Nowadays, an effective Digitalization of working procedures combined with the power of Automation is essential for any company that aims to reduce its costs and increase competitiveness along with production. With the current scenario manufacturing companies found themselves obliged to reduce worker density operations, this being particularly challenging for this kind of industry where some jobs cannot be carried out remotely.
Moreover, due to the slowed economic activity, global demand has dropped considerably, and the need to find new markets and new audiences to reach business opportunities has resulted in an exponential digitalization of all types of companies worldwide.
To put this into perspective according to Eurostat; between February 2020 and February 2021 the production of computers in the EU and other communication equipment has increased by 32.9% while the provision of mining support services has dropped by 33.2%.
There are two ways of seeing this, as an opportunity to engage in this new era of digitalization and automation and as a challenge as this will force companies to review their internal processes and alignment between areas of the company. In this blog post, we’ll focus more on the Marketing and Sales departments.
We are going to show you how the Inbound Marketing methodology combined with the power of Automation platforms like HubSpot can guide you through the digitalization process and bring new business opportunities to support your manufacturing company.
The digital transformation for manufacturing industries can be quite challenging even though there is a whole world of manufacturing technology and innovation such as “Artificial Intelligence” (AI), 3D printing, or the “Internet of Things” waiting for them to step up in their digital game.
One of the main concerns being Humans, to go digital with new processes and a lot of training comes into play, and unfortunately, humans are especially resistant to it. In fact, for leaders of manufacturing companies, instating a level of engagement in their employees is a must.
To surpass this concern it’s essential not only for the engagement of the whole team but also to have a clear and defined strategy to promote our business online and look forward to new opportunities. In Sales & Marketing, a set of SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time) and relying on the power of automation, will help businesses to reach new online marketplaces, engage with new audiences, increase their overall online visibility and increase sales, while reducing time spend and human errors. More about that later…
One of the major challenges of manufacturing industries regarding online visibility starts when there is no alignment between the sales and marketing departments and traditional tools used to gather important information regarding their sales and marketing decision-making processes are not enough anymore.
Outdated websites can directly affect the overall performance of a business online, the need of having a well-optimized website and adopting a system that integrates all marketing and sales activities is crucial. At Embudo, we are diamond partners of HubSpot the best all-in-one Marketing & Sales and Service automation platform that allows you to get your Marketing and Sales department synchronized in an automated way, more about that later on.
Moreover, there is also a lack of predictive maintenance capabilities, which directly affects customer experience and insight degree into operations. To overcome this concern a system providing real-time data on the latest activities and trends is a must. This will allow correcting errors instantly, therefore improving customer experience and gaining better visibility online.
Even if manufacturing companies are actively present on e-commerce platforms they need to ensure to provide the exact information to the right customer when they need it and this way increase the visibility by providing personalized content on specific landing pages and overall website to sell products.
One of the major challenges for manufacturing industries is called “the Amazon effect”, we are all aware of the increase in customer expectations due to the fast, flexible and efficient service that Amazon offers to its customers. If we want to keep up with our business and grab our place in the international markets we need to comply with those rules, not only do we need to achieve faster delivery and a well-optimized online service but there are also other requirements:
Again, the need here of implementing a well-defined inbound marketing strategy that guides customers all along their buyer’s journey is essential, we want to provide our clients with the product they need at the right time this is what the inbound marketing methodology is all about. Therefore manufacturing industries are facing the need to initiate or at least strengthen their efforts in their digital transformation.
Another challenge that manufacturers are facing is increasing sales on the Internet and expanding their business. This can be due to different reasons such as unappealing design, poor content materials, increased competition, or the fact that there is no capacity or lack of effort to attract new customers online.
To help you overcome this challenge you should consider a specialized marketing team that helps you manage and improve your marketing and sales strategies based on your goals and economic situation. You will need a clear and carefully defined inbound marketing strategy combined with an automation platform to implement and track your activities.
Now that we’ve seen some of the challenges that manufacturing industries need to face to support and expand their business let’s see why they should choose inbound marketing as a solution to their problems.
Before getting into details let’s talk about what is Inbound Marketing;
Inbound Marketing is a marketing methodology that focuses on the creation and distribution of quality and relevant content to attract the most qualified leads for your business.
In other words, inbound marketing is about helping people or companies to grow and achieve their success hand in hand with your company.
A core objective is to make sure all your prospects; leads and customers are provided with solutions to their needs or problems. You’ll be addressing their needs and helping them achieve their goals. We will focus on attracting prospects and guiding them through their customer journey by providing relevant content and advice to help them achieve their goals.
Inbound is the perfect strategy to attract qualified leads it helps assist and guide them through personalized content and communication through which you will earn their trust and gain them as customers. Here are some interesting stats you may find of your interest when choosing inbound marketing as your ideal strategy to grow your business:
We want to exceed the expectations of our prospects byproviding them with relevant content that they will find useful and reliable. These content materials can come in different formats, such as e-books, blog posts, emails, social media, infographics, audiovisuals, etc.
