LinkedIn has more than 575 million users and provides manufacturing salespeople an incredible opportunity to share their voice, harness the power of content, and improve both their personal brand and company reputation. Often we are asked, “What should I post on LinkedIn?” Below, learn 3 styles of manufacturing-focused posts that you should utilize on your LinkedIn profile with some stellar real-life examples from manufacturers we admire!

Strong Manufacturing Post #1– The Interactive Experience

Tiffany Bryson, Direct Regional Sales Manager at Grob Systems, Inc. does an excellent job of providing value to her followers on LinkedIn.

The post above is an excellent example of an engaging post because:

1. It’s interactive, offering a virtual plant tour.
2. It’s educational.
3. Comments and engagement are encouraged!

Providing your audience with a virtual tour is an excellent way to give them a peek behind the curtain of your processes, products, and innovative plant. Don’t have the budget for a virtual tour? No worries. Consider utilizing shorter videos of a unique process or area of your business and then, as Tiffany did, ask people to comment on what they learned!

Strong Manufacturing Post #2– Take a Stand

Nora Toure, founder of Women in 3D Printing, is a LinkedIn powerhouse (that you definitely should follow!)

This post is an excellent example of taking audience interaction to the next level because:

1. It takes a stand about an important issue.
2. It makes you think about ways to take action and find a solution.
3. It encourages engagement with 3 thought-provoking questions.

Nora’s post is a great example of taking a strong stance on an industry issue in a respectful way. She stated the facts about the lack of women in her industry and implored her audience to help find a solution. Also, we love that instead of simply asking for suggestions on how to address the problem, she took it a step further by asking 3 thought-provoking questions. Clearly, as you can see from the screenshot, she had a considerable engagement on this post, and this screenshot was taken only 1 week after this post went live. We continued to see it on our feeds for over a month and the engagement continued to rise.

Don’t be afraid to share your thoughts on LinkedIn (as long as your post isn’t overtly political or religious, you’re fine!) Reshoring, the manufacturing talent gap, and the manufacturing supply chain amid COVID-19 are 3 different examples of current hot topics that you could take a stand on in a LinkedIn post. Also, consider using Nora’s 3 question approach on your future posts to encourage audience comments!

Strong Manufacturing Post #3– Problem & Solution

Matt Covele, Senior Sales Representative at ChemStation, does an excellent job of listening to the feedback and questions of his customers and then utilizing it as LinkedIn content.

Matt’s post is an excellent customer-focused example because:

1. It addresses and answers a commonly asked customer question.
2. It showcases Matt and his team’s expertise in a helpful and non-salesy way.
3. It links to a LinkedIn Pulse article Matt wrote which is an excellent tactic to get his blog read by other LinkedIn users that could utilize his services.

Matt does an incredible job of educating his audience and building a relationship through trust. Instead of posting salesy content about why his company is the best, he chose to write from the perspective of his customers and address a common customer issue and how to fix it. We also love that he utilized LinkedIn Pulse to share this information.

If you have expertise in a certain area, we suggest writing a Pulse post, which is essentially LinkedIn’s version of articles, that can be self-published by members. 500-750 words are the perfect word count. Any more than that and your connections won’t read on.

By using appropriate keywords and hashtags, you can attract a much larger audience to your Pulse article, your personal LinkedIn page, and the company page. Recently the president of Felber PR & Marketing, Rob Felber wrote a Pulse post and the majority of his readers were 2nd connections! So it just goes to show that Pulse is a great way to expand your audience and build credibility and respect in your industry.

Struggling with what to write your first Pulse article about? We suggest you review social media and website form first. Look for themes of commonly asked questions and if you don’t already have content that addresses it, write it!

Interested in learning more about LinkedIn strategy. We recently launched our Leveraging LinkedIn 2.0 eBook, which will teach you everything from optimizing your LinkedIn profile to growing your network, and sales strategies. The eBook also includes helpful templates to help you along the way!

Related blogs:

5 Unique Ways to Prospect on LinkedIn

How to Create a Successful LinkedIn Content Marketing Strategy

How to Export Contacts from LinkedIn for Ultimate Sales Opportunities

 

 

 

We hear it all the time. Manufacturers get a majority of their sales through word-of-mouth and loyal repeat customers. However, it is important now, more than ever, that manufacturers embrace the value of digital marketing. 

