B2B Content Marketing Strategy | Why & What Makes Good Manufacturing Marketing Content? [Complete Guide]

The manufacturing industry spends millions on advertising every year, but very few manufacturers see any return on investment from these.

Why?

Because most manufacturing companies fail to understand the importance of developing an effective content marketing strategy.

In fact, out of all the groups we studied this year, manufacturing marketers have the most difficulty tracking ROI on their content marketing programs; only 12% say they are successful in doing so.

Source

In order to get noticed, manufacturers must create marketing content that resonates with potential customers. This means:

• creating content that addresses the needs of specific customer groups,
• using language that appeals to them; and,
• delivering content in formats they prefer.

Why is good content marketing for manufacturing industry important?

According to Iron Paper:

85% of manufacturing marketers are currently using content marketing.

And that number is expected to grow significantly over the next few years. 

According to a report published by CMI, nearly half of B2B companies plan to increase investment in content marketing spending by 2023.

This growth will come from three main reasons:

• First, businesses are becoming increasingly aware of the value of content marketing.

• Second, they’re realizing that content marketing is a low-cost way to attract qualified leads and retain current clients.

• In addition, manufacturers are also finding that content marketing helps them build relationships with influencers and journalists.

This means that instead of relying solely on traditional advertising methods, manufacturing marketers can use content marketing to reach out to potential customers and establish connections with influencers in the industry.

A consistent marketing content strategy can increase your company’s visibility, drive sales leads, improve brand awareness, and build relationships with your target B2B audience.

When we say content marketing marketing for manufacturing industry, what does it mean?

Content marketing for manufacturing industry is about telling stories through different types of media.

It’s about sharing information and providing valuable insights into how you solve problems or add value to your customers’ lives.

For example, if you want to sell more products, tell a story about how your manufacturing product solves a problem or present product demos.

If you want to be seen as an expert in your field, share case studies that show your audience insight on why your company is better than others at solving certain problems.

Or, if you want to influence people who write about technology, share articles that explain your manufacturing process and why your company is leading the way in innovation.

The key thing to remember here is that successful content marketing is not just about writing.

It’s about storytelling. And it’s about connecting with people. 

What is good manufacturing marketing content?

Good manufacturing marketing content includes both written and visual elements such as infographics, eBooks, social media content, case studies, videos, webinars, white paper documents, and other content formats.

Manufacturing marketers should consider developing these kinds of materials when striving for content marketing success because they help you:

What makes bad manufacturing marketing content?

The answer is simple: writing for the wrong audience or having no content at all.

When you write content for the wrong audience, you end up wasting valuable resources. You might spend hours crafting a blog post only to realize that nobody reads it or the wrong audience is reading it. Or worse yet, you could spend hours creating content that doesn’t even address the needs.

On the other hand, when you don’t publish any content at all, you risk losing potential customers because they won’t find out about your business.

If your company doesn’t have a consistent content marketing program, it will struggle to attract new business opportunities.

In fact, 93% of B2B buyers go online when making purchasing decisions.

And yet, very few manufacturers engage in content marketing activities. Their reason? They simply don’t have enough time to market their content on an ongoing basis.

However, there are many other reasons manufacturers fail to produce quality content. Some of these include:

Nowadays, however, business consumers want to know more about how your products solve their problems instead of just what you sell.

That’s why you must provide them with relevant content that helps them understand your products better – and at the same time, in line with your business objectives.

21% of B2B marketers cite “giving the customer a poor impression of our organization” as one of the most detrimental factors resulting from poor content marketing and sales alignment.

Source

B2B manufacturers often think that content creation is too expensive. But the truth is, there are many affordable ways to create quality content that can help you grow your business.

For example, you could hire freelance writers to write blog content and articles that explain your products and services. You could also outsource social media management, video creation, graphic design, and much more.

These outsourcing partners may charge you a fee for their content marketing efforts, but they’ll do so at a fraction of the cost compared to hiring internal marketing teams.

So, if you want to start generating more sales leads, improving your sales funnel, and building stronger customer relationships, consider outsourcing some of these tasks instead of figuring this out on your own.

How to avoid bad manufacturing marketing content?

There are several things you can do to avoid producing bad content.

Here are five tips to keep in mind:

• Know Your Audience

Before you start writing, you need to understand who your audience is so you know what they need, and how they prefer to consume information.

What are his/her challenges and pain points? How do they prefer to learn about new developments in your industry and manufacturing process? Questions like these help you identify the right topics to cover and the best way to deliver it.

Once you know your target audience, you can develop messaging that resonates with them.

• Create Value Based Content

You also need to ensure that the content you create provides value to your readers.

People buy solutions, not products.

An effective content marketing strategy needs to focus on solving problems, not selling products. It’s about helping people solve business problems and achieve success.

Value-based content includes anything that helps your target business audience’s life better – and succeed.

• Reach the Right Audiences

After you have created value based content, you need to ensure that it reaches the right audiences.

This means you have to consider also where your target audience spends most of their time online. Are they browsing blogs? Do they read news sites? Do they watch YouTube video content?

The answer to this question will help you decide whether you should create content for social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram or Pinterest.

• Measure Results

Finally, after you publish your content, you need to measure its success.

Data is the backbone of any good content program.

It allows you to measure the success of your efforts and improve your strategies accordingly.

You can do this by tracking the number of views, shares, likes, comments, clicks, etc.

If you want to increase your reach, then you can try using different channels. For example, you could post your content on multiple social media platforms at once.

