How important is M for Marketing in M for Manufacturing?

By Bhalchandra Chorghade, Editor, CNCTimes.com

The great Henry Ford once said, “Stopping advertising to save money is like stopping your watch to save time.”

Taking the courage to twist the quote a little bit, it should read “Stopping marketing expenses to save money is like stopping your watch to save time.”

The above saying should perfectly fit for the manufacturing sector which has been mainly relying on the conventional tools to reach out to its customers/prospects. From making rounds of the offices for converting the prospective buyer into a fixed one or sending manual fillers as reminders, the marketing has been a typical one in the manufacturing sector. Besides putting up a stall or visiting exhibitions, there was not much thinking about the ways to increase the reach and understand the importance of networking.

It was around 20 years ago when the scenario changed with the advent of new meaning to the word ‘MARKETING’. The organisations have now started to realise the importance of various means of marketing such as e-mail marketing, seminars, webinars, digital campaigns etc. that contributes immensely in marketing any product or service.

This is a complete shift from the routine marketing stuff such as sales support, organizing trade show giveaways, creating sell sheets, buying ad space in trade magazines and making sure the website looked halfway decent.

According to Mr. Vineet Seth, Managing Director, Mastercam APAC, “Marketing enables brand success, helps with internal and external communication and advertises the products or services of one’s organisation. Modern marketing is essential for businesses to engage with the customer before, during and after the sales cycle is completed. In the manufacturing domain, marketing is very essential, given the VUCA nature of today’s markets. In today’s terms, Marketing is also customer success - and this is specifically true for manufacturing businesses. End-to-end life cycle analysis, performance and benefits are key indicators of a progressive marketing group that track product and services performance.” 

In today's manufacturing domain, it’s not just about having the "best quality" product or having that "98 percent on-time delivery" rate or the generic "product performance guarantee", the manufacturers need to dig into their past and evolve new and innovative ways to serve the market. And yes, the marketing tools are ever-evolving so one needs to keep pace with the changing time and act accordingly.

This does not mean that one should stop treading the tested path of ‘cold calls’ or ‘follow-ups’, but along with that he should engage the customers through various marketing strategies. The companies need to do their own research online before they even want to engage with the salesperson.

“On the communications front, brand and product messaging is vital, especially using modern digital tools, that track whether the message was read, deleted or routed to spam.  Upcoming frameworks like Metaverse for example should be studied, understood and deployed when feasible. Cross platform/device compliant website and apps too are the need of the day to enable a seamless interaction with prospects and customers. The modern manufacturing marketeer, therefore, needs to be aware of modern tools, balance the traditional tools based on best suitability and ensure that the brand is easily recognisable, reachable and reliable,” added Mr. Seth.

According to reports, 57% of manufacturers have small or one-person marketing teams serving the entire company while nearly half of manufacturers (46%) are in the young/first steps of content marketing maturity. The figures are before the Covid-19 pandemic had hurt the business modules.

Similarly, 30% are in the adolescent phase, 22% are in the mature/sophisticated phase and close to 3 in 5 (58%) outsource at least one content marketing activity. About one third (31%) of manufacturing marketers say it is increasingly difficult to capture their audiences’ attention (77% are focusing on building audiences and subscriber bases for this reason), fewer than half of marketers (47%) say their organization has realistic expectations about what marketing can achieve. Surprisingly, 55% say their leadership team does not give them ample time to produce results.

Mr. Manish Advani, Marketing Leader, Award Winning Story Teller and Founder CEO of MIMO Potentio says, “In marketing, the world is shifting from push to pull mechanism. We should understand that if we don't change with changing times, someone else will grab the opportunity and go far ahead in life.”

The 8 Times Tedx Speaker added, “In the world where companies are centred around speed and scale, if we harness on Digital Marketing, we will be able to become growth hackers.”

The essential marketing rules:

• Market to somebody, not just anybody.
• Present your catalogue online, along with videos of how your products work and the benefits they offer.
• Ensure that your site is clear, clean, up-to-date and features regularly refreshed content like blogs, press releases and FAQs.
• If you provide content that is genuinely useful, you’ll appear higher in search engine results and already be on your way to having a stronger online presence.
• Being active on social media can also develop your online presence. Additionally, social media platforms can help you disseminate your content and gather instant feedback.
• Trade shows provide a great opportunity to meet new prospects, move leads through the pipeline and keep your services top of mind.
• Public relations can be a great tool for manufacturers, provided they have a story to tell.
• Manufacturing companies that integrate webinars into their B2B marketing strategy are successful at bringing in good quality leads.
• B2B companies who blog regularly benefit from a fresh and relevant website, improved SEO rankings and higher website traffic.
• Although manufacturers tend to have a lower adoption rate than other industries for social media, every manufacturer is starting to give some consideration to social media, if they're not doing it already.

If you want to stay true to your company’s vision and mission, it is necessary to design and develop a marketing strategy or one day you will see that your company's losing its legacy and that it may not last another generation.

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