Mascola B2B Marketing Blog, B2B Advertising Agency

Why Manufacturing Companies Need More Touchpoints in Their Marketing

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.

B2B Monday Myth: More Is More on Social Media

by Emily Swet

The Myth: More Is More in Your B2B Social Media Strategy

The Truth: Scale Back on Quantity, Scale Up on Quality

Social media is growing up. At this point, the hustle to fill space is over. Audiences have set the pace of what they want to see, and when. It’s true that, as marketers, our goal is to move that needle – albeit with a deft hand. There is value in restraint: unbridled social calendars can have a detrimental impact on your goals. Take a moment to audit your current B2B social media strategy, and see if anything sounds familiar.

What Are You Posting? Take a closer look at your content. Is there value to it? Or are you merely posting to meet your daily quotas? Think critically on this. While you do need to stay active throughout the week, posting your FAQs page just for the sake of having a post isn’t the path to engagement. Content that isn’t valuable to your audience won’t be valuable to your sales funnel either.
Abandon the Spray & Pray Method. How many times and across how many platforms are you posting? There’s a good chance a large portion of your followers is the same across the social landscape. If you are blowing up their feed throughout the day, especially with invaluable posts (see above), you risk the chance of pushing them to hit the unfollow button.
Who Actually Are Your Followers? For B2B businesses, this is especially important – it’s not about how many people are following you, it’s about whether they matter to you. Buying followers or hooking in demographics that aren’t in your customer base is a waste of time and budget. A focus on smaller, yet appropriate audiences will yield more valuable engagement for your brand (read: more shares, more click-throughs). If you haven’t already, creating customer personas will help you find your focus.

Since so much can be done on social media for free, it seems like a smorgasbord for strapped B2B marketing departments. Find your strength in reserve: refine your B2B social media strategy to the most helpful or interesting content, and you’ll see both your content longevity and customer engagement increase.

Why VISUAL Content Marketing is Important for B2B Brands

by MGB2B

As a B2B marketer, you likely realize how effective content marketing is for your brand. (If not, you can read our praise of content marketing in many past articles.) But what you say is not the only important thing. The vehicle you use to deliver it to your audience, the accompanying graphics, and the way you display your information can make or break the success of a piece of content marketing. People are visual creatures by nature; if you can effectively show a message as well as spell it out, you will certainly win over your readers. Visual content marketing can be delivered in may forms, but a few that we show here today can be the most effective.

Infographics

When you have a whole lot of data to present, it can be tough to keep a readers attention – even if it speaks to some pretty amazing accomplishments. Well-crafted visuals are going to help your reader prioritize information, scan more efficiently, and continue to stay engaged. Infographics are a great way to present your information in an easy-to-digest way. And, in the end they’ll help more people to actually read it.

A series of infographics Mascola Group created for choosing the right conformal coating application.

Video

If you have an interesting story to tell, most people would rather watch it than read about it. Creating a video is the perfect way to accomplish this. Marketing videos no longer just mean a traditional 30 or 60-second commercial spot, either. They can be the animation of a case study, filming and explaining what makes your production process stand out, or a well-executed interview with a knowledgeable employee showing how you help your customers.

Video Explaining Building Files software Capabilities.

Visuals Within Your Blogs and Printed Collateral

A large part of any successful content marketing campaign are white papers and long format blog articles. Though it may seem I’ve been hinting that your audience no longer reads, this simply isn’t true. Viewers that have shown interest by clicking on your emails, filling out forms, or actively seeking your blog will read it. But to keep them engaged, this content still needs the right window dressing. Any long format piece of content will be far easier to digest with the right support visuals.

Downloadable Rooftop Safety Brochure created by Mascola Group

Visual content isn’t technically difficult to produce, but it does take a bit of forethought. There are a myriad of apps available to create your own graphics in house – just keep in mind, everyone is using these cookie-cutter services and your efforts may look generic, off-brand, or worse, amateurish. Visual content marketing is meant to draw your audience in, then lead them where you want them to go. To get the most for your efforts, consider consulting with a professional graphic designer before you begin your next content marketing campaign.