Infographics, short for information graphics are hot right now. Does your design communicate the information clearly? It seems everyone is creating one these days. Infographics have been around for a while and are used to communicate complex concepts visually and easily. If done right, they can be very effective in content marketing for manufacturers and industrial companies. In the early stages of lead generation, you are primarily dealing with “suspects” – people who you have not yet qualified as prospects or leads. Infographics fit the bill the perfectly for this purpose. MORE >>

However, the way potential buyers look for information has. Only 22% of companies surveyed still follow the traditional RFP path, 78% are narrowing the field long before the RFP process, by conducting anonymous web research and relying on information from peers and others via social media venues ( Source: SiriusDecisions ). Make sure your digital content focuses on helping them make an informed decision while moving the needle for you. This has worked great in the past but the Internet and digital marketing have changed how that process works today. MORE >>

These videos may lack the slick, studio quality but the informal approach seems to work well with the target audience. I just finished reading an excellent research report from the good folks at Content Marketing Institute (CMI). This report is chock full of statistics and graphs about B2B content marketing. In this post, I want to focus on some of their findings that I feel apply to content marketing for manufacturers and industrial companies. Many of the manufacturers and industrial companies fall in the smaller size category. That’s not the only good news for blogs. See chart below ). MORE >>

For one thing, you don’t have a ready-library of product data sheets, engineering and performance information to use as relevant content. Convert articles into short informative slides and post them on social sharing networks like SlideShare to reach a wider audience. Are you an in-house marketer or a consultant tasked with promoting engineering services? Then you know very well that it is fundamentally different from marketing industrial and/or manufactured products. By default, many engineering services companies resort to bragging about themselves on their Websites. Moore MORE >>

For example, a site visitor with a very high level of activity (several pages visited including pricing information, downloaded white papers, and viewed online demos) would score high on engagement. phone call or progressive landing pages may be needed to unearth this additional information. A lead is a lead, right? Depends – are you in marketing or in sales? SAL – Sales Accepted Leads is the bridge between Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL) and Sales Qualified Leads (SQL). No, I am not splitting hairs nor am I indulging in semantics. Defining qualified leads. Oh, what a waste! MORE >>