability through higher-quality sales lead generation and marketing programs. As marketing and advertising budgets continue to shrink, manufacturers look for more effective ways to drive additional sales revenue.

Industrial Marketing Shifts to Online

Within the last couple of years, there has been a significant shift in the percentage of industrial marketing dollars invested in various marketing channels. As engineers and technical buyers turn to the internet to find product and service information, it is no surprise that a larger percentage of marketing program dollars are being shifted to web marketing programs, including search engine optimization, pay-per-click, email marketing, and in general, website design or redesign.

Business-to-Business (B2B) online commerce is projected at $2.7 trillion by 2006, according to Forrester Research. The rate of internet users is growing at an average rate of 10% each month, equaling an average of one million new internet users per month. As more and more countries increase internet connectivity and technologies, these numbers are going to continue grow exponentially.

According to a recent Gartner Dataquest survey, 90 percent of engineers use the internet to research technical products. In another survey, 74 percent stated that the Internet has contributed to shortening their design cycles. Engineers and technical buyers are now embracing the internet as their number one resource for product sourcing. They actively look for sourcing solutions, including searching for services, products, and components.

Industrial Internet Lead Generation

According to the Direct Marketing Association, businesses are flocking to online marketing because the benefits are real and measurable, such as cost savings, visibility, and new customer acquisition. Other benefits of internet marketing include:

“Quality” not quantity of leads. Engineering and technical buyers are actively searching for products, services, and solutions online –they are ready to buy. This makes them much more qualified than most industrial leads generated by traditional marketing programs.

Sales leads at the speed of business. Internet leads are generated in real time. They have a much higher probability of converting to a sale than leads that are generated from direct mailers or trade shows, which typically are days or weeks old.

Highly accountable and measurable. Online marketing programs are easy to track and measure and therefore, justify ROI.

Reach & frequency. Internet marketing allows you to reach a much greater percentage of your target audiences and is readily available 24/7/365. Traditional marketing programs have inherent limitations, such as the number of direct mailers you send, readership of a magazine or attendees of a trade show.

Same marketing budget, higher ROI. In order for manufacturing companies to reap the benefits of higher quality sales leads, it is not necessary to increase marketing budgets. It is simply a means of reallocating marketing dollars to internet marketing programs, such as search engine optimization or pay-per-click programs.

Conclusion

Traditional forms of marketing within the industrial sector continue to decrease in effectiveness, as more and more engineering and technical buyers rely on the internet to find sourcing solutions. As a result, industrial companies have shifted their marketing dollars to the internet in order to capitalize on recent sourcing trends.

Industrial companies, who have implemented online industrial marketing programs, like search engine optimization have typically generated higher quality sales leads with significant ROI than industrial companies who continue to utilize only traditional marketing strategies.

Author: Corey Wenger
Key Position Web Marketing, LLC
Industrial Marketing Programs
www.key-position.com
(317) 238-3044
Corey@key-position.com