Industrial Marketing Today

JUNE 12, 2010

You are not alone, most business purchases, especially industrial products don’t lend themselves to a simple Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP). This was second only to downloading product data sheets. This was second only to downloading product data sheets. Have you struggled to answer that question?

Sales Management 60

Sales Management Pricing Price Marketing Websites 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 buyers are not looking to engage, they want complete product specifications.

Inbound Marketing 60

Inbound Marketing Paid Search Agency Companies Ad Frequency 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MARCH 1, 2011

What they really want to know is, “are you ready to buy now?”. Salespeople mail out marketing brochures and product datasheets in an effort to maintain a relationship. Prospects are fed relevant content of their choice, in their preferred format and with their permission. Ah, we’ve achieved sales and marketing Nirvana!

Lead Nurturing 60

Lead Nurturing Cold Calling Leads Lead 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JULY 20, 2010

by Achinta Mitra on July 20, 2010 in B2B Marketing Collateral , Content Marketing , Industrial Marketing Strategies , Integrated Industrial Marketing , Sales Strategies To be successful in industrial and B2B marketing, one has to engage with prospects and customers in a meaningful manner. Here’s what it does. Here’s why it’s good for you.

Creativity 60

Creativity B2B Marketing Lead Ranking Lead Scoring 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JULY 12, 2011

Nobody buys product features, they want solutions. However, if you are a manufacturer or an industrial services company, ask yourself this question, why would anyone buy your products or services if they don’t know they have a problem? Industrial and manufacturing marketers are trained to sell solutions. I get that.

Marketing Management 60

Marketing Management Paid Search Agency Comparison Inbound Marketing 60

Industrial Marketing Today

FEBRUARY 12, 2012

Lead nurturing is usually done by sending out helpful content to prospects and moves them from the top of the funnel (ToFU) to the bottom of the funnel (BoFU) where they are ready to make a purchase decision. They are not quite sure what if anything they can create beyond case studies, product data sheets and application notes.

Lead Nurturing 60

Lead Nurturing Sales Management Top of Funnel Sales Qualified Leads 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MARCH 16, 2012

I have to politely disagree with them because “activity is not the same as productivity.” I talk about how the job of inbound marketing does not end with lead generation but extends into setting the table for sales so they can be more productive. To most of these decision makers winning new business is strictly a numbers game.

Lead Management 60

Lead Management Lead Ranking Lead Scoring Sales Qualified Leads 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MARCH 29, 2011

Here’s what’s wrong with that picture: A vast majority of your site visitors are not ready to buy on their first visit. Consider this then, a vast majority of those “tire kickers” will go on to buy from someone else in the next 6 to 10 months or sooner and probably from your competition. I am not making this up just to scare you.

Marketing Websites 60

Marketing Websites Web 2.0 Sales Qualified Leads Lead Nurturing 60

Industrial Marketing Today

OCTOBER 1, 2011

This is when I have to take a step back and start talking about how the job of inbound marketing does not end with lead generation but extends into setting the table for sales so they can be more productive. 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 Scoring 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. In developing a lead scoring system, marketing has to make certain assumptions to classify prospects as hot or not. Lead scoring increases sales productivity and drives revenues.

Lead Ranking 60

Lead Ranking Lead Scoring Sales Qualified Leads Marketing Qualified Leads 60

Industrial Marketing Today

AUGUST 1, 2012

Marketing for these industrial companies has always been a sales support function — put together a PowerPoint presentation for the next sales meeting, create a few posters for an upcoming tradeshow or make the product catalog look “pretty.” Nurture qualified leads that are not ready to buy now with effective content marketing.

Tactics 60

Tactics Planning Paid Search Agency High Quality Lead 60

Industrial Marketing Today

AUGUST 27, 2012

The industrial buy cycle has not changed. There are many ways that digital marketing can help industrial companies make their consultative selling process more productive. This has worked great in the past but the Internet and digital marketing have changed how that process works today. Sources: Frost & Sullivan and GlobalSpec ).

RFP 60

RFP Peer-to-peer High Quality Lead Lead Scoring 60

Industrial Marketing Today

OCTOBER 25, 2011

Use optimized content for inbound marketing to attract qualified prospects (ToFU) and then nurture them with engaging content to convert them into “sales ready” leads (MoFU). Content marketing helps industrial and manufacturing marketers manage their sales funnels from ToFU to MoFU.

Top of Funnel 60

Top of Funnel Marketing Funnels Content Marketing High Quality Lead 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MAY 11, 2010

Lead generation and lead nurturing have been put on the backburner and clients are interested only in finding leads that are ready to buy now (see my previous post, “The Role of B2B Marketing is Shifting from Lead Generation to Revenue Generation.” ). An article I read on Eloqua’s blog “It’s All About Revenue,” shed some light on this.

