Manufacturers have an interesting position in the B2B supply chain. In particular, manufacturers of high-tech and high-value goods face unique challenges in selling to demanding buyers. In the past, you could often gain momentum and grow just by getting a great product.
Today, however, manufacturing sales are changing drastically due to rapid demographic changes. Modern buyers prefer to conduct 67% of their research in-house digitally. The way they choose vendors and products has been completely disrupted by the internet. Thanks to companies like Amazon, buyers now expect the same online experience from all of their trading partners. Even if it's a small business.
Having led marketing within manufacturers for many years and now working as a consultant and agent, I've seen many common marketing mistakes manufacturers make. Many of these mistakes can be a fatal blow to sales and revenue growth.
In this article, we'll identify the 6 most common mistakes B2B manufacturers make, explain why they cause so much damage, and show you how to avoid them.
Manufacturers will eventually sell one or more products, so it makes sense for marketing to focus on promoting and selling those products. Right?
Not exactly. Yes, manufacturers must be able to describe, specify, and ultimately sell their products. However, only a few buyers go out in search of specific products. Buyers start with an issue, research that challenge, and only after that, begin reviewing and identifying specific products.
One of the biggest mistakes I've seen is manufacturers focusing all their manufacturing on creating data sheets, brochures, catalogs, etc. This is great for helping the 5% of buyers who are ready to buy right now. However, ignoring the remaining 95% will cause the business to miss out on a large portion of the market.
I'll give you two specific examples from my actual experience.
Aquion Energy is a rapidly commercializing manufacturer, and its main investor was Bill Gates. We were commercializing new solutions in a not-so-new market. It's a battery that uses new technology that's completely renewable and clean.
But the challenge here is that buyers don't usually go looking for flashy new technology. They begin research to solve problems and only then narrow it down to technology.
In our case, these batteries are designed to store solar energy generated during the day, so that electricity is supplied at night when the sun is not out.
Our customers often began their research with research such as “solar energy storage” and “energy storage.” They realized they had a challenge (solar power only works when the sun wasn't out) and were looking for a solution. At this point, even if they tried to get in touch with spec sheets or brochures, business would have been lost. They weren't prepared to prepare product materials, so they wanted to be educated about the challenges and their solutions. Even if data sheets, brochures, etc. were provided, they were inconsistent, useless, and there was a possibility of loss of business.
That's why we've created one of the most active blogs in the industry, full of educational and helpful content. We've become a trusted source of research buyers, and by doing so, we've earned four times more leads than when we started.
Nord-Lock is a world leader in bolt technology and has developed industry-leading fasteners that prevent bolts from loosening due to vibration. Bolt loosening is a major engineering challenge and is extremely costly both economically and in terms of safety.
Many engineers already knew the name, but they were struggling to reach and sell to people who didn't know us. The company had great brochures and sales materials, but when engineers experienced loose bolts, they needed to do a lot of research for that information to be useful.
When they begin to notice issues, buyers ask, “Why do bolts loosen?” You might ask. or “What should I do to keep the bolts from loosening?” Again, brochures and catalogs don't help solve this problem.
Instead, we've started creating content to help educate people about things that have nothing to do with our products. We have created a detailed e-book called “Why Bolts Loosen”. In this book, I explained why bolts loosen in technical terms and introduced all the different solutions available, including our own.
By not talking about our company or our products at all and taking a friendly and educational attitude, we were able to solve the initial challenges buyers had. And by gaining trust early on, they started thinking about us when they were ready to buy our products.
“Outbound marketing is a traditional marketing method aimed at delivering a message to potential customers. This is costly, and the ROI is much lower than inbound marketing.”
Manufacturers may experience this trap more than any industry I've ever worked in. In case you don't know, outbound marketing is “a traditional marketing method that attempts to spread a message to potential customers.” Think trade shows, advertisements, and cold calls. On the other hand, inbound marketing “attracts customers by creating valuable content and experiences tailored to customers.”
