Manufacturing here in the United States use to be a key driver of economic growth from the 60s to the mid 90s.

As “globalism” took hold; government policies started to help huge corporations with their offshoring efforts; it ultimately drove work overseas to China and other countries and killed the “small” town middle class throughout the United States.

The remaining manufacturing companies in America scrambled to “fit” in to the new world order or worse yet….

Go Out Of Business!!

As the digital marketing landscape started to take shape in the late 90s / 2000s, industries adapted to the new digital age while others withered away.

Companies started to disrupt industries as was the famous case study with BlockBuster and Netflix.

One industry that has remained very “sleepy” for the last 20 years and continues to remain “old fashioned”, is the marketing of manufacturing industries that once powered the United States!

A lot of industrial / manufacturing companies still use very basic traditional marketing strategy to attract clients.

The key advertising methods for these types of manufacturers or industrial firms include having an ad in an industry specific trade journal or attending and showcasing your products / services at an International Trade Show.

These marketing tactics still reign key to building your manufacturing brands awareness but if your business wants to take the next step and reach customers who are looking to learn about your manufacturing products or industrial services, as well as wanting to purchase “ASAP”, the new reality is in the digital marketing age.

Take a Moment & Think About These Questions:

• Who is your buyer persona and target audience?
• Who are you existing customers?
• What is your current top marketing campaign in terms of revenue?
• What product number or manufacturing service is your top seller?
• Does your business have a digital marketing strategy?
• Do you have a website and if so, how old is your domain?
• How is the user experience design for your website?
• Does your website look the same on all devices (PC, smartphones, tablets)?
• If you have a website, how are you tracking where the leads and online traffic are coming from?
• When was the last time you had your website updated or refreshed?
• What percentage of your customers are local and come from a 3–15-mile radius?
• How many Google indexed pages does your website have?
• Do you know how many Top 20 keywords on Google you rank for?
• Are you blogging, if so, how many blog posts per month?
• Do you have your Google My Business account setup?
• Are you being shown on Google Maps?
• Are you listed on data aggregators like Factual, Axciom, or Foursquare?
• How are your competitors doing online?

How many were you able to answer?

For being one of the most neglected business sectors in the USA, there is a lot of opportunities for manufacturers to seize their market space (locally, regionally, & internationally) through a well thought out digital marketing plan.

For a company to quickly get the most out of having a digital presence online and generate more leads:

Here are the 5 things you as a manufacturer should at least do to benefit from digital marketing and the Internet.

1. Digital Strategy – Go back and answer the questions that were presented above. You are 75% there. Allocate a % of your total marketing budget to digital marketing. Depending on where you are at in terms of marketing (not having a website vs investing $5,000 a month on PPC Ads) you’ll have to assess where to start and what is the best use of your digital marketing dollars. All of the following tactics below do cost money, time, and expertise to get the most out of your digital budget.
2. Responsive Website – This is the cornerstone of your entire digital marketing “sales funnel”. It has to work on all devices (smartphones, tablets) and the website content (ad copy) has to answer questions or provide your online traffic with the information they are looking for. Make it as easy as possible for your potential and current clients to do business with you online.
3. SEO – Even though you have a new responsive website does not mean you will have website traffic from Google and other search engines. It helps but you will need to use search engine optimization (SEO) to maximize your new responsive website. Blogging is an underutilized SEO tool in the manufacturing industry and it will help you gain more organic keywords and traffic from Google and other search engines. Making sure your website is clean of errors and loads fast is also an important algorithm ranking factor in the eyes of Google. If a high percentage of your business sales comes locally, it is important to utilize a Local SEO strategy to get the most out of your SEO. Also its important to be listed on industry specific directories like ThomasNet.com and Global Spec.
4. SEM* – If your marketing budget permits, one of the best ways to drive “qualified eyeballs” and customers looking to purchase “ASAP” is through search engine marketing (SEM). There is a paid media cost to Google and other search engines that you may be advertising on. It is important to make sure your “sales funnel” is congruent with the message you are relaying through the ad. A specific landing page with the service or product your are advertising is recommended to send your SEM / PPC traffic too. Note* SEM / PPC is a paid cost to Google and other search engines with the pay per clicks ranging in various amounts (a few cents to hundreds of dollars). Learn more about the differences between SEM & SEO.
5. Email Marketing – Now that you have a new responsive website, optimized it with SEO, and sending SEM traffic; you will need to make sure you capture your traffic’s contact information, whether it’s an email or phone number. Normally you will want to collect at least “name, phone number, email, and purpose of their inquiry and in certain cases budget”. To increase the chances of collecting this info you can offer an incentive such as 10% off or through a pop up with a strong call to action (CTA). There are two components to email marketing – 1. Building your database 2. Marketing to your database. A monthly email to your database will keep your business top of mind and will help drive more traffic to your website as well as generate more sales. More emails will ultimately lead to more sales!

If you are a manufacturer or industrial service company and you follow the digital marketing steps from above, you can guarantee that your bottom line will have increased in the next year!

Why is that?

Can you believe that there are only four ways to increase your revenue:

1. Increase your customer or project base.
2. Increase the size of your average transaction.
3. Increase the number of transactions per customer.
4. Increase the prices you charge for services or projects.

Digital marketing allows you to increase your visibility but also build the perfect lead generation system that acquires new customer eyeballs which funnels them down the marketing sales pipe line, and converts them into new customers or projects.

Making sure all these digital “parts” are built correctly is important and crucial.

Who is ilocal SEO?

My name is Lenny Mauricio and I have been working with manufacturers and industrial companies in Florida to help increase their bottom line revenue through the use and implementation of SEO Services.

Our hourly SEO rate is $125 (w/ min. 8 hours) which includes onsite consultation in South Florida with a custom report that highlights your SEO visibility online and actionable items to work on.

You will have a blue print of high impact, low-cost SEO solutions you can implement on your own or hire another SEO firm to help. If you choose to retain ilocal SEO to implement those changes, we will waive the onsite consultation fee and credit it towards your first month.

305.239.8505