Selling manufacturing services in 2024 seems harder than ever. But marketers now have the chance to reach and engage with industrial prospects in ways their predecessors could not have predicted.
In 1996, the Harvard Business Review listed some of the tensions that existed between manufacturing sales and their operations teams. Back then, marketers complained about operations’ inability to match capacity with sales, while operations argued that poor sales forecasting was to blame for their screwed-up planning. Marketers criticised the quality of the post-sales experience for the customers they won, while operations countered that marketing was routinely over-promising to ‘wrong-fit’ customers.
Some things never change.
In 2024, many of these tensions still exist, but new market strains have entered the mix. Hyper-scale, global competition, has made faster revenue growth a new imperative. Meanwhile, a customer base empowered by digital has changed the rules of the sales game altogether. But digital has also opened up new opportunities for targeting, brand awareness and pipeline building that were little dreamt of in the 1990s.
Here are 8 ways marketing teams can take a decisive new role in the manufacturing sector:
1. Embrace the Buyer-Driven Market
The power dynamic has shifted. Today’s B2B buyers, including those in manufacturing, hold the cards in the purchasing process. Armed with information from online research, they’re no longer waiting to be sold to — in fact they’re avoiding direct sales contact together and proactively pursuing their own goals. Manufacturers must now move beyond the interruptive sales approach and adopt marketing strategies that engage buyers earlier in their journey.
Prospects are comparing options, evaluating suppliers, and making decisions long before they contact you.
Marketers now have the ability to position their businesses as a source of valuable, accessible information for right-fit buyers.
Educating and supporting customers in their decision-making process is the name of the game.
2. Understand the Decision-Making Ecosystem
In manufacturing, purchasing decisions are complex and involve multiple stakeholders, from engineers to procurement teams.
In fact, according to Gartner, B2B buying committees have grown 4 times larger in the last decade.
The average B2B purchase involves 11 individual stakeholders—and sometimes nearly 20 people (source Gartner)
The role of marketing is to build powerful relationships right across these organisations and orchestrate communications with groups of stakeholders.
Your messaging should appeal to different influencers, from technical experts seeking detailed specifications to executives and procurement teams seeking financial justification.
That means meeting them in the different digital spaces they live and work in, with different content tailored to their needs.
3. Turn Expertise into Scalable Content
Your greatest marketing asset is the expertise that already exists within your business.
Your marketers' job is to take those unique perspectives and use them to uncover and address your audience's unmet needs.
Turning this expertise into content—whether articles, videos, or case studies—helps build a library of resources that can be leveraged at scale.
A creative content strategy allows you to distribute your experts’ insights to a wider audience in various ways, positioning your company as a leader in innovation and problem-solving.
4. Be Where the Demand Is
By building a strong digital relationship with their audience, manufacturers can capture and maintain prospects' attention over long buying cycles.
Have your customers' buyer journeys mapped out so you can orchestrate nurturing with email, social messaging, and targeted sales outreach.
As prospects search the internet with questions that you have the expertise to answer - make sure you are always there with the content to help them.
Consider Account-Based Marketing Strategies to target and accelerate conversion with key accounts where you know demand lies.
Capture and nurture demand as it grows, ensuring you’re always front of mind when buyers engage in each part of their decision-making process.
5. Create Demand for the Future
While capturing existing demand is critical, manufacturers must also focus on generating demand among prospects who aren’t actively buying. This is about nurturing long-term relationships and building awareness.
Use strategic SEO tactics to rank for keywords that relate to the early stages of the buyer’s journey.
Use paid search and display advertising to position your brand in front of new audiences.
Partner with respected industry figures or publications to expand your reach. Influencer collaborations can include guest blog posts, joint webinars, or co-branded research reports, which help position your company as a key player in the industry.
By investing in these long-term demand-generation tactics, manufacturers can establish a solid foundation for future growth. When prospects eventually enter the buying cycle, your brand will be one they recognise and trust, giving you a competitive edge in capturing new business opportunities.
6. Foster Strong Sales and Marketing Collaboration
In many manufacturing organisations, marketing and sales can operate in silos. This disconnect can detract from both teams’ success. Marketing needs to understand the challenges sales teams face in the field, while sales teams need insights into the data and leads marketing is generating.
Use formal strategies like RevOps to align all your teams in their goals and revenue generation efforts. Regular communication allows marketing to tailor its messaging and campaigns, while sales gains valuable insights to close deals more effectively. This collaboration is crucial for building a seamless customer experience.
7. Measure Impact with a Long-Term Perspective
Effective marketing in manufacturing takes time. Building awareness, nurturing relationships, and earning trust don’t happen overnight. While it’s essential to measure key performance indicators (KPIs) like traffic, engagement, and lead quality, manufacturers must also be patient and allow their marketing efforts to mature.
The ultimate measure of success should be marketing’s contribution to revenue. But remember, marketing is playing both the short and long game. Patience, persistence, and continuous optimisation are key to developing a sustainable marketing engine that drives growth.
8. Lead with Value, Not Features
Manufacturing marketing should shift from focusing on product features to creating value for the customer. Customers are looking for partners who understand their challenges and can offer solutions that speak to their needs.
Your marketing must offer insightful content that helps prospects solve problems, make informed decisions, and feel confident in their choice. In short, it must become a recognisable ‘brand’ in their world.
As marketing expert Seth Godin points out:
"A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories, and relationships that, taken together, account for a buyer's decision to choose one service over another."
Only marketing teams can build this image of your company in the minds of your prospects and customers. Using the power of digital, design, and storytelling, they can create a narrative about your company that will stay with your audience as they negotiate their buying journey.
The manufacturing world has changed in the last thirty years. Customers are engaging with companies like yours in entirely different ways. They consume content and look for information critically and proactively.
The question is - are you part of that critical information-gathering process for your customers? Have you staked your claim in their digital universe? Are you contributing to those digital conservations that will drive the right kind of leads to consume your content and keep you at the top of your mind throughout their buyers’ journeys? Have you got a brand that can cut through in a crowded and undifferentiated marketplace?
