Top 7 Manufacturing Marketing Challenges That Blocking Your Success

Manufacturing marketing – the act of promoting, selling, and distributing products to customers – plays a pivotal role in the success of any manufacturing business. 

However, despite its importance, the field faces many obstacles that must be overcome to thrive.

The manufacturing industry in the US has grown 3.7% per year on average over the five years between 2018 - 2023. 

However, their marketing approach demands improvement from market research and analysis to product development and promotion.  

So, let's explore the seven leading roadblocks and challenges to improve your manufacturing marketing strategies. 

Let's get started!

Manufacturing Marketing Challenges To Look Out For

1. Completing Buyer’s Purchase Journey

In the age of digital marketing, control over the buying journey is paramount, which most marketing approaches lack. 

It requires a solid demand generation strategy that provides buyers with the resources they need throughout the buying process.

For example: During the "need" phase, you should promote your solutions through smart and targeted PPC Pay Per Click (PPC) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). 

And when it's time to research and compare, you should have better content marketing, including: 

• White papers
• Posts
• Videos

Here’s how you can optimize your target buyer’s journey: 

• Provide detailed product information and actively engage with buyers in the channels where they are most active. It may include attending industry conferences, participating in online forums, and leveraging social media platforms. 
• Have an omnichannel marketing strategy that provides real value to convenience buyers while making connections. A great place to start is by creating a free company profile. Choose a platform like LinkedIn,  where over a million buyers go to explore products and services.

You need to identify buyer intent signals for your target manufacturing industry audience. 

For that, you must put yourself in front of all the right buyers. As a result, you'll be able to reach the right people and focus on your revenue. 

2. Indecisive About New Marketing Strategies

As a seasoned industrial marketer, it's vital to maintain a flexible mindset and stay attuned to the latest marketing innovations, tactics, and opportunities. 

Manufacturing marketing is a multifaceted field comprising several elements like: 

• Conversion-optimized landing pages
• Intuitive website architecture 
• Informative content
• Search engine optimization, and more. 

So, by disregarding any of these components, you risk missing out on potential growth opportunities and the ability to connect with new customers. 

Consequently, connecting with a single marketing tool is not essential, even if it appears to yield positive results. Instead, try to explore different relevant tools to drive better results. 

Staying up-to-date with the latest trends and techniques is important to drive growth through marketing efforts. 

However, it can be challenging for businesses to keep pace with the rapidly-evolving digital landscape. 

This is where partnering with a specialized industrial marketing firm can be beneficial to generate qualified leads. 

Such a firm can provide the expertise and resources needed to execute effective online marketing campaigns to drive sales leads and growth for your business.

Your chosen marketing agency can collaborate with you to discover methods of elevating your brand visibility. It can also focus on positioning your company as a reputable authority and a dependable supplier within your industry to generate qualified manufacturing leads.

To maximize their outreach, manufacturing marketing agencies should prioritize outbound efforts such as:  

• Cold emailing
• Cold calling
• Paid ads
• Direct mail
• Tradeshow presentations
• Event sponsorships, etc. 

Furthermore, you can also leverage inbound marketing efforts, including:

• Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Google and LinkedIn Ads etc

3. The Website Is Less User-friendly 

In the current business landscape, consumers tend to favor self-directed research and selection processes, opting to gather information. 

They also try to identify suppliers on their own terms through their devices. They often prefer to avoid direct interactions with sales representatives and try to access the information they need independently. 

Thus, a well-designed, informative website must attract new leads and continuously foster customer engagement. 

However, many manufacturing marketing challenges regarding resource allocation or time management can be seen while optimizing your website as a lead generation tool. 

In some cases, marketers may also lack the expertise or clarity on what specific updates are needed to achieve this goal.

In that case,  as a sophisticated industrial marketer, do not rely on intuition alone to make strategic decisions. 

Instead, leverage data-driven insights to inform their choices. Here’s how you can do it: 

• Utilizing A/B testing methods, you can evaluate which marketing strategies yield the most favorable results among their target audience. This data helps you to continuously refine your approach and stay attuned to shifting trends and customer preferences.
• Employing a growth-driven design approach to enhance, upgrade, and optimize their websites. Unlike conventional web design, it allows for a more agile, iterative process that does not require a large, upfront investment.
• Using marketing tools like Google Analytics and HubSpot provides valuable metrics and analytics that allow you to identify high-performing pages and replicate their success to generate more leads.

4. Organizing and Tracking Potential Customers

An experienced industrial marketer knows that not all leads are created equal. Thus, marketers should use the right tactics for the right lead. 

For example, when someone fills out a form on your website to download an eBook. This means they have shown some interest in your product or service. These people may be considered marketing-qualified leads (MQLs). 

At the same time, when someone fills out a form to request a consultation with your company, they may be considered sales-qualified leads (SQL). This means they have demonstrated a strong intent to purchase.

