Outbound marketing works, especially for giant international corporations with deep pockets. For manufacturing businesses of all sizes, there is no question that implementing inbound marketing for manufacturing companies is an effective and affordable alternative or complement to outbound marketing. Manufacturing businesses, in fact, have a number of special attributes that make inbound marketing ideal.
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Just like many manufacturing businesses, inbound produces 24x7.
Many (if not most) manufacturing businesses today realize increased profitability and reduced lead times by operating multiple shifts. It only makes sense. You have resources that are otherwise sitting idle and not producing. Shouldn't your marketing do the same thing? Unlike outbound mass media marketing, whose impact is over in seconds and must be constantly repeated (and paid for) in order to continue to produce, inbound marketing works around the clock, and unlike outbound marketing, the cost is largely unaffected by the airtime or placement. It is available any time a prospect has interest in your product line. -
Inbound can respond to prospects' questions without impacting production.
Your customers have questions. Their decision-making process involves educating themselves on the multitude of options and variables. Inbound marketing is all about anticipating and answering those prospective buyers' questions, and nurturing the relationship through the buying process all the way to conversion. Outbound marketing, by contrast, is largely incapable of providing answers to their questions. In the rare instance that a prospect responds directly to a traditional advertisement, someone on your team has to drop what they're doing in order to provide the answers the prospect needs. Salespeople (claim to) love these opportunities to sell, but the truth is, more often than not, if the prospect can't find the answers on your website, they aren't likely to call... and the lead is lost. -
Buyers' behaviors are changing and inbound marketing is more closely aligned with the way they want to buy.
Word-of-mouth is still the best salesman. And there's no doubt that keeping a customer, or getting repeat business is important and extremely profitable. You need to employ strategies that maximize both, while attracting and engaging with prospects who may only know of your name (or may have never even heard of you). The days of profitably blasting the airways and print publications with clever ads and hoping to see a wave of new business are over. Your buyers are more sophisticated and skeptical, and the next generation of buyers have little regard for brand loyalty and the good-old-boy network. These new buyers will research all of their options from the comfort of their desk without ever picking up a phone, define and refine their options, and many times make buying decisions without ever talking to a saleperson. Inbound marketing strategies make sure your company is found on search engines, and content marketing anticipates and addresses the specific needs of these buyers. By presenting them with options and coaching them through the decision-making process, you increase the efficiency of your sales generation process and close more sales. -
Inbound marketing is cost effective for manufacturing.
Because inbound marketing works 24x7, responds to buyers' needs, and is more closely aligned with the way they prefer to shop and buy, it tends to be much more cost effective than traditional outbound marketing. Outbound tends to be expensive, largely because it works only when the ad is running... and no matter how many times your prospective buyers have seen an ad, they simply don't take action based upon ads these days. Inbound marketing not only works around the clock, but it has enormous staying power. A single, high-quality piece of online content can serve to answer questions and generate leads for years. While we may remember some of the more creative ads we've seen in years past, rarely (if ever) does that memory motivate us to take action. By producing video demonstrations of your production processes and products in action, manufacturing companies can often realize even more benefits from content than other types of businesses whose products or services are less easily demonstrated visually. -
Like your manufacturing processes, inbound is monitored daily, and problems/opportunities are identified and acted upon quickly.
Inbound marketing is extremely agile, and revelations about what will attract and hold the attention of prospects are readily converted into action quickly and effectively. The expectation of perfection on the part of consumers is less with inbound, and still, errors can often be identified and remedied long after the initial release. With inbound, content can be changed or created in direct response to consumer feedback within minutes, hours, or days. Outbound marketing involves lengthy planning and production cycles, and to get the best deals, marketers secure placement in bulk, well in advance, so they are held hostage by publishers/broadcasters schedules. With outbound, last minute changes or shifts in direction are nearly impossible, and when attempted, often result in errors. Just as it is critical in manufacturing to be able to respond quickly to production problems, shouldn't your marketing be able to do the same? With inbound, you can!
Is Inbound Marketing Right for Manufacturing?
If you are in manufacturing and have yet to commit to inbound marketing and content marketing, you are almost certainly behind your competition (or soon will be). It's important to have a written strategy that can inform and focus your efforts. Since we committed to inbound marketing, we have seen the benefits of inbound marketing for manufacturing companies firsthand. As a top inbound marketing agency in Springfield, MO and Certified HubSpot Partner, we'd love to help you, too.
