Marketing in Camouflage: Native Advertising for Manufacturers
by Emily Swet
Native advertising for manufacturing brands can be a mighty tool in your marketing arsenal. And with native predicted to drive 74% of ad revenue by 2021, it’s worthy of consideration. Let’s take a closer look at the basics of native advertising to see if it’s a good fit for your manufacturing brand.
First, What Is Native Advertising?
Native advertising is an ad format that looks like the editorial content around it. It’s different from content marketing, which is unpaid and lives on your website and social channels. Instead, native ads are paid placements in publications (or their online counterparts) that offer other value to your customers.
A sample of native advertising on Buzzfeed.
Isn’t That Just a Fancy Word for an Advertorial?
Advertorials are similar: longer-form ads written in an editorial style to evoke the same experience as a publication they are placed in. You’ve likely heard of them – they’ve been around since the 1940s (and are the precursor to today’s infomercial). Advertorials are generally much more promotional. They usually focus on the benefits of the product/service being offered and often push to sell.
In contrast, native ads usually focus on highly targeted content from which the reader can gain value. There is less emphasis on the product behind the article, and no sales pitch. Brands gain value in return by positioning themselves as thought leaders in their industry, building trust and brand affinity.
What Are the Benefits?
- They Are Appealing. Consumers view native advertising more often then banner ads.
- They Are Empowering. When done correctly, native ads give prospects the power to find solutions to their problems.
- The Leads Are Good. Because the content is relevant and highly targeted, you get more high-quality leads. This is particularly true if you are putting native ads on the sites of niche trade publications.
What Are the Drawbacks?
- Scalability. Producing native ads can be demanding. Each ad needs to look and sound like part of its environment. That means you risk authenticity or value, especially under a deadline, if you push for quantity.
- It can be perceived as deceptive. People don’t want to be tricked. There’s a delicate balance: your content must flow naturally with the publication. But you also can’t leave your reader feeling betrayed when they notice it’s sponsored. Your content should be relevant and insightful or useful in some way.
- One bad apple spoils the bunch. There are plenty of brands creating native ads that are simply too promotional. This makes some consumers leery of native ads in general. But according to Forbes, standards for native are set to increase, making it necessary for advertisers to follow rules and regulations.
What Does This Mean for Your Brand?
To conclude, native advertising can fall right in your prospect’s wheelhouse – if it’s done right. Offer something useful to your buyer from the outset, and you’ll build loyalty and name recognition. (And pull them into your sales funnel.) But like any kind of advertising, native ads require expertise, testing, and evaluation to monitor your success rates.
Continue ReadingWhy Manufacturing Companies Need More Touchpoints in Their Marketing
by Emily Swet
So, the bad news: the new reality for manufacturers is that to be successful, B2B marketing campaigns are going to take a bit more effort. According to Forbes, nurture cycles are getting significantly longer – so B2B manufacturing companies need more touchpoints in their sales funnel before hitting a conversion. Unfortunately, this means you might have to make your marketing mix work a bit harder to be more effective.
The good news: simply put, what challenges you changes you – and usually for the better. There’s real opportunity to arm your manufacturing company with a campaign that both acknowledges and works with these trends.
How? Start Here.
- Look Back: Analyze the data from your past campaigns to get a correct view of what worked, what didn’t, how long the cycle was, and how many touches were needed to convert.
- Look Forward: Use your historical conversion data to get a better understanding of the challenges that lie ahead and how you can circumvent them.
- Then Look Side to Side: Who is creating your content? Is it their forte, or is an employee doing double duty wearing another hat that doesn’t quite fit? Make it worth your time, effort, and spend by getting a pro on your side.
- Make a Plan: Map out an intuitive content calendar that addresses these longer cycles and how you’ll nurture your prospects within them. If your audience engages with a video, what will be the next thing they see? If you capture their email, what is the most compelling piece to arrive next in their inbox? You can make your content do double duty this way.
- Develop and Deliver: Create content that is valuable – helpful or interesting to your audience – and capitalize on social media, visual content, and thought leadership pieces.
These longer nurture cycles seem daunting, and there’s a lot of noise in the content space right now. But that’s exactly why manufacturing companies need more touch points – and valuable ones at that – along the way. Need a hand getting started? Drop us a line.
Continue ReadingB2B Monday Myth: My Company Doesn’t Need Visual Content
by MGB2B
The Myth: My Company Doesn’t Need Visual Content
The Truth: B2B Brands Should Increase Emphasis on Visual Content Marketing
Now more than ever, our world is flooded with content. This leaves B2B brands struggling to have their voice heard in a crowded marketplace and stand out from competitors. Well maybe it’s time to focus less on being heard and more on being seen.
Simply put, visuals help us to remember things. According to HubSpot, when people hear or read information, they’re probably only going to remember 10 percent of that information three days later. But if a relevant image is presented with that same information, people retain 65 percent of the information after the same three days. This statistic has huge implications. Many people think visuals are only important for consumer brands — but these rules are universal. Visual content is just as important in targeting B2B brands as it is for a clothing or lifestyle brand.
HubSpot also indicated that only 50 percent of B2B markets are treating visual content as a priority. So how can you make your company stand on the right side of the divide? Worry not — there are some simple ways you can incorporate visual content into your plan that don’t require too much time, money or resources.
Here Are Four Tactics to Get You Started:
Infographics. If you’re looking to shift your focus to visual content but want to keep your marketing as informational as possible, the infographic is still one of the most effective visual content formats. Studies show that our eyes are drawn to information that encompasses visuals. In fact, infographics are “liked” and shared on social media three times more than other types of content.
Instagram. Many B2B brands have shied away from Instagram in the past. But it is gaining more popularity, and with good reason. Instagram allows you to take gritty fields like manufacturing and make them beautiful and interesting. And it’s an appealing platform for millennial buyers and decision makers with short attention spans (and anyone with little time to spare).
Tweets with Photos. Since users scroll through social media quickly and sometimes mindlessly, a tweet that only consists of text is not as likely to catch anyone’s eye. Tweeted images are shared and liked much more frequently than just text. It’s also important to remember that visual content is key to helping you define your brand’s look, feel, and overall personality.
Article Images. Many B2B companies produce blog or article content to share knowledge about their company or industry. The photos accompanying your content are just as important as what you write. Try putting an image at the beginning of every article. You might also want to include photos within the story to break things up and let the reader breathe. Use a variety of images — graphs and charts, stock photos, cartoons, memes, and screenshots.
Visual content marketing is here to stay. These are just a few of the easy ways to make your B2B content come alive visually while still keeping things informative and relevant.
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