At Felber PR & Marketing, our clients leverage content and thought leadership principles to attract prospects, drive lead generation and sales, and retain customers. 

Learn 5 valuable strategies your B2B manufacturing company can utilize to get started developing a strong digital marketing strategy:

Develop a thought leadership strategy

In order for your company to see success with its marketing strategy, it is important to be positioned as a leader in your industry. To establish your manufacturing company as a thought leader, we recommend developing a strong content strategy. Tactics such as company blogging, expert interviews, white papers, hosting or sponsoring webinars on industry ‘hot topics’, or exhibiting at notable trade shows help position your company as a trusted leader and expert in your industry. 

Leverage PPC (pay-per-click) ads, social media advertising, and SEO

A strong content strategy, when combined with PPC ads, social media advertising, and SEO, is essential for digital marketing success. By utilizing these tactics, you can ensure that your prospects, customers, and potential employees can find your company online. 

We have many B2B manufacturing clients who are currently utilizing digital advertising to generate strong, qualified leads. (We’re also practicing what we preach for our own lead generation – and it’s working beautifully!) Social media advertising (primary LinkedIn ads) has been especially valuable for our clients as this is the leading B2B social media platform for the industrial sector. 

When meeting with new manufacturing clients, more often than not, they tell us that they are or have utilized digital ads and saw an uptick in traffic. However, when we go further and ask how many of those website visitors converted as a lead by filling out a form, more often than not, the ads aren’t generating conversions.

Consider all this great traffic coming to your front door (website), but it’s 5:55 pm, lights are out and the door is bolt locked. Leads cannot get in! Consider our free Inbound marketing assessment to discuss your situation now, for free.

Develop a consistent schedule of content 

A strong content strategy with relevant, engaging content is the foundation of digital marketing and lead generation. A consistent content strategy helps manufacturers stay at the top of search engine results and also, solidifies your brand’s position as an industry thought leader. 

To create a sound content marketing plan, it is essential that you take the time to identify your ideal customers and uncover their unique goals and challenges. That way, you can write content that addresses your ideal prospects and helps you speak their language. This process is called creating buyer personas. Buyer personas help manufacturers identify their best prospects. The profile of your best prospect and how they buy is the buyer’s journey. Read Why Your Content Strategy is Failing (Content Mapping 101)

Once you’ve identified the buyer personas you would like to attract to your brand and eventually, close as a customer, develop a running list of content ideas that would appeal to that ideal buyer. Then, develop a content map to ensure you follow through with your new content ideas and develop a consistent stream of content! 

Don’t underestimate the power of video

Video is a powerful tool to show your audience your products, the innovative machines, and processes utilized at your plant. Additionally, we highly recommend incorporating video case studies to showcase the value of working with your company.

 Manufacturing case studies are an amazing way to show your prospects and customers your skills and capabilities. Case studies add third party credibility and could be the difference between your prospects choosing you over working with a competitor! Don’t think your customers would be willing to participate in case studies? Check out our blog “How to Convince Your Stubborn Manufacturing Customers to Participate in Case Studies” for helpful tips!

Focus on engaging current customers

While digital marketing is a great tactic to attract new prospects and customers, it’s also an incredible tool for customer retention. Develop email campaigns to target existing customers offering high-level technical content, helpful resources, and product discounts. Also, we recommend having existing customers participate in a yearly survey. Take the time to develop a survey where your customers can explain why they work with you, what you can improve upon, and what content they enjoy receiving. Then, you can tailor your content strategy, sales efforts, and messaging to not only keep current customers happy but also, attract similar prospects!

Check out these helpful related blogs to learn how to revamp your B2B manufacturing marketing strategy:

• Why Manufacturers Should Invest in Digital Advertising Now
• Why Manufacturers Need a Content Map for Ultimate Success
• How to Develop Strong Downloadable Content that Generates Leads
• How to Develop a Successful LinkedIn Content Marketing Strategy

At Felber PR & Marketing, content development has been our bread and butter since 1993. We were early adopters of blogging and you can search our company blog posts back to 2008! While the world has changed tremendously since then, much of our manufacturing content is as relevant today as it was back then. Keep reading to see some of our best blogs from the last 12 years!

