The manufacturing industry doesn’t cater to the average consumer. Rather, their bread and butter are other industries.
You’re making products for them to sell. Which means your business needs to cater to a B2B clientele.
There’s a bit of a difference between marketing to the average citizen and another business. Which is why you need to have a B2B website that shows off your strengths to other businesses.
Here are five ideas to help your manufacturing company beat out the competition.
1. Use Branding in Everything You Do
Your brand should be your number one priority in all your marketing efforts. That includes your B2B website.
Determine what your company’s values are. Figure out what separates your company from your competition. One way to do that is to read, “The Purple Cow” by Seth Godin.
Get a logo that’s memorable. Don’t overcomplicate it.
Make sure that whatever your brand is, all your employees are fully aware of it. Their number one goal is to promote your brand with everything they do.
That includes how they answer the phone, what they wear to work, and how they present themselves to potential clients.
The content on your B2B website should always be aligned with your brand. It makes your company much more memorable.
2. Make the Most out of Content Marketing
It doesn’t matter if you’re selling directly to a consumer or you’re targeting another business, content marketing matters.
Start a blog. Share your expertise with other businesses. You’ll easily be able to set yourself apart from your competition.
You’ll also set yourself up as the expert in your industry.
But with a B2B website, a blog isn’t the only content you need to be concerned with. Use keywords that a business searching for your services might use to find you.
Check out your competition. See what keywords they’re using. Note what they’re writing about.
Use links. There are internal links and external links. Internal links are useful because they can highlight pages that aren’t often seen.
External links are powerful when you link to professional sites that back up what you’re writing about. Try linking to your customers if it works well with the content you’re writing about.
Don’t forget to make sure your content is shareable. There should be links to social media sites so visitors can share the content to their own social media pages.
Don’t forget that great content isn’t just for your clients. Search engines also reward websites with great content.
Make sure it’s optimized to get the most out of SEO.
3. Even a B2B Website Should Use Social Media
Social media isn’t just for finding your regular consumer. A B2B website should also be using social media to find their client base.
Two excellent social media sites are LinkedIn and YouTube. LinkedIn is specifically designed for businesses to find one another.
Make sure to fill out the profile entirely. You can also provide links to your blog and videos as well.
Also, any awards your company may have won can be featured here.
YouTube may not immediately come to the minds of most manufacturing companies, but it should. Use of video is growing in popularity.
Just don’t forget to include quality content and remember to make the most out of your brand. Let other companies know what your manufacturing company can do for them.
But don’t forget about Twitter and Facebook. They’re both great ways to market your business.
Facebook can help you easily identify your target markets. They also have reasonable advertising rates for any budget.
No matter which social media site you choose to put your business on, establish a purpose. Have goals set in place prior to getting on social media. This may be to gain leads, attract followers, or boost engagement.
Make sure they’re specific, measurable, and attainable. Don’t forget that each goal should have a time limit on it.
Check the data and analytics to see if your goals are being met.
Get Feedback
Social media is also a great way to get customer feedback. Don’t be shy to reach out to your customers and find out what they like best about your company.
Don’t be afraid to address any problems or questions they have about your product.
If you’re developing a new product, using social media is a great way to get feedback before you introduce the product to the market.
4. No Site is Complete Without Photography and Videos
Photography makes a B2B website come alive. It also makes the content more memorable.
While social media is a great place to post videos, don’t forget about your B2B website.
Photos and videos are a great way to feature your products. They can also feature your employees.
Show people the great team you have. It’s part of branding your company.
Post videos on your website that answer frequently asked questions. You can also talk about how to use certain products properly.
The more visitors are engaged with your website, the more likely they are to want to become clients.
You can also use both photography and videos as part of your content. Don’t forget to use keywords within both of these mediums.
5. Post Client Testimonials
Every business knows that people don’t buy from businesses. Even if you’re in the manufacturing business, your clients want to buy from people they can trust.
That’s where posting client testimonials on your B2B website comes in handy. It will show other businesses considering working with you how successful you’ve been at making your other customers happy.
There are two options for posting testimonials.
You can share written testimonials from your clients. But you can also include video testimonials. Video testimonials are great because they tend to make more of an impression than written testimonials.
You can also post those testimonials on social media.
Trust in the Best
It’s always best to work with professionals when coming up with a great website design.
You may know how to manufacture goods and products. But you don’t know how to design a great website. We do. See which plans work best for your company’s needs.
