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At HubSpot, I spend a lot of time speaking with CEOs and owners of manufacturing about integrating inbound marketing into their businesses. During these conversations, I often get the same response: “Our customers are just not online.”
I get it. Really I do. Having spent many years in the manufacturing industry I understand. Often manufacturing and Industrial companies make or design something that they can only sell to a set group of businesses. Perhaps they have to be an “approved” supplier and think they are on all necessary approval lists. They know exactly who their target market is, and they know and watch every move their competition makes.
As a marketer, you know there are quality leads on the internet, how can you enlighten your CEO to make the important change to Inbound Marketing?
As part of this article I talked to a few industry and manufacturers using inbound marketing to grow their business online, and got some fantastic feedback.
4 Ways to Sell Inbound Marketing to Your Manufacturing CEO
1. Demonstrate Online Growth and Statistics - When talking to Elizabeth Kaiser at Crisafulli Pumps she said her CEO now understands that the internet has changed how manufacturing companies need to market to their prospects and customers. “Tradeshows used to be the only way, and now people can click and go across the world.” She can “prove to the skeptics” that there are qualified prospects online.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could show your CEO a complete graph of your competitors? Watch their online presence even closer and make sure you are staying ahead of the game?
2. Show Cost Reduction Opportunities - Old school sales and marketing seems to go hand in hand with manufacturing and suppliers. Taking the VIP’s out for golf and closing the deal on the 18th hole, attending those tiresome expensive tradeshows, sending huge gift baskets to the customer over the holidays, mailings of shiny slicks about your company. All these outbound marketing campaigns can still be seen as the only way your CEO thinks a contract can be made and kept.
Instead show your CEO the money that can be saved by reducing direct mail and tradeshows in favor of search engine optimization, lead nurturing and blogging.
3. Set Clear Competition Tracking Benchmarks - Is your competition tracking currently Mad Men style where you hear through the grapevine, or even from your competition when you see them at a tradeshow? Who won the bid? Who landed that contract? How true is the information? What are the real statistics?
Influence and reach are shifting online. By understanding and incorporating key online marketing KPIs such as traffic, leads, conversion rates, etc. You can demonstrate that inbound marketing allows your business to have a much clearer understanding of its marketing performance.
4. Focus on CRM Integration - Whether your manufacturing company has a small sales team or a large international team, it is likely that you are using some type of customer relationship management (CRM) software to help your sales team track and work leads and customers. It is important to let your CEO know that it is possible send new leads automatically to your CRM system from online forms on your website, using a system like Hubspot. No more uploading tradeshow lists to a CRM. This type of integration can help reduce wasted marketing resources and give the sales team fresher leads.
Manufacturing may be old school. There is no reason your marketing strategy has to be.
Photo Credit: jurvetson
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