5 Important Marketing Tactics To Fine Tune This Summer

Traditionally, activity slows way down in the industrial manufacturing sphere during the summer months; owners take time off to see their families and enjoy the nice weather, employees make use of vacation days, and plants shut down for weeks or even months at a time to complete scheduled maintenance and repairs. 

While it can be tempting to follow suit and kick back, industrial marketers should take advantage of this downtime. Use it as an opportunity to fine tune your marketing strategy and lead conversion tools in order to put your company in the best position to succeed when activity picks up in the fall.

Not sure where to begin? Here are five marketing tactics you can focus on improving this summer.

1. Irresistible Offers

Content offers serve as the centerpiece of your campaign. No matter what channels or promotional tactics you’re using to get your message out to a target audience, they’ll be useless if you’re not driving to an enticing offer. In addition to traditional eBooks, infographics, and whitepapers, also consider creating more dynamic offers like webinars, CAD drawings, calculators, and free trials or memberships. 

To persuade a user to fill out a form (another important tactic we’ll get to in a bit), your offer must be considered valuable. One of the best ways to enhance the perceived value of your offer is to tap into an element of scarcity; on your next big piece, consider creating a sense of urgency by limiting the time your offer will be available, the number of resources available for users, or both. You might just convince someone on the fence to say “yes.”

2. Captivating Calls to Action

Once you’ve developed an irresistible offer, you need to actually drive people to it with an enticing call-to-action (CTA). Like your content offer, the CTA must be captivating, or people will never make it to the landing page.

Best practices for drawing a reader’s eye to your CTA include using contrasting colors, promoting offers on product pages, and placing the call-to-action “above the fold” of a webpage. We’ve also found that successful CTAs prioritize clarity and specificity. Instead of a generic “Download Now,” button, be specific about the offer. If it’s a free guide, for example, you might say, “Download our FREE guide to X.” Telling users exactly what to expect will increase the chances of conversion.

There are countless ways to experiment with CTAs. Why not try out a few new tacks this summer?

3. Landing Pages That Convert

After clicking on a captivating CTA, visitors are directed to a landing page, where they are encouraged to share personal information in exchange for an irresistible offer. The biggest challenge here is keeping them on the page so they ultimately do convert. Start by removing the main navigation and any additional links that could distract or send users elsewhere; you want prospects to focus solely on filling out the form.

As for the content on the landing page, less is more. Create a clear headline that conveys the value of your offer, followed by a brief paragraph and a few bullet points outlining what visitors will receive. If your current landing pages are wordy or cluttered, take time this summer to perform an audit. Check your content against industry best practices to ensure your pages are optimized by the time business picks back up in the fall.

4. Forms

To submit or not to submit? That’s what users are asking themselves when presented with a form. So how can you reduce your drop-off rate and convince users of the value in submitting? First, the form length should be appropriate for the perceived value of the offer. Someone who’s just beginning their search for a transformer isn’t going to feel comfortable filling out 12 fields before downloading a transformer selection guide like from someone at Triad Magnetics. A repeat visitor who has downloaded multiple content offers in the past, however, will probably be more willing to provide personal information as they get closer to making a purchase.

Finding the sweet spot with form length takes time and testing. Consider developing a few templates over the summer to try an A/B test on your next offer. You could also play around with different fields in smart forms to progressively profile repeat visitors and segment your contact list.

5. Channels

The job isn’t done once the offer lives on your website. In addition to optimizing your site for positive UX and reduced drop-off, you’ll want to leverage several platforms to get your message out to the world. Multichannel lead generation will help you find your target audience where they’re most comfortable, simplifying their research, evaluation, and purchasing processes.

Blogging is one of the best ways to boost your organic search rankings as well as generate new leads. In fact, companies that blog six to eight times per month double their lead volume. Front-loading your blog content while you have some downtime over the summer can help in maintaining a regular posting schedule throughout the rest of the year.

Email marketing and social media can also be valuable for generating new leads. If you nurture your prospects by providing helpful — not promotional — content through these channels, you can open up dialogue and begin building a loyal following.

Final Thoughts

Want more tips on how to jumpstart your lead generation efforts over the summer? Contact us today.