The Thomas Blog

Why Manufacturing Brand Marketing Is So Important

When it comes to branding, the major players probably come to mind first — Amazon, Coca-Cola®, Disney, and so on. The strength of their name recognition is immense. When these names come up, you immediately see their logo, and even if the logo doesn’t bully its way into your brain, you at least know what they’re selling. It doesn’t matter whether you consume their products or not; you know them. They’ve seared your mind with a branding iron. (See what we did there?)

Many manufacturing and industrial companies, however, don't think that they need to worry about branding. They prefer to rely on word of mouth and referrals to attract new business, and they feel that branding isn't important in their space. 

But there's a better way to grow your business.

Leveraging Omni-Channel Marketing To Get Specified

Today’s marketing world is filled with many terms and buzzwords. From acronyms like “KPI” and “CTR” to rising industry trends like “big data” and “hyperlocal,” sales and marketing leaders in the manufacturing space constantly find buzzwords left and right. So when you come across the word “omni-channel,” you may be quick to dismiss it.

That would be a mistake.

What Can B2B Industrial Marketers Learn From B2C Companies?

When it comes to marketing, many manufacturers put themselves in a very narrow box, focusing on niche messaging — and niche strategies — to get the job done. As a result, you can end up looking, sounding, and acting a lot like your competitors. 

Business-to-business (B2B) marketing is designed for a complex process of consideration and comparison way of communication, often with heavy emphasis on cost or time-savings and efficiency — which makes sense since these products and services are often more expensive with longer purchasing cycles than those sold directly to consumers. Business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing, on the other hand, has greater flexibility to be light, creative, and even play to consumers’ emotions rather than pure logic.

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:

How To Plan A New Product Launch With Digital Marketing

Business owners are familiar with building their own go-to-market strategy. It's the official plan of how a new product gets launched, who the target audience is, the marketing plan, and sales strategy. But each product, industry, and market are different — especially in the manufacturing and industrial world. And with the move toward a digital transformation of sales and marketing, are business owners missing out on the opportunity of incorporating digital efforts into their go-to-market strategy?According to a small business survey done by Thomas, only 15.69% of small businesses in the U.S. are using digital marketing as a primary marketing tactic and 30% are still using word-of-mouth.

The following steps outline how to plan your new product launch with digital marketing and newer better methods of growth.

Does Your Industrial Company Need a Marketing Agency? (Take The Quiz!)

With all of the uncertainties that exist in today's manufacturing world, there's one thing that's guaranteed: Agencies will cold call and email you to try and sell you their marketing services. And it makes sense — industrial companies are set up for successful marketing programs and typically don't even know it.

After decades of relying on word-of-mouth referrals to bring in new business, you might be hesitant to bring in someone new to your process. But marketing agencies can be very helpful in generating qualified leads and helping your sales team close your dream customers. But if you don't have certain goals or a budget to put behind their services, how will you know what's worth your time and how to spend your money effectively?

5 Steps To Begin Successful Industrial Marketing

Inbound marketing drives customers to your business’ products and services through a coordinated strategy of design, content, social media, and SEO tactics. Most manufacturing and industrial companies may think that inbound marketing is something that would be more suited toward consumer goods and B2C rather than the industry space. But with the digital transformation of sales and marketing, successful B2B companies are now seeing marketing as a direct influence on revenue generation and more manufacturers are aligning their efforts with today's digital world.

In fact, most industrial manufacturers are practically already set up for an inbound marketing program — they just don’t know it yet.

How To Meet The Needs Of B2B Industrial Buyers

No matter what your role is — sales, marketing, operations, or leadership — you have a lot to accomplish.

So do your buyers. 

By understanding what your buyers have on their plates, you can more easily accomplish one of the most important things on yours — generating more leads. Here’s what you should know to meet their needs and create more meaningful connections to win more business.

Customer Delight: How To Ace The Last Phase Of Inbound Marketing

Buyers often encounter different challenges every day, and each phase of the buying process has opportunities (using inbound marketing!) for suppliers like you to position yourself as the best partner. 

Inbound marketing is defined as the data-driven approach to marketing that attracts people to your brand, engages them, and converts them to lasting customers. The approach is multi-channel and accounts for where people are, and how they want to interact with you using the main driver of quality content. It allows you to bring visitors into your site through various forms of channels like blogs, email marketing, and social media.

Unfortunately, a lot of marketers don’t even consider this last element of inbound marketing after the sale is made. That phase — customer delight — is perhaps one of the most important of all.