Marketing Blog

Often when we help industrial and manufacturing companies, they want to talk about what their product or service does.

Then it is time for some hard truths.

Frankly, customers don’t care about what your product or service does. I mean, not really. What they care about is what problem your product solves.

Despite talking about this for years, it is still a concern. Nothing derails literature or the content of your industrial website faster.

Why? Because it makes it harder for people to see why they should choose your product or service.

A feature is “Product X moves 6x faster than our competitors.”

Your customer says, “Ok, great, so what?”
Look at it if you were appraising us to build a new website for you.

Here is our “feature” message. “We create websites for industrial companies.”

Ok great, right? But that is just the service we provide. That doesn’t resonate with you necessarily.

So we need to dig deeper.

Why do companies want a new industrial website? It is usually not because they don’t like the look of their current website. No, it’s because their current site is not fulfilling some need.

They want the benefit that a new industrial website gives them. Maybe they want more or better leads, and really they want more sales.

And that is what we are selling. More leads, more sales.

Now you as an industrial company you don’t sell equipment. You sell the solution to a problem. The way you got to market more efficiently is to focus on the problem that you solve and how you help.

Let’s say you sell automated material handling equipment.

What is the real benefit to your customers? Well, it probably focuses on SALT.

You save in decrease labor, space, labor spends and increase throughput.

Good, now we are getting closer to those benefits.

Let’s take our feature from above: “Our product moves widgets 6x more efficiently than our competitor.”

Ok, we are getting closer still. However our customer doesn’t want to move product faster, they want to make their customers happier.

How can distribution make customers happier? Will quicker turn time work?

We then translate, “Our product moves products 6x more efficiently than our competitor.” Into
with product X, you can “cut 3.72 hours off your order to ship time.” Great, that is your benefit, your headline, your message.

Remember people don’t buy what your product can do, but what it can do for them.

Want to learn more about industrial marketing? Download our guide to Industrial Marketing here.

Want to know the most efficient thing you can do on the trade show floor?

End a conversation.

Yep, that’s it. I know in sales that you want to keep the conversation going in the hopes of a deal. However, what are the chances of that happening on the trade show floor?

If you are at a show that creates sales on the show floor, ok great, go ahead keep talking and close.

However, in my experience, that is a few trade shows. Most trade shows are mainly for generating leads and discovering an interest in your product. My theory on trade shows is:Catch and Release

Whether you are in sales, marketing or engineering, this is how the conversation should go. Qualify, Triage, Move on.

You have more people to talk to and they have more booths to visit.

I like the Q&D version of BANT. Yes, I know BANT is a bit outdated, but for a trade show where you have a limited time, it helps you qualify a lead. Then you can know how to triage them.

• Budget
• Authority
• Need
• Timing

As much as I like BANT for live events, I think we should probably rewrite it as:

• Authority
• Need
• Timing
• Budget

I know it is a lot harder to pronounce, but it mimics more closely an actual conversation. Bear in mind that you are not going to be able to fill in all the details on the show floor, but you should be able to get a lot quickly and move on.

Clock starts

0.00

The person coming into the booth says, “Hey nice to meet you my name is Bob. Your solution is interesting, tell me how it works”.

Or a variation on that theme.

You, as the company representative, say something like…

“Hi, Bob. I’m Travis” and then proceed to answer their question.

Then you might introduce yourself in a bit more detail. I work here, and I do this. And they do the same.

Authority: That takes care of “A” to a certain extent. You know who they are what they do and their title. Do you know everything about the inner workings of the company?

No, you don’t.

Do you need to? No.

You should be able to intuit a lot. A director or higher, in most cases, they probably have enough authority to at least get you in the door.

2.19

Need: They came into the booth and asked about the way you solve something, that should transition you into need.

Does your solution fit their application? Do they have a real need that you can meet? I know this can be complicated, but this is a trade show. Try to get the most of the interaction in the least amount of time.

3.49 

Timing: This can be a bit harder. A good question might be;

“So what happens if you can’t solve (the problem you just talked about) in the next 18 months? You might want to vary the timeline depending on your solutions enacting it, sales cycle, etc.

This should give you an idea of whether this is a pressing problem, or just a hmm we should think about this.

5.03

Budget: Budget is the toughest question. That’s why I work it in at the end. You have hopefully developed a bit of rapport with your visitor, but this is still hard. The best way to ask might be,

“Have you assigned any part of your budget to this solution?”

Don’t ask for numbers just try to find out where they are. This tracks more to the urgency as to the money allotted. If you can find out the amount earmarked great, but that can be difficult.

