Having a solid trade show presence as your biggest marketing tool is no longer enough. In order to stay relevant and profitable in today’s ultra-competitive marketplace, B2B manufacturers need to step up their digital marketing game.
Digital Marketing Provides Data-Driven Results
Just like traditional marketing (think: trade shows, flyers, and mailers), digital marketing means following leads, generating conversions—and ultimately, getting the sale. But here’s where things diverge: a solid digital marketing campaign allows you to deploy a more precision-based tracking system than traditional marketing channels are capable of. In other words, you can choose where to spend your advertising dollars based on hard data that results from a well-executed digital marketing plan.
With the right marketing strategy, you’ll get a clearer picture of your ROI, reliable metrics that allow you to manage your budget and set future goals, and the potential to keep your sales and marketing teams accountable with data-driven performance monitoring.
Your Customers are Digitally Present
Today, nearly everyone has access to the internet, even at work —and in many cases, that internet is in their back pocket, accessible to them at any given moment. According to GlobalSpec’s “2017 Digital Media Use in the Industrial Sector,” 61 percent of industrial professionals visit at least six and often 20 or more work-related websites each week. This translates to at least 50 percent of industrial employees spending six or more hours on websites while at work, and a full 31 percent logging nine-plus hours in work-related activities online. When it comes to finding components, equipment, suppliers, and services, 68 percent use the internet as their primary resource.
Most buyers depend on a vendor’s digital resources (like whitepapers, blog posts, and videos) when they’re at the beginning of their decision-making process—and they hold off making contact with suppliers until much later in the buying cycle. Having a reliable digital marketing strategy equipped with plenty of high-value content means you’ll be better prepared to communicate with your customers while they’re moving through the early stages of the sales funnel.
You Get Better Leads—and More of Them
When you provide relevant, quality content on your website—especially gated content like white papers and webinars, which require the contact info of the customer for access—your site becomes a lead-generating mechanism.
So, the more traffic your website receives from potential customers looking for specific content, the more leads you’ll develop.
But what about the quality of those leads?
Once again, digital marketing provides the benefit of data-driven information. With marketing automation tools like SharpSpring, you can qualify the leads you get using a point-based scoring system: a completed contact form earns 25 points, while a visit to your “About Us” page might only garner 5 points. Essentially, each of your customer’s activities on your site is tallied up for a final score that determines whether they are considered a “quality” lead—and whether they’re worth following up with in the future.
Your Digital Marketing Strategy is Scalable
As you develop, execute, and tailor your digital marketing plan, you’ll become more comfortable with the data and the overall strategy. You’ll get a better sense of what works for your business, and what doesn’t. Ultimately, deciding where to spend your marketing dollars will become second nature.
Since a digital marketing plan is easily customized to suit your business goals, your campaign strategy should align with your needs along the way. It should afford you the ability to ramp up the tactics that are working for you and scrap the efforts that aren’t producing the results you want.
If you need help strategizing for your next digital marketing effort, give us a call to discuss.
