The Thomas Blog

7 Marketing Mistakes That Manufacturers Make Over And Over Again

After all of the time and resources you’ve invested into your digital marketing engine, you wouldn’t just walk away from the progress you’ve made, would you?

Common mistakes can derail months and even years of hard work. In many cases, the biggest risk is doing nothing at all — no more new content, not following up on industry trends, and not performing due diligence. Unfortunately, we see many companies making the same mistakes over and over again and it can cost them leads, customers, and a lot of revenue.

Here are common manufacturing marketing mistakes you should avoid:

Does Your Manufacturing Company Have A Unique Selling Proposition?

There are tens of thousands of job shops across the country. (As we know — we list many of them on our supplier discovery platform.)

Chances are, some of those suppliers are producing the very same products you are. So how can you stand out from the crowd when customers are deciding between you and your competitors? Start by developing a compelling unique selling proposition.

The Best Days and Times to Call, Email & Post on Social Media: For B2B Manufacturers

With B2B marketing, the adage “timing is everything” applies — well, maybe not “everything,” but it is certainly crucial to successful marketing campaigns.

This is key as the the digital marketing space for US manufacturers becomes more crowded. For instance, did you know that more than 80% of manufacturing marketers promote their presence on social media platforms such as Facebook or LinkedIn?

The Right Mix Of Social Media Content For Manufacturing Marketing

Social media allows industrial professionals another vehicle to connect with their existing client base and showcase their expertise while attracting new prospects. It has been playing an increasingly important role in today's digital transformation of sales and marketing.

Posting regularly on your social media platforms using the right hashtags helps to gain broader brand awareness. But to really get the most out of social media, you need to truly engage your audience.

Unless you stopped paying attention to how humans work when you were back in middle school, you know that talking about yourself nonstop is a terrible way to keep someone’s attention. Likewise, constantly promoting your products and bragging about solely your company is not a sound strategy for manufacturing marketing.

Proper social media marketing requires a commitment beyond the weekly Facebook post or the occasional Twitter retweet. You’ll need to maintain a constant stream of updates and, since you shouldn’t just be talking about your own company 24/7, let's discuss the mix of social media content that has been working for manufacturers and industrial companies.

The Social Media Accounts (And Hashtags!) You Should Be Following

In the digital age, the shop floor isn't the only place that manufacturing puts in work. Today, many industrial companies are incredibly active on social media, sharing their stories and interacting with fans and followers.

If you want to get in on the conversation, or see how a manufacturing company can effectively leverage social media as a sales channel, these are the accounts you want to follow. 

What Does A 404 Error Mean?

At some point in your web browsing life, you’ve undoubtedly come across a 404 error message. You typed in a URL or clicked a link to take you to a new page but suddenly — gasp — “Page Not Found.” 

It’s not uncommon to see these types of errors while you’re surfing the web, but when you find one on your own website, suddenly you’ve got a problem. In this blog post, we’ll go over what a 404 error message means, what it means for your marketing efforts, why websites get them, and what you can do to fix any you may encounter on your industrial website.

Product Sourcing Trends For Q1 2019, As Told By Game Of Thrones

Winter is here (seriously, spring, where are you?), and the first quarter of 2019 is officially over. 

As an industrial company, you are always looking for ways to connect with B2B buyers. But what are those buyers looking for? With less than one week before the final season of Game Of Thrones premieres, we took a look at sourcing activity of some of the most useful elements of Westeros and beyond the wall on the Thomas Network at the end of Q1 to help you answer that question (and possibly win the Game of Thrones).

Battling The Bots On Twitter

In the arena of digital advertising, bots cost companies nearly $17 billion a year by generating billions of fake clicks on ads. However, ad fraud isn't the only way that bots are wreaking havoc on digital marketing strategies (not to mention digital marketing budgets); they also play a massive and malignant role when it comes to social media.

What Is A Pillar Page? (And Why It Matters For Your B2B SEO Strategy)

You’ll hear time and time again that the way people search is changing. People don’t only search by keywords, but full phrases, complete questions, and the use of voice search are increasing with products such as Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.