The Complete Industrial Marketing Guide To Getting More Deals

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What is industrial marketing?

Digital marketing for industrial companies refers to the process of using online or offline channels to promote a business and its products or services to relevant markets. Common marketing channels for industrial companies include search, paid advertising, and email.

Why is digital marketing important for industrial companies?

Marketing an industrial company online is important because that’s where most people go when looking for a solution, whether it’s an industrial product manufacturer or industrial service provider.

Recent industrial marketing statistics show that 40% of B2B buyers — nearly half of all potential clients — review three to five content pieces before contacting sales, which means your digital presence directly influences their decision to reach out.

Additional benefits of using digital marketing include:

• Improving lead quality: Online marketing makes it possible to target users via demographics, behaviors, and other data points, which can create hyper-targeted (and hyper-effective) efforts for generating qualified leads.
• Nurturing bigger deals: With digital marketing capabilities like remarketing and account-based marketing, it’s possible to nurture bigger deals throughout the sales cycle — no matter how long the cycle lasts.
• Empowering sales teams: Digital marketing also makes it possible to align marketing and sales data, empowering sales teams to create better pitches by understanding a buyer’s touchpoints before (and during) the sales process.

Is digital marketing better than traditional marketing for industrial companies?

Yes — and no.

In our experience (which encompasses thousands of hours in the industrial and manufacturing space), we’ve found that industrial companies benefit from a combination of digital and traditional marketing strategies like search engine optimization (SEO) and trade shows.

However, when measuring the effectiveness of these two outlets, we’ve found that most industrial businesses see a higher return on investment (ROI) from their digital marketing efforts over their traditional marketing.

That’s why, if you’re debating about where to allocate marketing spend, we recommend investing in a digital strategy. It will provide a higher return, which will create more buy-in (and potentially more budget) from leadership in the long term.

How long does industrial marketing take for products and services?

Turnaround times, whether for a product or service, depend on the channel. Paid channels, like pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, have faster turnaround times, while unpaid channels, like search engine optimization, have slower ones.

As an example, businesses can theoretically see overnight results from launching a paid ad campaign. That won’t happen with SEO. Companies that haven’t done SEO before will often need to practice it for three to six months before seeing results.

However, that doesn’t mean organizations should invest all their marketing budget into the fastest-performing channels. Instead, consider an omnichannel strategy. This strategy uses multiple channels to deliver a higher (and more cost-effective) ROI.

It also insulates businesses if a channel’s costs, effectiveness, or uses change.

How much does marketing for industrial companies cost?

Prices for industrial marketing depend on several factors, including:

• The provider, whether in-house or external
• The number of services and/or strategies
• The aggressiveness of the goals and/or strategy

On average, industrial companies outsourcing their marketing efforts will invest $6,000 to $15,000 per month, often including website maintenance and a few digital marketing strategies, like search engine optimization and paid advertising.

Note: An alternative to the above budget is to set aside 7–10% of your revenue for marketing.

How do I create a marketing budget?

When creating a budget for your industrial marketing efforts, consider the following tips:

• Understand stakeholder expectations for marketing metrics and performance
• Audit existing marketing performance and returns based on stakeholder expectations
• Create SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) goals
• Consider setting aside 70% of your budget for strategies that currently “work”
• Consider setting aside 20% of your budget for strategies expected to “work”
• Consider setting aside 10% of your budget for strategies that are brand new

For the best results, remember that digital marketing is flexible. If a strategy doesn’t work, it’s possible to reallocate your budget to strategies that are working. That adaptability can give your business a competitive edge in the marketplace.

What marketing strategies are most effective for an industrial company?

The most effective online strategies for industrial marketing include:

1. Website design and development
2. Search engine optimization (SEO)
3. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising
4. Content marketing
5. Email marketing
6. Account-based marketing (ABM)

Get more info about each of those strategies below!

1. Website design and development

It’s not enough to have a website — you need to actively manage it. You can keep your site active by taking steps like:

• Sharing updates, like awards or certifications received
• Regularly publishing content, like a blog post on new industry standards
• Updating relevant information, like phone number or address

Of course, while being active is great, it won’t benefit your organization’s bottom line if your website is difficult for people to use. That’s why it’s important to have a website optimized for search engines and users.

