Marketing Goals vs. Marketing Strategy: What's The Difference

Getting digital marketing right isn’t always easy — especially if that marketing is aimed at the manufacturing and industrial sector, which often involves high-volume, high-cost transactions and very long purchase cycles.

The decision-making process in this field is inherently slow, and oftentimes industrial marketers struggle to connect with their audience in a way that moves them through the buying cycle while providing them with directly useful, engaging content.

Setting marketing benchmarks is the only way you’ll be able to achieve scalable growth throughout the next few months and beyond — it’s never too early to start planning your business goals for next quarter or even next month.

To help you plan, we've outlined the difference between marketing goals and a marketing strategy so you can improve yours and connect with higher-quality prospects.

What Are The B2B Buyer Personas In The Manufacturing Industry?

In today’s increasingly digital world, there are numerous ways for manufacturing companies to reach potential buyers — email blasts, eBooks, blog posts, social media, and even SMS texts can all be used to connect with target audiences and increase brand awareness.

Inbound marketing aims to entice your target customers to come to you on their own by providing valuable content that will help them reach their goals. But before embarking on any of these efforts, it’s crucial to fully understand the types of buyers you’re looking to target.

So how do you go about creating the content that will attract the customers you want? Well, that depends on the customers themselves.

How To Become A Supplier For Big Companies

Becoming an approved supplier for a large global company can change your business dramatically, but landing a big customer takes far more than a hello and a handshake.

If you want your company get selected in the buying process, we have insights and tips to share — below, we'll talk about how big companies choose new suppliers, along with what manufacturers and industrial companies can do to increase their chances of earning new business from them. 

Top Suppliers on Thomasnet.com for June 2022

New Suppliers on Thomasnet.com for March 2022

Exciting new B2B companies are being established across the U.S. and Canada every day, and every month, hundreds of them are joining Thomasnet.com^®. We're highlighting ten of the most notable and innovative companies below to bring some of the unique services and products they provide to the forefront.

New and Noteworthy Categories on Thomasnet.com for March 2022

Since industry is constantly growing and evolving, Thomasnet.com^® is too. Our platform has over 75,000 categories of products and services, from alloy to zinc, for professionals like you to source from. And thanks to our industry specialists, we are constantly researching and adding to our platform with new supplier categories to help you keep up with current market trends. 

6 Tips For Improving Quality Control On Your Shop Floor

It doesn't matter how smoothly you operate or what exciting policies you have in place in your operation — there's always room for improvement!

Whether you need to overhaul your quality control program, double check your existing standards, or are just interested in how others are handling theirs, now's the time to do a little spring cleaning and review your quality control.

And we're here to help — in this post, we'll talk through six ways to improve the quality control on your shop floor.

10 Signs Your Manufacturing Website Is Out Of Date

It used to be that simply having a website would set you apart from the competition. You could create a handful of pages, add a little background about the company, sprinkle in some images, set it, and forget it.

But today's world is more digitally connected than ever and if you want your website to be a lead generator, it requires a lot more upkeep—because today, users expect more.

Thus, manufacturers and industrial companies are investing in website efforts because it is proven as a key driver of new business and the centerpiece of growth and digital marketing efforts.

11 Best Industrial Website Design Examples

A great website can be one of your best marketing tools helping to attract prospects, establish trust, capture leads, and ultimately win new business.

Buyers want to learn about your company, products, and services even before they reach out, which is why it's important to have an up-to-date place that has all of your information readily available. (Additionally, according to a recent industrial survey, website usage increased significantly year over year by manufacturers and industrial companies connecting with more buyers and customers!)