Industrial Marketing Today

JUNE 5, 2012

In my daily interactions with manufacturing, engineering and industrial companies, inbound marketing or content marketing is a popular topic of discussion. For conversion to happen, you have to match your content to the buyer’s journey, each stakeholder’s role and the current stage on their buy cycle.

Top of Funnel 60

Top of Funnel Content Marketing Planning Buying Cycle 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JUNE 29, 2010

Relevant marketing content – key to thought leadership Positioning your company as a thought leader is critical in complex technical sales that have long buying cycles with many decision makers involved.

Relevance 60

Relevance B2B Marketing Web 2.0 Branding 60

Industrial Marketing Today

OCTOBER 7, 2010

Marketing’s role in interacting with prospects has expanded and goes further into the buy cycle than before. This has resulted in fewer direct interactions with sales reps from vendors. Especially now since industrial and technical buyers are relying more and more on online resources for their decision making process.

Lead Ranking 60

Lead Ranking Lead Scoring Sales Qualified Leads Marketing Qualified Leads 60

Industrial Marketing Today

NOVEMBER 14, 2010

It’s not about making them buy; it’s about giving them the opportunity to buy a solution to s[ol]ve their problem.”. According to a recent study done by the CMO Council and Accenture Interactive , marketing and IT executives do not get along either and don’t believe they are highly effective partners. Hallelujah!

Advertising Agencies 60

Advertising Agencies Paid Search Agency Work Management CMO 60

Industrial Marketing Today

OCTOBER 9, 2012

Blog posts to highlight knowledge of the subject matter(s), create thought leadership and provide direct interaction between readers and in-house experts such as engineers. Even if they tried replicating your content marketing strategy, knowledge, experience and expertise are not easy to buy.

Top of Funnel 60

Top of Funnel Differentiation Lead Ranking Lead Scoring 60

Industrial Marketing Today

DECEMBER 7, 2010

It is a fact of life that the bulk of your site visitors and/or conversions from landing pages are not ready to buy now. This is because of the prevalent trend of industrial buyers using online resources to go deeper and deeper into their buying cycle before engaging with your sales people.

Lead Nurturing 60

Lead Nurturing Lead Generation Sales Qualified Leads Marketing Qualified Leads 60

Industrial Marketing Today

AUGUST 3, 2010

According to them , “customer engagement is the level of involvement, interaction, intimacy, and influence that an individual has with a brand over time.&# In essence, to measure customer engagement accurately, we need to track four components — involvement, interaction, intimacy and influence.

B2B 60

B2B Marketing Analytics Tools Web 2.0 Buying Cycle 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JULY 6, 2010

Home Marketing Matters About Contact B2B Marketing Store Company Website Translate Features into Benefits if You Want Your Marketing Content to Engage and Sell by Achinta Mitra on July 6, 2010 in Content Marketing , Industrial Marketing Strategies , Sales Strategies Marketing 101 teaches you “Customers buy benefits and not product features.”

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Features Web 2.0 Planning Work Management 60

Industrial Marketing Today

OCTOBER 21, 2010

Ardath Albee, CEO of Marketing Interactions , wrote a very interesting post about the unified definition of a high quality lead. Costs less: Lower costs and higher ROI from inbound marketing because there are no built-in costs such as media buys and booth rentals at tradeshows. See my earlier posts on industrial buy cycle ).

Marketing Automation Services 60

Marketing Automation Services Inbound Marketing Marketing Automation Top of Funnel 60

Industrial Marketing Today

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

Marketing gurus tend to talk about opt-in pages, sign up forms, calls to action and interactive squeeze pages to boost your click through and conversion rates. by Achinta Mitra on November 16, 2009 in B2B E-Mail Marketing Do you know the key component of email marketing that generates more high-quality leads and drives sales?

Email Marketing 60

Email Marketing Web 2.0 Planning Opt-in 60

Industrial Marketing Today

OCTOBER 26, 2010

They are: Change in buyer behavior – the B2B buyer is now in control and will only interact with your salespeople on their preferred schedule, probably towards the tail end of their buying cycle. While low cost is very important, I think there are other key reasons for the shift towards inbound marketing.

Marketing Budget Creation 60

Marketing Budget Creation Marketing Budget Inbound Marketing Tactics 60

Industrial Marketing Today

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

Digital marketing has also changed how industrial and technical buyers behave, search and consume information that they need at different stages of the buy cycle. They are time-challenged and want to interact with salespeople based only on their needs and schedules. Solution: Curate content and make it easily searchable.

Social Media 60

Social Media Social Marketing Media Planning 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MAY 1, 2012

Even though this behavior is contrary to how they themselves interact online, they expect their target audience to behave differently. A better content marketing strategy is to focus on answering the needs of your visitors and helping them frame the decision at the very early stages of their buying cycle.

Traffic 60

Traffic Marketing Analytics Tools Buying Cycle Lead Ranking 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MAY 5, 2010

Ardath Albee, CEO of Marketing Interactions, Inc. said it best when she wrote, “Passive reading of your content is not going to help online marketing initiatives shorten buying cycles or increase customer acquisition and revenues.”