That makes it easier for users to find your site through search engines, as well as to take actions like contacting your business.

You can get fast feedback on a site’s usability through user testing. Browsing examples of other industrial websites can also spark ideas for improving yours.

2. Search engine optimization (SEO)

SEO is one of the most effective strategies for marketing an industrial company. That’s because most people — including industrial buyers — use search engines like Google to find what they need.

With the first position in search results claiming 33% of search traffic, it’s critical to rank high in search results.

Getting to that first position requires several optimizations, including:

• Completing an SEO audit (a free tool like SEO Checker can help here)
• Allowing search engines to crawl and index the website
• Researching the keywords people use to find products or services like yours
• Producing SEO content to target these keywords
• Acquiring third-party mentions (and links) from reputable sites

Because SEO has several parts (like research, writing, and outreach), businesses will often get professional help.

And if you’d like to work with an agency specific to your industry and niche, there are numerous options to choose from!

3. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is another effective solution for industrial products or services marketing.

With PPC for industrial companies, businesses can get a top spot in search results on Google and Bing. You can also advertise on social media networks — like YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn — to reach users.

Most of these ad networks operate on a cost-per-click (CPC) model, which means your business only pays when someone clicks on your ad — and what you pay is set by your customized bid.

Optimization tips for better PPC performance include:

• Add negative keywords (or keywords where your ads shouldn’t appear)
• Set up remarketing campaigns to retarget specific users
• Build dedicated landing pages to create a cohesive user experience
• Test different ad copy

Because paid ads can get expensive, investing in other lead generation strategies (like SEO) is important. With a diverse strategy, you’ll provide your business with multiple sources for attracting leads instead of depending on a single source.

4. Content marketing

Content marketing is essential to industrial marketing because so many strategies depend on it, like SEO for content and PPC for ad copy.

While some organizations rely on AI-generated content for convenience, the ones that succeed use human-generated content. That’s because human-generated content provides new perspectives and firsthand experiences.

Not to mention, there are multiple case studies where websites using AI-generated content have lost significant traffic due to search engines like Google updating their algorithm (while Google doesn’t penalize AI content, it does demand unique, high-quality content).

You can produce compelling content for your organization by:

• Getting content ideas from customer-facing team members, like sales representatives
• Asking internal experts to share their opinions or advice
• Highlighting author and/or company experience, awards, or certifications in content

In our experience, industrial companies often struggle with content marketing because:

• Knowledgeable team members don’t have the time to write or review content
• Freelancers don’t understand the business or industry enough to write about it
• Industry-specific writers are too difficult to find or expensive to hire

That doesn’t mean your organization should give up on content marketing. Instead, consider partnering with a content marketing agency with industry-specific writers and editors on demand.

5. Email marketing

Email marketing is a perfect fit for industrial companies because email is one of the best lead nurturing strategies. Your business can remain connected throughout the buyer journey, whether it lasts months or years.

Get started with this type of industrial marketing by:

• Researching potential campaigns, like when users submit a quote form
• Creating lead magnets like whitepapers or guides
• Setting up an email management platform like Mailchimp
• Adding calls-to-action (CTAs) to relevant website content (if applicable)

For the best results with email marketing, remember to provide value. It’s more than reminding users about what you offer and what makes your offer competitive — it’s about understanding what will make users realize they need a solution like yours.

6. Account-based marketing (ABM)

Account-based marketing (ABM) is another answer to B2B industrial marketing. Companies like yours can use this strategy to target the accounts that matter most to the organization.

You can use account-based marketing to target accounts on:

• Social media networks, like LinkedIn
• Website visits, like through personalization
• Ad networks, like Google Ads or Microsoft Advertising

Because account-based marketing involves multiple steps, from researching accounts to developing creatives to managing campaigns, most industrial companies partner with an ABM agency to use this newer strategy.

Close more deals with industrial marketing pros

Congrats! You’ve learned how to get started with digital marketing for industrial companies.

Getting started can be tough, though, which is why we’re here to help. With thousands of hours of experience in the space (and 24 million leads generated for our clients), WebFX is a trusted partner for industrial marketing.

Learn how our industrial marketing agency can help by calling us at 888-601-5359 or contacting us online today!