MQLs and SQLs are two important categories of leads in the sales and marketing process:

• Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)
  An MQL is a lead that has shown interest in your product or service through various marketing channels such as email, social media, or website visits but is not yet ready to make a purchase. 

These leads are usually in the early stages of the buying process. It requires further nurturing and education before they can be converted into a customer. 

• Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs)
  An SQL is a lead that the sales team has qualified as being ready to make a purchase. These leads have typically gone through the initial stages of the buying process. 

SQLs are usually identified through a combination of a lead scoring system and lead qualification methods. It includes phone calls, demos, or appointment meetings. 

Acting prematurely and directing your sales team to connect with leads that are merely perusing data can be detrimental to your success. 

Thus, focus on recognizing the difference between MQLs and SQLs and identify sales opportunities better and the prospect’s real-time pipeline stage.

Read more about Sales Leads Vs Opportunities: Top 4 Key Differences

Utilizing a marketing automation platform like HubSpot can assist in keeping tabs on all the actions taken by your leads. Thus, it enables you to strategize on which leads to pursue and when. 

5. Making the Most of What You Have

Manufacturing companies don't always have lots of extra staff. And when it comes to manufacturing marketing, it's really not something you can fit in around your other tasks.

If you've only just dipped your toe in the marketing pool, you're likely to experience a bit of a ripple effect in your results. 

For example, if you only half-heartedly approach maintenance, customer service, or product quality, your business will have negative consequences. 

So, you can solve this problem by creating a single repository of all marketing and brand assets. You can do this by: 

• Effective planning and utilizing the 80/20 rule. 
• Creating a culture that encourages referrals and strategically consolidates your team roles. 
• Focusing on one marketing channel, an ideal client group, and producing engaging content.

If your budget allows, hiring a marketing agency like Revnew can be a great way to get the most out of your marketing efforts. It's the quickest way to establish an online presence and keep those high-quality leads coming in. 

6. Irrelevant And Low-Quality Content 

Unfortunately, the web is seemingly flooded with content primarily focused on sales. It’s because most businesses focus on luring in clients and increasing their revenue. So, there is a lack of real information that can help professionals make informed decisions. Additionally, many manufacturing companies have tight budgets and limited time to develop content.

However, valuable and consistent content that resonates with customers drives engagement and moves them through the sales funnel. If you have the budget and other resources, you must invest in creating high-quality content. Here are some tips to follow: 

• Content marketing for manufacturers should include a mix of content such as blogs, ebooks, videos, FAQs, and social media posts. This will help to position the company as a thought leader in the industry and attract new customers. 
• Know who your ideal buyers are to create content that is targeted and tailored to them. Also, use keyword research tools to identify keywords that have a high search volume, low competition, and are related to the work of your manufacturing company.
• Product and service pages, industry pages, service area pages, case studies, blog and resource pages, and videos should be included in your content. Industry pages allow you to deliver content to people searching for industry-specific queries. 
• Location and service area pages help create a positive user experience. Hence, this can be an excellent opportunity for manufacturers to rank at the top of search engines. Additionally, case studies allow you to demonstrate the value of your products through past success. 
• Videos are also a great option for content marketing as they are very versatile and can be used in several ways, such as customer testimonials, product demos, and more.

7. Involving Automation In Your Marketing 

Manufacturing industries have long embraced automation solutions, like robotics, IoT, AI, and machine learning – to streamline operations and increase efficiency. 

Similarly, marketing leverages automation platforms to automate tedious tasks and free up time for more strategic pursuits. 

However, implementing marketing automation can come with its own set of challenges. 

Some of these challenges include the incompatibility of marketing automation tools with an existing business system, lack of needed resources for smooth implementation, etc. 

To ensure a smooth transition, it is crucial to: 

• Have a robust database and a clear plan for automation. 
• Maintain and continuously update the automation to stay relevant to changing audiences. 
• Adopt enterprise quality management systems (QMS), enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions, and coordinated material management systems. These solutions optimize reporting and automate the entire product cycle. 

Finally, it is important to remember that automation should not compromise the authenticity and personality of your brand, as it can harm your reputation.

Wrapping Up

Manufacturing companies face many marketing hurdles, such as rival brands, globalization, and tech advancements. To get around these issues, manufacturers need to concentrate on constructing a powerful brand and making their products stand out. 

They must also find the right channels to effectively reach their target audiences. With these fundamentals in check, manufacturers can continue to grow, prosper and flourish in a business world that's always evolving.

Furthermore, you must check out Revnew’s marketing services to smoothen out your manufacturing marketing challenges. We are B2B lead generation service providers, ready to help you get over any obstacle and bring the best outcome for your marketing efforts. 

Learn how Revnew helped its client reach over 100 leads and track over 19000 potential contacts within a short period. To learn more, contact us now.