LinkedIn shook up the business world in January 2017 when the platform made major changes to its interface. If you read our blog Big Changes Coming to Your LinkedIn back in January, you’ll see the many changes that occurred, the biggest being limiting search capabilities. Prior to the interface change, LinkedIn users could easily advance search their connection’s contacts by a specific geographic area, job title, industry or company. This change alone has made many of my business connections jump ship and buy a seat on LinkedIn Sales Navigator—costing them a whopping $79.99 a month (ouch.) Fortunately for you, my friend Caleb Townsend, co-founder of Factur—Manufacturing Referral Network, has found a hack to get around the dreaded LinkedIn search conundrum.

Advance Searching Tips                       

• Open LinkedIn in Google Chrome (best browser to use)
• Select a business connection or friend’s LinkedIn profile
• Click “See Connections”
• Make sure you are on the “All” tab
• Highlight all of the connections
  • Click Command A (on Mac) or Ctrl C (on PC) to highlight all the text on that Connections page
• Click Command F (on Mac) or Ctrl F to search the highlighted text
• Input a keyword into the search
  • Job Title (President, Engineer, etc.)
  • Company
• Click the arrow on your search to sort through the contacts that match that keyword
• When you find people you want to ask your contact about highlight the contact
• Then right click and select “Open in a new tab”
  • Note: Never just click on the contact, as it will exit you from your search!
• Look through the profiles of those who match your keyword search and make note to ask your contact if they would be a good fit for your product or service.

Now that you have this tip you’ll be able to mine your connection’s network for potential leads without paying the hefty nearly $1,000 per year for LinkedIn Sales Navigator. In my next blog, I will share next steps I’ve learned from Factur—Manufacturing Referral Network on how to approach the people you’re interested in meeting. This method has both increased my referral rate and also the number of people that agree to speak with me after being referred.

You’ve heard it before: content is king—and the way to create relevant, consistent content is by creating a content map.  Content marketing is not a short-term campaign. Just like the manufacturing sales cycle, it is a long-term strategy to attract, convert, close and retain customers. Below, learn my best practices for creating a content map for inbound marketing success.

What is a Content Map?

A content map is a cross section outline detailing your approach to your buyer personas (prospects and customers). Your map details not only the type of content such as a blog post, infographic or video but the schedule and nature of how you are sending the content. Your messages are always developed with the inbound marketing methodology and your target buyer personas in mind. Furthermore, you must consider their stage in the buyer’s journey (awareness, consideration, decision). The goal is to target content according to the characteristics of the person consuming your content (that’s why buyer persona research is so crucial) and how close that person is to making a decision to buy your product or service (lifecycle).

Content Map Essentials

A content map is so much more than a calendar with content assigned to specific dates. An effective content map is tailored to the buyer personas (who you want to sell to), their specific engagement level (how often their opening, clicking or engaging with your brand/content), and the channels used to reach those targeted personas. Content map essentials include:

• A list of what you are publishing based upon your content strategy. This should include if the content is repurposed or needs to be written. Also, keep in mind industry trends, new product lines, or other factors that should influence when you post certain content.
• Names of individuals creating the content.
• The channel(s) for the content.It is essential to map out where you are sharing your content. For example, if you are creating an eBook, list the blog content, social content, and email blasts to promote the eBook.
• Target Audience and Lifecycle Stage. It’s important to include the targeted “buyer persona” and “lifecycle stage”. Also include keywords which your target buyer persona will be searching during their specific lifecycle stage.
• Dates for completion and publishing. Indicating when it’s due for review and when it’s intended to be published is key to keep your employees accountable and ensure you create the content you intended.
• Long-tail Keywords. Long-tail keywords are essential to ensure that your content appears in search. Use tools such as HubSpot or Google Keyword Planner to find keywords that will attract your ideal prospects.

Content Map Organization

When organizing your content map, we suggest mapping 6 months to a year worth of content. Below is a suggested content map layout.

• Content type
• The buyer persona(s) targeted
• Lifecycle stage of buyer pesona(s) target
• Person/individuals responsible for creating the content
• Long-tail keywords to include in the content
• Channels to publish the content (social, blog, YouTube, etc.)
• Due Date
• Publish Date
• Column for Status (yellow for in process, green for completed)
• Call-to-Action on the content
• Separate tab on the content map for content idea brainstorming

With these simple tips, you’ll be on the right track to content marketing success. Struggling to think of content ideas? Check out our blog 10 Ways to Reignite Your Manufacturing Blog for some content ideas that your manufacturing prospects and customers will love.

How to Align Your Manufacturing PR Strategy with Sales for Ultimate Success

At the end of the day, (for most manufactures on a single shift that could be 6:15 pm!), sales are the bottom line. We have said it before, “nothing happens until someone sells something.” Sales should be top of mind for everything you do from your trade show strategy to manufacturing PR and everything in between.

Your marketing department needs to be laser-focused on this one goal: When they see our content (news article, press release, blog post, social messaging) what do we want them to do? You guessed it, buy your product and service. Ah, if it was just that simple.

Tactically, you still need all the tools of an optimized website, a strong trade show plan, a targeted direct marketing program…but let’s keep the focus where it needs to be, selling. Inbound, outbound, telemarketing, even cold calls still work if done in the right context. Content is the fuel that each of these tactics need to move the process forward.

Stories allow your manufacturing company to show your expertise and differentiate your company from competitors, and who better to tell your story than the experts at content creation: a PR firm. PR firms are the experts in telling stories. Your marketing strategy should incorporate PR to create brand recognition and give your company third party credibility. Read “Why Manufacturers Still Need PR in a Digital World” to learn about the importance of PR.

Now, not all PR strategies are created equal and it is important to have a PR strategy that is tailored to your buyer personas, or the people to whom you sell.   Now you may be thinking to yourself “how do I create great content”? Have your sales engineers, the ones who know each customer’s story share what was successful on a recent project or trends they are noticing in their industry. There is a story behind each invoice; align your sales team with your PR firm. Let your PR firm help you evaluate the newsworthiness of each piece of content. When you feed the top of your sales funnel with more qualified leads and you’ll start to see customers at the end of the funnel. So, what story will you tell?