6.15

Now tell your visitor thank you for stopping by, SCAN their badge, and triage them.

That’s it, now move on to the next. Want to learn more about trade show marketing? Download our trade show marketing guide.

I was speaking with a prospect the other day, and they were telling me how they needed more direction in marketing. While they had a small marketing staff, the team was composed of junior staffers and coordinators.

The problem they faced was though they had the need for a marketing director, they didn’t have the budget for a full-time employee.

That’s when I introduced to them the concept of a fractional marketing director. This is a leadership and strategic role that is a contract, not a full-time employee. They offer the expertise of a senior marketing leader with much less expense.

Benefits of a Fractional Marketing Director

• Less expense
• No full-time benefits
• Experience
• Outside perspective

Now hiring for this position is not for everyone. When could your company make the best use of a fractional marketing director?

Junior Staff: In the case presented above, the small marketing staff was young and could benefit from the experience of a senior staffer.

They didn’t have the expertise to create strategies for the long term. The staff also lacked the experience in building core messages while keeping them consistent across the company.

Skill Set: Perhaps you have a marketing team where skills lie more towards graphics or design, rather than overall leadership. A fractional marketing director could be useful to get everyone on the team pulling together.

A marketing manager’s strongest role is to unify all of the marketing efforts and make 1+1=3.

Outside Perspective: When you bring in a new employee you have a fresh perspective on your company, but that quickly fades as the new employee is pulled into the day-to-day of the business. However, a fractional marketing director spends most of their time outside your company. They can bring a new, fresh perspective to your overall marketing needs.

Variable Needs: Let’s say that you have a new division that needs a marketing plan to integrate into the rest of the company’s message. Or you have a large project like a tradeshow or website build that requires the attention of a senior marketing person, but it only will last for a pre-defined period.

This would be an excellent time to look at a fractional marketing director. They can work for that predetermined time for that project, and then you no longer have the expense after. A marketing leader is even more helpful when no one else has the bandwidth or expertise to run the project and get the ROI.

Transition: In the transition time as you grow to have a full-time senior marketer, you can take advantage of the service of a fractional leader. It can give you the benefit of an experienced marketer before you have the expense of a full-time marketer.

Want to talk more about a fractional marketing leader? Contact 366 Marketing here about our fractional marketing director services.

Content creation is a pretty big deal in industrial marketing. You can recycle old content and create new innovative content. You can lead people to your site, resulting in more leads and opportunities from content marketing.

So why do we think that content creation is a poor industrial marketing strategy? Well because it is not a strategy at all.

It is a tactic.  People try to transform it into a strategy, but it falls short. Hint: SEO is not a strategy either, it is a tactic. A good tactic, but only a tactic. A strategy is an overarching plan that hinges all of your tactics together and makes them all stronger together.

So we are going to explain how you can transform this tactic into a strategy that has a significant ROI.

1. Make it Cohesive: At heart, content marketing is a part of your story. Content marketing needs to be a part of your consistent theme and should tell a story across all of your channels.

At the center of your content marketing is your website. Your offers and your blog need to be consistent. You need to have all the horses pulling the same way.

Let’s say for the first quarter of 2017 you want to push your solutions for industrial engineering companies. So talk about that. You need to build content to help industrial engineering companies. Information that they would find interesting, valuable and share-worthy.

2. Keyword Research: To make a cohesive strategy you need a keyword plan for your content marketing. Instead of just creating an article about your company being a leader in industrial extrusion, it might be a better strategy to focus on industrial aluminum extrusion in North Carolina.

You won’t know what is going to be a better keyword until you do the research.

3. Audience Research: You don’t know your audience. In creating content, you need to know for whom you are creating the content. The worst idea is to build content looking inward. vs. creating content looking outward. 

4. Distribution: You’re not distributing it correctly via social or email. If you create great content but no one sees it are you doing content marketing? I would say no. You need to get eyeballs (the right eyeballs) on your content for it to do any good.

Look at your social media. Are you using the channels that your customers use or the ones with which you are comfortable? If you use the ones your clients can take advantage of, you are going to be able to get a much better response and click through rate.

Are you sending emails that highlight your offers? Email is a great way to get your content in front of prospects and customers. However, growing your list and making sure you are presenting the right content takes a strategy that goes beyond content marketing.

5. Smart Software: Content marketing is the production of fantastic (hopefully) content that will appeal to your target audience. However, it doesn’t expand to what sort of smart software you are running in the background. To transform your content marketing into a more comprehensive inbound strategy, you need smart software that helps you.

Want to learn more about how to turn your content marketing tactic into a strategy? Download our guide to content marketing.