Sales Cycle 60

Sales Cycle Lead Ranking Marketing Qualified Leads B2B Sales 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JANUARY 21, 2011

It is a balancing act to create content that solves real problems for your readers (prospects and customers) without hawking your products and services. Pushing out blatant product-centric sales messages are sure to turn off your audience. National Semiconductor Corp. billion of sales in 2010. billion of sales in 2010.

Sample 60

Sample Content Sales Qualified Leads Sales Cycle 60

Industrial Marketing Today

SEPTEMBER 12, 2011

Most manufacturers of industrial products agree that digital marketing is essential for their success now and going forward. Existing marketing collateral focuses primarily on the company and its products. I have been asked a few times to scan old product datasheets because that’s all that a particular manufacturer had for collateral.

Paid Search Agency 60

Paid Search Agency Marketing Management Content 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 Brand Identity 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. WHEN : When on the sales cycle do you expect to engage with your prospects?

Email Marketing 60

Email Marketing Planning Web 2.0 BtoB 60

Industrial Marketing Today

OCTOBER 20, 2011

Community members ask questions relevant to their needs, seek answers from others like them, users express their opinions and experiences with your industrial products, teach and learn from one another. By listening carefully they can get a much closer understanding of their customers, how they use and feel about their industrial products.

Communities 60

Communities Paid Search Agency Peer-to-peer Companies 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JUNE 3, 2010

We already have lots of brochures and data sheets to give to our prospects and customers. Learn to connect the dots – many times product managers and engineers have very deep knowledge about their products and the problems they can solve. There’s nothing new we can say on our website.

Marketing Websites 60

Marketing Websites Web 2.0 Work Management Buying Cycle 60

Industrial Marketing Today

NOVEMBER 14, 2010

Setting aside emotions, the key takeaway is and I’m quoting Pragmatic Marketing here, “Ideally, you should use architecture to free yourself from the technical and refocus on how the product solves problems for buyers. Or as Adele would say, “Got a great product? Now that’s a[n] architecture I can believe! Get over it.&#

Advertising Agencies 60

Advertising Agencies Paid Search Agency Work Management CMO 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. Your industrial website must be a true reflection of your company, its products and services. Get together with your sales team, channel partners, product engineers and sales support people.

Marketing Websites 60

Marketing Websites Marketing Budget Creation Budget Programs Marketing Proposals 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MAY 18, 2010

Leave a Comment Previous post: 7 Strategies for Using Content to Market Industrial Products Next post: How to Use a B2B Blog to Win Customers and Influence Prospects FREE Marketing Guides Engineers Can Sell™ White Paper: Most people are skeptical about associating engineers with sales.

B2B Marketing 60

B2B Marketing Web 2.0 Planning Demand Generation Agencies 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JULY 9, 2010

Let’s get one thing straight from the get go, if you are in a declining market with low demand for your products and services, no amount of automation will help you generate new leads. They forgot to first set a strategy that carefully targets prospects with relevant messaging. You need to rethink your business model first and fast.

Marketing Automation Services 60

Marketing Automation Services Lead Ranking Marketing Qualified Leads Marketing Automation 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MAY 3, 2010

Are you pre-selling a product or service? Write about what matters to your readers: You are passionate about your company and want to write everything about its products and services. Make a plan: Even before you start writing content and posting, you need to have a clear set of goals. What do you want the post to do for your company?

Business Blogging 60

Business Blogging Web 2.0 Long Tail Marketing Business 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. Here’s how I see the impact of the changes: Industrial buyers are using more and more online resources for initiating and going deeper into the industrial buy cycle.

Social Media 60

Social Media Social Marketing Media Planning 60

Industrial Marketing Today

MARCH 11, 2011

Tweet The challenge for many industrial marketers is making their content relevant to their prospects and customers. Identifying where a prospect is on the buying cycle is sometimes difficult because there are long periods of silence with little to no online activity to track. Why is industrial content reengineering important?

Relevance 60

Relevance Terms and Conditions Buying Cycle Content 60

Industrial Marketing Today

OCTOBER 26, 2009

A Home page is great for attracting prospects at the top of the sales funnel that may have found your site using generic search terms and are just looking for information on companies in your market. Try to eliminate these bottlenecks on your landing pages because your prospects will be far more critical and suspicious then you are.

Traffic 60

Traffic Lead Scoring Lead Ranking Top of Funnel 60

Industrial Marketing Today

JULY 1, 2010

Buyers of technical products and services do look to vendors for providing relevant information for solving their problems. Even though B2B customers consider product features and price very important, what they are really looking for is a remarkable sales experience.

Marketing Automation Services 60

Marketing Automation Services Web 2.0 B2B Lead Ranking 60

Industrial Marketing Today

AUGUST 24, 2010

You’d arm them with information about your products and how people use them. The chart below shows how engineers and industrial buyers use the Internet in work-related purchases ( Source: 2010 GlobalSpec Industrial Buy Cycle Survey ). Map your content to each stage of the industrial buying cycle. Audit your existing content.

Marketing Websites 60

Marketing Websites Marketing Budget Buying Cycle Web 2.0 60