Sales Cycle 60

Sales Cycle Web 2.0 Buying Cycle Privacy Policies 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MAY 6, 2011

As an industrial marketing consultant, I interact on a daily basis with engineers and technical professionals from the Automation and Process Control industry. It was reassuring then when the findings from Machine Builder Research and Buying Study 2011 done by Control Design mirrored what I’ve been hearing from my industrial clients.

Design 60

Design Work Management Marketing Management Paid Search Agency 60

Industrial Marketing Today

SEPTEMBER 2, 2012

To create a good content BOM, you or your site design company must have a clear understanding of the following: How engineers and industrial professionals think and want to interact with your site (Make their jobs easier). What kind of content will educate your customers and help them make an informed buying decision (Move away from price).

Design 60

Design Wikipedia Content Sales Qualified Leads 60

Industrial Marketing Today

OCTOBER 25, 2011

Effective content marketing requires developing content that your target audience will find relevant to their needs, roles and the stage that they are at in their buying cycle. See my earlier post, “Inbound Marketing Must Set the Table for Industrial Sales.”.

Top of Funnel 60

Top of Funnel Marketing Funnels Content Marketing High Quality Lead 60

Industrial Marketing Today

AUGUST 26, 2011

After all, every industrial marketer would like hordes of interested visitors swarming to his/her website, eager to sign up for free content and engage in a meaningful conversation at every stage of their buying cycle. These relationships are built over time and require a more personal face-to-face interaction.

Inbound Marketing 60

Inbound Marketing Paid Search Agency Companies Ad Frequency 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MAY 14, 2010

Here are seven content marketing strategies that you can use to engage your prospects and move them forward in their buying cycle. Customize them to suit your particular product line, which makes it much easier to specify and buy your valves. How do you shift the focus from you or your company to your prospects and customers?

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Webinar Metrics Marketing & Strategy Marketing Strategy Product 60

Industrial Marketing Today

OCTOBER 20, 2011

Similar studies have shown that engineers and industrial professionals prefer more peer-to-peer interactions for work-related purposes. Building a community forum is one of the content marketing tactics that you can use to move industrial prospects and leads through their buy cycle.

Communities 60

Communities Paid Search Agency Peer-to-peer Companies 60

Industrial Marketing Today

OCTOBER 1, 2011

Marketing can assign scores to incoming leads based on demographics and site interactions. Marketing should create lead nurturing content that matches the prospects’ needs based on their stage and role in the buying cycle. However, it is sales that actually hears how customers describe their products and services.

Top of Funnel 60

Top of Funnel Inbound Marketing Bulldog Solutions Lead Ranking 60

Industrial Marketing Today

APRIL 30, 2010

Additionally, when marketers create a nurturing program across the buying process, each new lead should start at the beginning of the program with touch 1. This gives the rep a business reason for the call (to offer the content) which is much better than, “Are you ready to buy yet?&# Who has more “Rs&# to add to the list?

Planning 60

Planning B2B Marketing Emarketing B2B 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MAY 26, 2011

However, their biggest impact is in the late stages of the industrial buy cycle and are not very effective in the early phases. Convert static “How to Order” to an interactive configurator: It is standard practice to add a “How to Order” schematic on the back of product data sheets.

Product 60

Product B2B Thought Leadership Cross-Selling Thought Leadership 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MAY 21, 2010

As a B2B marketer, we want to reach our ideal prospects and communicate with customers to maintain top-of-mind awareness throughout their buying cycle. Navigation and your calls to action play a major role in how your visitors interact with your blog. A B2B blog is the perfect online tool to accomplish that.

Web 2.0 60

Web 2.0 Buying Cycle B2B Blogger 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MARCH 23, 2012

That’s because the way your industrial customers interact with you during their buying cycle has changed significantly over the past few years. Today, it is imperative that you consider your industrial website to be as important as your star salesperson.

Marketing Websites 60

Marketing Websites Marketing Budget Creation Budget Programs Marketing Proposals 60

Industrial Marketing Today

OCTOBER 2, 2010

They are combining video, audio and sophisticated tracking tools to deliver email campaigns with highly customized messages that engage prospects in their preferred format and measure interactions beyond just open and click-thru rates and well into website behavior.

Email Marketing 60

Email Marketing Planning Web 2.0 BtoB 60

Industrial Marketing Today

APRIL 11, 2011

The reason is simple; specifying comes before buying in industrial purchases. The single biggest emotion involved in an industrial buying decision is risk aversion. Create an online product configurator that engineers can interact with in real-time to aid in rapid prototyping using different design parameters.

Content 60

Content Marketing Proposals Case Studies Case Study 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JULY 1, 2010

after they surveyed more than 1,200 purchasing decision makers in small, medium, and large companies throughout the United States and Western Europe who are responsible for buying high-tech products and services. These findings were consistent across most B2B industries with complex, multi-touch buying processes.

Marketing Automation Services 60

Marketing Automation Services Web 2.0 B2B Lead Ranking 60