Once their confidence in our brand is consolidated, we will place ourselves as an authority in the work field, (in this case manufacturing), in this way we will attract more traffic to our website, increasing leads conversions and as a consequence an increase in sales.
We want to approach the right people at the right time with the right piece of content. We distribute this content throughout all the different stages of the buyer’s journey. In this way, we make sure to have a personalized and relevant approach with all our contacts.
Now that you catch the idea of what is Inbound Marketing we are going to show you how this methodology works.
Inbound Marketing uses the concept ofBuyer Personas to help you attract quality, relevant leads. A Buyer Persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer, based on real customer data and market information. Creating Buyer Personas will help you define your target audience, understand their needs, and address their problems through your offerings
When talking about inbound marketing we talk about relevant content materials, and there is no better way to deliver high-quality content to your audience than with the creation of a business blog. This will bring numerous benefits to your company throughbetter organic positioning, audience targeting, and lead generation.These days, businesses stand out (and not in a good way) when they don't have a company blog. However, creating a blog just for the sake of having one is a mistake, and therefore, you must understand the essentials of blogging for business before you get started.
The important thing to know here is that blogging will increase the online presenceof your business, delivering high-quality and relevant content to your target market. It will also reinforce your SEO strategy,therefore you will obtain a better website ranking positioningin search engines (Google). Moreover, in the long run, the creation of blog posts will consolidate your authority in a specific field of study and the general public would know that you are a reliable source of information, subsequently, brand awareness and confidence will increase.
The second thing necessary to build a strong online presence is a well-optimized website, this means that it should be regularly updated, make sure to keep its loading time to a minimum, make it easy to read and add white spaces and visuals (we don’t want to overwhelm or confuse our visitors with a bunch of text).
Here are some factors to take into account when optimizing your website:
Content marketingit’s the ideal tool for positioning ourselves as experts in what we sell and gaining the confidence of our audience. Marketing with content in mind also allows us to capture more traffic on the web, generating and nurturing our leads, closing sales, and improving customer loyalty. The potential is huge, but to get results you need to define a good strategy.
Your team cannot work 24/7, but automation makes sure contacts are getting information and interaction regardless of their location or time zone. Inbound Marketing automation is the use of tools like workflows and chatbots to manage processes and nurture leads.
Email nurturingis a common process that is automated, used to nurture the relationship with your prospects at every stage of the Buyer’s Journey. With lead nurturing via email, you can educate prospects, build awareness, develop trust, and turn leads into valuable customers. What’s more, email is easy to personalize, segment, and measure.
To manage all your marketing and sales data and optimize your performance with your customer service you will need an Inbound Marketing platform such as HubSpot.
HubSpot is the number one choice, offering everything from CRM and Marketing functionalities to Sales and Service activities. With Hubspot you will be able to align your marketing, sales, and service departments within the same platform, achieving perfect synchronization between them.
By having the SalesHub, Marketing and ServiceHub fully integrated within the same platform you’ll gain a competitive advantage and easily produce information that drives leads, increases conversions rates, and nurture long-lasting relationships with your customers.
HubSpot brings amazing opportunities for businesses of any kind that want to effectively manage and control their data without losing time and money with manual tasks that can be automated. You will be able to track your resultsand performance while optimizing your strategies thanks to the custom dashboard available in your CRM.
Here are some of theKey Performance Indicatorsthat you’ll be able to track and optimize with HubSpot:
Cost-effective:With an Inbound Marketing strategy you’ll be able to generate more qualified leads at a minor cost than traditional marketing or outbound marketing. This is because a big part of your strategy relies on the creation of marketing content that it’s produced organically. In this way you will save a huge portion of your budget, in fact, “B2B businesses can earn the leads from inbound marketing at about one-third of the outbound Marketingefforts”.
Your audience is majorly online looking for better solutions every day in a selective way, this is even more true when we talk about manufacturing industries where the buyer’s cycle is more complex and research before buying is more considered. This requires better service and attention from the companies involved. It’s your job to attract the right consumers with valuable content, which is also the key to inbound marketing.
Increase your Brand awareness and trust;by providing people with the information they need and want you’ll answer their questions and solve their doubts. In this way you are building trust and forging an authority in your field of work, people know they can depend on you for solutions, or even better, you are the solution.
Simplify and automate your work procedures;with your sales, marketing, and service teams integrated within the same platform you will be creating highly targeted content speaking directly to the queries, concerns, and demands of your contacts. Moreover, with the power of automation tools like HubSpot, you’ll be able to avoid human mistakes, and effectively manage your data while saving time and money to use in other business strategy decisions.
As you can see there is no problem without a solution so it’s time to find new ways to grow and digitalize business operations.Are you ready to Inbound?