Your Intro to Digital Marketing for Metal Fabricators

As a top metal fabricator, you make some of the best metal parts around. Any person or business who needs custom metal parts would be lucky to have your services.

Of course, while you know that to be true, your audience might not — at least, not unless you tell them so. That’s why digital marketing for metal fabricators is so important, and it’s something your business should take advantage of. But what exactly is metal fabrication digital marketing?

That’s what we’ll be answering on this page. Below, we’ll cover the following:

• What is digital marketing for metal fabricators?
• Why does your business need digital marketing?
• 5 strategies for digital marketing for metal fabrication companies

Keep reading to find out more about each of those areas. Also, make sure to subscribe to Revenue Weekly — our email newsletter — to get more content like this sent straight to your inbox!

What is digital marketing for metal fabricators?

Digital marketing refers to a set of strategies used to promote your company online. The goal is to make your target audience aware of your brand and turn as many members of that audience as possible into clients.

Why does your business need digital marketing?

Quite simply, your business will not survive without marketing. It would be one thing if you had a monopoly in your industry, or if you sold products like groceries that people would naturally run into at the store without you having to promote them. But neither of those things are the case.

For metal fabricators, the majority of your business comes from clients who find you by meticulously researching different companies that could provide the parts they need. If you want your business to show up during those companies’ research, you have to get your brand out there online.

Nobody can buy from you if they don’t know you exist. And even once they know you exist, they still won’t buy from you unless you can convince them that you’re a better choice than all of your competitors. That won’t just happen magically — you have to work at it! More specifically, you have to market yourself.

5 strategies for digital marketing for metal fabrication companies

We’ve covered what makes digital marketing for metal fabricators so important, but you’re likely wondering what it actually looks like to market your company online. In truth, there’s not just one way — there are a variety of strategies you can use. Those strategies include:

1. Search engine optimization (SEO)
2. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising
3. Social media marketing
4. Web design
5. Email marketing

Keep reading to find out more about each of those metal fabricator digital marketing strategies!

1. Search engine optimization (SEO)

As we mentioned earlier, metal fabrication clients don’t usually just go with the first company they see. Instead, they spend a lot of time researching their options, a process that begins in Google search results. That’s why it’s vital to use search engine optimization (SEO).

SEO is a tactic that involves creating content on your website and optimizing it to rank in relevant search results. This usually happens when you target specific keywords, or search terms. For instance, you might want to target the keyword “what do metal fabricators do,” so you write a blog post that thoroughly answers that question while also using the keyword across the page.

That will give you a decent chance of getting that page ranking for that keyword in Google, where your prospects will run across it when they search for the term. When you do that with a lot of different keywords across various pages, you’ll attract a lot more site traffic.

Other ways to improve your SEO include:

• Earning backlinks from other metal fabrication-adjacent websites
• Using HTTPS to make your site more secure
• Setting up a Google Business Profile for your company
• Making your site mobile-friendly with responsive design
• And more!

2. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is another metal fabricator digital marketing strategy you can try. It involves running paid ads in search results and on third-party websites. Compared to SEO, PPC can launch sooner and therefore drive much faster results. In any case, PPC is a very cost-effective strategy.

The way PPC works is that you bid on ad space. If your ad gets displayed there, you only have to pay the bid amount when people actually click on it, at which point they get directed to a landing page that encourages them to convert.

One of the great things about PPC is that it lets you really hone your targeting to a specific audience. Firstly, you can target specific keywords in search results, just like you can with SEO. But you can also target specific demographics and locations to further focus your ads on your target audience.

Plus, when you run ads on third-party websites, you can focus on sites that are related to metal fabrication so that your ads will be viewed by people who already have an interest in your industry. If you get a lot of clients from a particular field, you can also run ads on sites related to that field.

3. Social media marketing

As a metal fabricator, you probably sell primarily to other businesses, not consumers. A lot of business-to-business (B2B) companies think that because of that fact, social media isn’t a viable marketing channel for them. After all, social media users are consumers, not companies — right?

Actually, that’s not quite true. When you market to businesses, you’re really marketing to specific decision-makers at those businesses — and those decision-makers are probably on social media. That means social media marketing is still a great strategy for metal fabricators.

You can promote yourself on any social media site(s) of your choosing by creating an account and posting a variety of content on a consistent schedule. That content could be anything from an industry news update to a video showing off your latest services.

You can also run paid social media ads, which promote some of your posts directly into users’ feeds. Like with other forms of paid advertising, you can target specific demographics and locations with these ads.

4. Web design

SEO, PPC, social media — all of these marketing strategies share the goal of trying to get users to visit your website. Your site is where the magic of conversion happens. But it’s not a guarantee. If someone gets to your site and finds a disorganized mess, they probably won’t stick around long enough to convert into a lead or client.

For that reason, you can’t neglect web design as a marketing strategy. It’s crucial to create a website that looks appealing and functions smoothly. To start with, you should optimize technical elements like page speeds and mobile-friendliness. Once you’ve made sure your site works well, you can start improving the visual design. That includes:

• Color scheme
• White space
• Alignment
• And more!

For metal fabricators, it’s usually a good idea to use a website design that conveys professionalism. That’s one of the major characteristics that your prospects are looking for, so if you can convey it subconsciously with clean lines and organized navigation, it will be a big help.

5. Email marketing

One of the most classic metal fabricator digital marketing strategies is email marketing. This strategy, as you can probably guess, involves sending out emails to your target audience. But you don’t want these emails to be unsolicited. Instead, put email signup forms on your website. When people willingly subscribe, you can be sure that they’re happy to receive your emails.

As for what your emails should be about, you have options. You could send out newsletters, discounts, or even the occasional straight-up promotional email. While you should avoid coming on too strong — you don’t want to annoy your audience — you can use your email campaigns to slowly nurture your leads toward becoming clients.

Propel revenue for your business with digital marketing from WebFX

It’s a good idea to try using all (or at least most) of the metal fabrication digital marketing strategies on this list. But that can be extremely difficult and time-consuming if you don’t have a dedicated marketing team at your company. That’s why a lot of metal fabricators opt to partner with a professional agency like WebFX.

WebFX is a full-service digital marketing agency, which means we offer all the strategies on this list (and more). When you partner with us, you’ll get access to over 28 years of marketing experience that you can harness to drive a lot more revenue.

Interested in partnering with us for our digital marketing services? Just give us a call at 888-601-5359 or contact us online today!