Best Inbound Marketing Content

Felber PR helps business to business manufacturers impact lead generation with inbound marketing and has been a proud HubSpot Agency Partner Since 2016. Check out our client reviews in the HubSpot Partner Directory! Over the years, we’ve posted considerable content on inbound marketers for manufacturers. 

Here are a few of our favorites: 

1. The 5 Biggest Inbound Marketing Mistakes Manufacturers Make 
2. How to Convince Your Stubborn Manufacturing CEO to Invest in Inbound 
3. Why Manufacturers Should Utilize HubSpot
4. Why Your Pay-Per-Click Ads Aren’t Working
5. Why Manufacturers Should Invest in Digital Advertising Right Now 

 

Best Public Relations Content 

Public Relations is at the core of everything we do. Since 1993, our firm has represented business-to-business manufacturers and given them the recognition they deserve. Public relations tactics remain a powerful tool to improve brand awareness, establish manufacturers as thought leaders, and drive better prospects to your website. 

Here are some of our best PR blogs: 

1. Why Manufacturers Need PR in a Digital World
2. Manufacturing Media Interviews: How to Ace Them
3. How to Use Publication Media Kits to Target Better Prospects
4. Extend the Reach of Your Media Hits with Social Media
5. Trade Shows for Manufacturers – Maximize the Three Most Important Stages

Best Manufacturing Sales Content

At the end of the day, sales are the bottom line B2B manufacturers. We are a sales-focused PR and inbound marketing agency. We work with our clients to automate their sales process through great targeted content, email automation, and real-time data.

Here are some of our best sales blogs: 

1. How to Write Automated Sales Emails that Don’t Feel Generic
2. Automating the Manufacturing Sales Process with Inbound Marketing 
3. How to Adapt Your B2B Manufacturing Sales Strategy for the COVID-19 World
4. How to Create Downloadable Content Offers that Generate Leaders
5. Why Video Should Be a Part of Your Manufacturing Sales Strategy

 

Best of the Felber PR & Marketing eBooks

At Felber PR & Marketing, we believe that knowledge is power and we strive to educate our customers on the B2B manufacturing marketing and sales best practices. We compiled eBooks to share our best-kept secrets.

Check out our best eBooks below: 

1. The Industrial Manufacturer’s Guide to Inbound Marketing
2. Trade Shows for Manufacturers eBook
3. The Manufacturer’s Guide to Public Relations
4. Leveraging LinkedIn for Manufacturers 2.0 eBook

We hope you enjoyed this walk down memory lane of our ‘best of the blog’ over the years. Interested in learning more about B2B manufacturing marketing and sales? Subscribe to Tactics Thursday to receive a new sales or marketing tactic every week!

Are you a manufacturer seeking to connect with prospects, increase brand awareness, and generate qualified leads that ultimately convert into customers? Keep reading to learn 3 B2B manufacturing marketing strategies that can help you do that!

1.Utilize Influencer Marketing to Grow Your Brand’s Following

Manufacturing decision-makers more often than not will make purchasing decisions based upon recommendations from industry experts and their peers. Many of our manufacturing clients have seen success by utilizing influencer marketing strategies. 

To start, meet with your marketing and sales teams to make a running list of industry influencers. Industry influencers are not necessarily individuals with gigantic social media followings; rather they are people who are considered ‘thought leaders’. 

We suggest ‘micro-influencers’, meaning industry leaders with under 10,000 followers on their social media channels, but with high engagement from their audience (which aligns with YOUR target audience or “persona”.) 

Contact your target list of influencers to discuss collaborating via guest blogging, co-presented webinars/events, and social media post strategy. When reaching out to influencers, it is important to have a clear understanding of what marketing tactics would be mutually beneficial. 

2. Develop an Event Marketing Strategy

Events are tried and true ways to generate leads and close sales. However, it is important to have a clear strategy behind your events. When considering participating or hosting events, start with your goal in mind. For example, if your goal is to build stronger relationships with prospects and shorten the sales cycle, self-hosted events like webinars, small-group plant tours, or live video demos could be a great option. If your marketing goal is growth, large events like trade shows or conferences can generate a large number of leads. 

At the forefront of any successful event is the promotion strategy. Pay-per-click ads or social media advertising (especially on LinkedIn), could be a great way to generate new leads from your events, while email marketing is the best way to get existing prospects in your database to register for your event. 