• Repeat The Process

Writing great manufacturing marketing content takes time and effort.

However, by following these five steps, you can quickly improve your content performance and boost your business.

Marketing your manufacturing content

Once you’ve developed content that solves your prospects’ problems, it’s time to market it.

Here are three effective ways to promote your manufacturing content marketing:

1. Create a landing page

Landing pages are webpages designed specifically to convert visitors into buyers. They usually include a headline, description, call-to-action buttons, and other elements that encourage users to take action.

Landing pages work well because they’re easy to create and maintain. Plus, they let you test different variations of your content without investing too much money upfront.

To make sure your landing page converts, be sure to optimize it using conversion rate optimization (CRO).

CRO involves testing various elements of your landing page to find the ones that drive the best results.

2. Promote it on social media

Social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube allow you to reach millions of potential customers.

They also give you the opportunity to connect with your followers and engage with them.

However, don’t just post links to your landing pages. Instead, share videos, infographics, images, articles, and other types of helpful content.

Add hashtags so that your posts show up in search engine results.

3. Run paid ads – social media advertising or Google ads

Paid advertising lets you pay to get your message out there.

You can choose from display advertisements, sponsored stories, banner ads, and even e-mail campaigns.

When running an ad campaign, keep in mind that the goal isn’t necessarily to sell as many units as possible.

Instead, try to maximize your ROI. That’s why you should consider targeting specific groups of people based on their interests.

You can then run targeted ads, which will only appear to those who fit your target audience. This way, you’ll reach your ideal customers while spending less money.

How do I know my manufacturing content marketing is working?

The most important thing to remember when creating content is that it has to solve your audience’s problems.

This means that if your content doesn’t provide real value, it won’t help you accomplish your business goals.

So how do you know whether your content is helping your audience?

Here are some signs that show that your content is working:

These are all good indicators that your content is working.

You may add more to this list depending on what your unique success metrics are.

So… what next?

Beyond the “Signs”: Analyzing your manufacturing content results

After creating your content, analyzing your results regularly is very (!) essential. You can do this by using tools such as Google Analytics. These tools provide detailed information about how well your content performed.

For example, you can use Google Analytics to measure traffic to your site. This information lets you know what types of content perform better than others.

Google Analytics also provides information about where your visitors came from. This data can help you understand why certain content performs well while other content doesn’t.

What’s next?

Now that you understand the basics of manufacturing content creation, it’s time to start generating some ideas.

In the next section, we’ll walk through four popular manufacturing topics that you can write about. These content formats include

1. Product reviews
2. Case studies
3. How-to guides
4. Interviews

Let’s dive into each one and see how you can turn them into a piece of content.

Product reviews

If you’re selling physical products, product reviews might seem like a no-brainer. After all, aren’t they the bread and butter of online retailers?

But did you know that product reviews have become a powerful source of content marketing?

According to HubSpot, “product reviews generate nearly three times as much organic traffic than blog posts and five times as much as social shares.”

And according to Kissmetrics, “80% of consumers trust online reviews over personal recommendations.”

So instead of focusing solely on sales, think about how you can gather product reviews and use it as content to drive traffic back to your site.

Here are some tips to get started:

• Create a review template

Use a consistent format so that readers don’t have to read every single review in order to find the information they need.

• Use images

Images are a great way to make your product look better than ever before. They also add credibility because they show that you actually used the product yourself.

Make sure to only upload high quality photos. Avoid blurry ones, which may distract readers from the main point of the review. 

Case studies

A case study is similar to a testimonial. Instead of just reading a brief description of someone else’s experience, you’ll learn about their specific situation and how the product helped them.

You can create a case study by interviewing a customer who has purchased your product. Here are some questions to ask:

How-to guides

Another type of educational content that you can create is a how-to guide. 

This is an engaging format which has been proven to increase conversion rates by more than 50%.

To create a successful how-to guide, follow these steps:

• Start with an outline

Before you begin writing, take the time to plan out your topic. You want to be clear about what you’re going to cover and what you want to achieve.

• Write down your key points

Make sure to keep your writing short and concise. Don’t worry too much about grammar or spelling.

• Add visuals

Adding pictures and videos will give your content a visual appeal. It will also help you to explain complex content in a simple manner.

Interviews

An interview is another good option for creating content. Customer interviews, for example, allows you to talk directly to your current customers and collect valuable feedback. They can also shed insight on your customers’ buying process.

Ask them questions such as:

Ask open-ended questions to encourage honest responses. 

Also, look for ways to connect with influential bloggers, vloggers, podcasters, etc. to get interviewed.

These types of influencers are often overlooked, but they hold tremendous power.

They can provide you with free publicity, exposure, and content promotion. And since most of them already have large followings, they’re easy to reach.

The bottom line

Creating content for your manufacturing company isn’t just about creating good content. It’s about creating content that drives results.

And there are many different types of content that you can use to achieve this goal.

And while many B2B manufacturers still struggle to figure out exactly which type of content works best for them, this shouldn’t stop you from starting any kind of content marketing campaign today.

You don’t need to wait until you know everything about content marketing before you start promoting it.

But whatever you choose, remember one thing: successful content marketing is all about helping people solve problems.

So once you understand the problem, then you can start solving it. 

Now creating a content can be done but in most cases, you don’t have time. Buy time by hiring a team of marketing experts that can save you loads of time and effort compared to figuring it all out on your own.

We at Social Success Marketing can provide you the resources and services you need to help grow your B2B company and make it flourish. If you’re looking for experienced assistance, feel free to contact us!