Internet Marketing for Small to Mid-Sized Manufacturers
The decision for a small manufacturer to commit to some level of financial investment in internet marketing is usually not an easy one. For those in the B2B realm where decision making is slower and sales are traditionally built on relationships and long term trust, the SEO/ROI calculation is not necessarily straight forward.
The fact that the internet should be part of their marketing strategy is usually hard to argue. An increasing percentage of buyers are looking to the web for assistance in purchasing decisions. Industry portals like Thomas Net are often an excellent source for a quick ‘hit list’ of potential vendors, however the search doesn’t end there. Drilling down to a more detailed research level means the potential customer will be searching for the company site. Searching to see if that supplier is a leader among his peers on the web can, to some degree, be measured by their web presence and search engine rankings.
- Can your product and business easily be found on the web by your potential customers?
- How do you compare with your competition in search engine rankings and traffic?
- Do you have a way to reach out and grab a perspective customer as they come to your site?
There is no better long term way to deal with the first two questions than Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and increasing the organic (free) quality traffic to your site. This is a long term commitment with long term growth prospects.
The next step is the hook to grab the customer as they come to your site. Online ‘live chat’ with technical sales, whitepaper downloads, etc are common and effective tactics used by other industries ahead on the SEO curve.
The internet marketing path is changing for manufacturers, but successful methods have already been tested and implemented by other industries. It’s time for manufacturers to get in the game.