Once you’ve started your event, encourage your audience to post about it on social media, further impacting registrations and getting the buzz started. 

3. Enhance Lead Capture and Email Automation

It is essential to have a strong lead capture strategy to identify who is on your website and then, have a solid email automation strategy prepared to nurture those leads and turn them into customers. For more, read our blog The Power of an Automated Marketing, Sales, and Service Platform. 

Our clients utilize HubSpot to automate their sales process. HubSpot is a powerful tool that captures leads in one easy-to-use platform, and tracks all contact interactions back to their first visit to your website.  Valuable information for your sales team, such as the contact’s website page views, content read or downloaded, and email read is automatically logged. 

When a prospect fills out a form on your websites, that prospect will automatically be enrolled into a workflow (automated email campaign) based upon the product, service, or topic that prospect is interested in. Thus nurturing the prospect and building a relationship, all the while providing interesting, relevant and informative content. 

At the core of what we do, we believe that each prospect should have a personalized experience with your brand. By utilizing the lead generation strategies in this blog, your manufacturing company will build brand awareness, generate better leads, and close them as customers quicker and more efficiently. 

Check out these helpful related blogs to learn for great B2B manufacturing marketing tips!

• Why Manufacturers Should Invest in Digital Advertising Now
• How to Develop Strong Downloadable Content that Generates Leads
• How to Develop a Successful LinkedIn Content Marketing Strategy

Oftentimes, we are asked if a piece of content should be utilized on a client’s website or pitched to an industry publication. Your piece must meet at least one of the criteria below in order to be worth pitching either a local or industry publication. Continue reading to learn the 4 main factors of newsworthiness.

Timing

Timing is a key element of newsworthiness. Does your story relate to a current event in your industry? Does your story tie into a hot new trend in your industry? If so, your content is timely and could potentially be newsworthy. Editors at local and industry trade publications are looking to cover current news, not old stories. So, if you have been sitting on a case study for a year or a story idea, it may be better suited for your blog or an email campaign to prospects and customers. 

Significance

Another key component of newsworthiness is the overall significance of the story. Ask yourself, who will care about this story? Would the story appeal to manufacturers as a whole or only to manufacturers utilizing 3D printing? It is important to have an understanding of who may be interested, as it directly impacts where to pitch the story. For example, a general manufacturing story could be good for IndustryWeek Magazine, while a story about 3D printing might be better suited for 3D Metal Printing Magazine. For tips on industry publication, read our blog: How to Use Publication Media Kits to Target Better Prospects

Next, determine if your content is niche (only appealing to 50 people perhaps) or is it widely interesting and applicable to the majority of a publication’s circulation? This is a key element to understanding if your story concept should be pitched to a publication, and one point much appreciated to the editor of the magazine.

Finally, ask yourself what are 3 reasons someone would want to know this information? If you cannot answer this quickly and without hesitation, the story probably isn’t right for the industrial trade media. 

The Industrial Manufacturer’s Guide to Public Relations

Proximity

Proximity is an important factor when determining where your story should be pitched. Does my story relate to a specific region? For example, is your story relevant just to Northeast Ohio manufacturers? Then perhaps, pitching to the Crain’s Cleveland Business’s manufacturing reporter would be appropriate. Is your story relevant worldwide? Then you should consider an industry publication with a readership around the globe. 

Human Interest

Most of the time, editors are looking for stories that are timely. However, there is one caveat. A story does not necessarily have to be timely if it fits into a human interest piece. Do you have a story idea that evokes strong emotion? Emotions such as happiness, amusement, sadness, or laughter make for a good human interest story. Examples include the following: an employee-owned manufacturing company raising significant capital for a childhood cancer charity, a 4th generation manufacturing owner reinventing a 100-year old manufacturing company to keep its doors open, or a manufacturer who started a high school apprenticeship program for underprivileged kids and establishing paid internships.

Conclusion

We hope our tips help you have a clearer understanding of what makes content newsworthy. By pitching your story to an industry publication (and getting it published), your manufacturing company has the potential to reach 100s of thousands of readers. Do you need help with content development and media relations strategy? At Felber PR & Marketing, We Get Manufacturing. We understand how editors and reporters think. Relationships with media need to be fostered, just like relationships with your best customers. Need help?