What is Inbound Marketing and Why Does it Matter to Manufacturers?

Inbound marketing is a technique that involves pulling consumers in (rather than going out to find consumers and push the brand/product to them, as is done in ads). It’s a pull marketing strategy that marketers have been using for a while now to help create long-term brand engagement, generate authentic new leads and build an engaged customer base.

The inbound method to marketing can include a number of approaches, from content marketing to social media, SEO, email marketing and more.

Why the need for inbound marketing?

Consumers today aren’t easily convinced by advertisements and obvious sales tactics - in fact, most people (including you!) consciously avoid and make an effort to not click on ads online.

Inbound marketing allows brands to create more engaging content and experiences that inform and draw in customers that are actually interested.
When done effectively, it:

Why Inbound Marketing for Manufacturers is More Relevant than Ever

In the manufacturing industry, clients are not just companies, they’re a set of people that act as buyers for their company. And as buyers, they fall into the same behavioural patterns as any other online customers.

More and more research is being done online during the procurement process - over 80% of it, actually. This means as a manufacturing brand, your customers are just like any other user on the internet - using google (or bing, etc.) to conduct research, looking for manuals and product information, product reviews and testimonials, etc.

With the way the manufacturing industry is adapting to digital media today, even lower in the funnel the request for quotes and in some cases even the final purchases are actually completed online.

It’s important to remember then, that like any other online consumer, your target audience will not want to click on ads from your brand - they want to hear your voice, learn from you, see what you can offer them and how you’ve made an impact on other businesses.

What does executing inbound marketing really include?

The short answer is content. Inbound marketing involves creating a vast amount of content and publishing it across all of the touchpoints that your audience frequents online.

There are plenty of resources online that can help you decide which content to publish when, but for your convenience you can refer our comprehensive list here:

Things to remember:

A few more inbound marketing tips for manufacturers:

1. Analytics will determine whether your strategy works
   Every piece of content you create, publish and propagate may or may not resonate with your audience. The only way you’ll know what’s working is to constantly track traffic and engagement metrics using your preferred analytics platform, and then feed that into your strategy to make changes. It is definitely a consistent process that needs to be undertaken every week at the least. To help you get started, here’s a list of metrics that need to be tracked for your main pieces of content:

Blog Posts

New Users | Pageviews | Time On Site | Social Engagement

Videos

Video Users | Time On Site | Social Engagement

Social Media

New Users | Social Engagement Metrics

Email Marketing

Open Rate | New Traffic | Time On Site

Blog Posts

New Users | Pageviews | Time On Site | Social Engagement

Videos

Video Users | Time On Site | Social Engagement

Social Media

New Users | Social Engagement Metrics

Email Marketing

Open Rate | New Traffic | Time On Site

2. Nurturing is a very important part of the funnel
   It’s important to re-engage people who have registered with your brand for one reason or the other. Emails need not be promotional; sending out success stories, brand updates, educational information and of course newsletters, helps keep your leads engaged with your brand and nurtures them (towards making a purchase or continuing your relationship). Of course you’ll only be able to nurture someone once they share your details with you - using a signup form on your website, request for a quote, give you a call, etc. - so this comes into play around the middle of the funnel.
3. Inbound marketing is a huge part of your marketing approach, but don’t make it your only marketing approach
   We’re huge advocates of inbound marketing. We don’t just use it for our clients, we use it for our own brand too. However, it’s not necessarily the best idea to rely solely on inbound methodology - it does help to have it supplemented with paid marketing as well. The work you’ve done within the inbound strategy will actually help your paid campaigns perform even better. Here’s how:

   1. When you’re consistent with your inbound marketing, chances are that your audience are already aware of your brand. When they click on an ad, they’ll convert that much faster since you’ve already established recognition and recall.

   2. Even if they aren’t familiar with your brand, you’re building a lot of thought leadership with your content, which is immediately visible to anyone who lands on your website through an ad and helps establish trust.

   3. Once you get a lead from the campaign, they’ll become a part of the nurturing database and you’ll find it much easier to convert them.

We hope you found this blog post useful and are ready to get started on the inbound marketing strategy for your manufacturing brand! If you have any questions or would like our help in getting started, feel free to reach out to our experts below.