When most manufacturing leaders think about marketing, the things that immediately come to mind are trade shows, events, and advertisements. The challenge is that today, people are more equipped than ever to eliminate ads and other intrusive forms of marketing. Ads work, but they need to “deliver the right message to the right place at the right time.” Also, as mentioned above, simply posting a product advertisement when only 5% of buyers are looking for a product makes it certain that the advertisement will attract attention and return will not be obtained.
Inbound marketing is about building trust. And when you help buyers do all the research on inbound marketing, that trust pays off. That's because they often choose to buy from you rather than a competitor.
Sales is critical to the growth of every organization, yet manufacturers often overlook marketing and invest heavily in sales instead. If you find yourself in this situation, you might want to reconsider.
Buyers these days usually need to do a lot of research before talking to a sales rep. In fact, according to extensive Forrester research, 67% of today's B2B surveys are conducted digitally without sales support. Buyers are deliberately choosing to use the internet to conduct their own research.
Also, if you want to be considered by buyers after an investigation, you need to make sure that your company gets up and running during the investigation phase. The main reason to invest in marketing is to raise company awareness, provide useful educational content, and help people choose to buy from you. If your brand doesn't come to mind when buyers go through this research process and are ready to buy, your business will eventually flow to the competitor that came to mind.
More and more new generations are taking control of decision making. Until now, sales and customer relationships have been key to closing deals and growing profits. Today, these things aren't that important, and buyers prefer self-service online experiences.
This trend is being boosted by companies like Amazon, which have trained people to research and buy what they need on demand on their desktops and smartphones, receive excellent customer service, and deliver within 2 days.
In fact, nearly a decade ago, Forrester predicted that self-service click-through rate data would replace 1 million US sales representatives. This trend only accelerated in the 2020s.
This demand for self-service online solutions extends throughout the buyer journey. Buyers expect an Amazon-like experience from start to finish, whether they're researching or ready to buy right now. Otherwise, customers are more likely than ever to move their business elsewhere.
Are manufacturing companies meeting the expectations of these new buyers?
CRMs like HubSpot are really essential to growing manufacturing companies, yet they're one of the least likely companies to use them. There are several reasons why CRIT is so important.
First, it's important to have a central location where sales and marketing efforts can be tracked. One of the worst things I've seen in manufacturing is that when sales people change jobs, they just take their work books with them. This can be completely prevented by simply letting everyone on the sales team track leads and deals in a centralized CRM.
Additionally, using CRM, investment implementation results can be accurately tracked and measured. If you're spending money on ads and trade shows but aren't sure if it's paying off, CRM is the missing piece of the puzzle.
One of the hardest calls I get these days is when someone asks, “Can you take over my email marketing?” That's when asked. or “Can you help me get more followers on LinkedIn?”
In marketing, sending emails, posting on LinkedIn, and writing blog posts are called tactics. And I can't tell you how many manufacturers are obsessed with one of these tactics because they've seen competitors do it, made it the talk of the day, and have seen it fail miserably.
Manufacturers should only implement tactics that support a larger strategy, and that strategy should be tied to business goals.
You could say, “Let's send more emails to our customers.”
This is another way of saying it. “Our business goal is to increase repeat customers by 30%. To support that, let's adopt a strategy of sending promotions and sales lists to existing customers every month.”
Having been in this business for close to 20 years, there is one thing that has been consistently true. This means that tactics carried out without a clear purpose as part of an overall strategy will inevitably fail.
One of the most exciting things about marketing as a manufacturer is that the entire industry tends to lag behind marketing trends and practices. There's no need to start over to grow your B2B manufacturing company through marketing. All you need to do is learn what has worked well in other industries and adapt it appropriately to your own business.
The overall theme here is to provide a great customer-centric experience. Customer expectations and needs have changed over the past decade. To be successful in this environment, you too must evolve.
You can outperform your competitors and grow your manufacturing business by building a solid buyer journey that helps customers from the time they begin their research until they're ready to buy.