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Mastering Content Marketing: A Guide for Manufacturing Companies
Ross Johnson
Content marketing can be a highly effective way for manufacturing companies to connect with their target audience and build their brand. But let’s face it: developing and implementing a comprehensive content marketing strategy can be a bit overwhelming, especially if it’s a relatively new strategy for your business.
With so many strategies and channels to choose from and so much content already out there, it can be hard to know where to start or how to stand out.
This guide helps manufacturing companies create a content marketing strategy that resonates with their audience and drives business growth.
What Is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is a process that leverages helpful and interesting content to get consumers interested in what your business has to offer.
For manufacturing companies, this means creating and strategically utilizing content that:
- Informs your target audience about the manufacturing industry
- Demonstrates your business understands the audience’s pain points and has what it takes to address them
- Highlights your business’s unique skills and experience
- Further familiarizes consumers with your brand
This content can take many forms, like blog posts, videos, infographics, and social media posts. By sharing content, manufacturing companies can become known as experts in their field while they build trust with potential customers. This can drive more engagement, generate more qualified leads, and more business.
Creating valuable content and deploying it properly will build a following. But truly effective content marketing requires expertise.
Use the guidance below to build a content marketing strategy that will help you business stand out from the competition and drive growth and profitability.
Types of Content Marketing
There are many types of content that manufacturing companies can create and share with their audience. Here are a few examples:
Blogs
A company blog is a great way to share updates, insights, and expertise with potential customers. NBog posts focused on current events within the industry and the company’s capabilities showcase expertise, and establish manufacturing companies as industry authorities.
Videos
Videos are a highly engaging way to connect with potential customers. They can be used to showcase products or services, demonstrate a manufacturing process, or share educational industry information. Share videos on the company website and on social media platforms, like YouTube or Instagram, for better reach.
Articles
Publishing articles on industry websites or trade publications can help manufacturing companies gain a wider audience and establish themselves as industry experts. By sharing insights and discussing current trends manufacturing companies attract attention that builds credibility with future customers.
Podcasts
Podcasts have become a popular way to share content and connect with a targeted audience. Manufacturing companies can create a podcast that discusses industry news, interviews experts, or provides educational content, or have a company expert featured on one. This can help the company establish itself as a thought leader and attract a loyal following.
Resources
Today’s consumers want to be informed in a variety of ways. Providing resources helps to address that desire. The right format for your resource depends on the target audience, the purpose/goal behind the resource, and where in the buyer’s journey the resource will be used. Resources are helpful in many formats, including:
- Checklists
- Infographics
- E-books
Create and share different types of content to reach a wider audience and engage potential customers in different ways. Each type of content has its own strengths and can be used to achieve different marketing goals.
Benefits of Content Marketing for the Manufacturing Industry
Content marketing is an essential strategy in today’s digital landscape, and manufacturing companies are no exception.
Increased visibility on social and search
By creating high-quality content optimized for search engines and shareable on social media, manufacturing companies can increase their visibility and reach more potential customers.
Increased trust and authority
A manufacturer can establish itself as an expert in its field by consistently providing valuable information to consumers.
Thought leadership
Sharing unique insights and perspectives on industry trends and best practices further enhances their reputation.
Generate leads/sales
By creating content that addresses the needs and pain points of potential customers, manufacturing companies can generate more leads and ultimately increase sales.
Content Marketing Applied to Manufacturing
Content marketing is a powerful strategy to consider if you’re a manufacturing company looking to expand your business and establish yourself as an industry expert. When applied to manufacturing, content marketing has some unique characteristics to keep in mind:
- Narrow audience, low competition: The audience for manufacturing content may be narrower than other industries, but it also means less competition for attention, making it easier for your business to stand out with high-quality content.
- People looking for precise detailed information: The nature of manufacturing means that potential customers often look for very specific information, making detailed and technical content highly valuable.
- Help them do their job better, more likely to buy from you: By providing content that helps potential customers do their job better, manufacturing companies can establish themselves as trusted partners and make it more likely that customers will choose to buy from them.
- Longer sales cycle, essential to get in front of them early: Manufacturing sales cycles can be longer, so it’s important to get in front of potential customers early with top-of-the-funnel content that establishes the company’s expertise and builds trust.
- High technical knowledge required for bottom-of-the-funnel content: As customers move further down the funnel, they may require highly technical content, which can be a challenge for companies to create. However, this kind of content can also be highly valuable in establishing the company’s expertise and winning over customers.
How to Create a Content Strategy
A well-defined and carefully developed content marketing strategy is essential for success. Here are six key steps to follow when developing a content strategy for a manufacturing company:
- Define your ideal customer profile. Identify the characteristics of your target audience, including the following:
- Demographics
- Job titles
- Interests
- Document their common questions, objections, motivations, and needs. Understand the pain points and challenges that your ideal customers face and what information they need to make informed decisions.
- Interview past customers, and find out what information they were looking for during the sales process. By talking to your existing customers, you can identify the topics and types of content that resonate with them.
- Do keyword research to identify high-value keywords and topic clusters. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner to identify the search terms and topics that are most relevant to your business and audience.
- Create a content calendar of posts to create in the next 6-12 months. Develop a schedule of when to create and publish content, as well as planning where to post them, making sure to balance quantity and quality.
- Define KPIs to measure success. Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with your business goals, such as website traffic, leads generated, or sales closed. Regularly measure and analyze the data to evaluate the effectiveness of your content strategy. From there, you can refine that strategy to ensure you’re heading in the right direction.
Content Marketing for Manufacturers
To be competitive in today’s market, manufacturing companies must develop an effective content marketing strategy.
By taking a holistic approach to content creation and distribution, manufacturing companies will better understand their customers and communicate in a way that deepens connection and drives business growth.