How to do marketing for B2B products or services – manufacturing or industrial sector
Read time: 4 mins
Author: Rosemary Lafferty, Owner of Yellow Ruler Marketing
If your product or service is a highly technical or industrial product, you may feel that it is going to be much harder/impossible to market it compared to marketing for consumer products such as clothes, shoes, laptops etc. It is true that such consumer products lend themselves easily to slick videos and popular influencer promotions.
But what happens when your product is a highly technical/industrial/”boring” product or a “hard to explain” piece of software?
The good news is that as long as there are prospects out there for whom your product solves a problem or makes their work life better, then you can market this product/service as successfully any consumer product.
How to do marketing or social media for a “boring”, highly technical in industrial product or service.
It almost goes without saying but it is essential that you begin with a clear, written digital marketing plan.
Why do you need a marketing plan?
Answering this question is the scope of a different blog post but in summary, a marketing plan is essential because all marketing plans contain a very clear, detailed buyer persona which will include, among other things, a list of all of your potential buyers pain points.
What are pain points (marketing)?
Paint points are the issues are the most important to your target market prospects right now. For example, if you sell accounting software that speeds up end of year account preparation significantly, then the pain point of your target market is most likely to be that they are spending way too much time preparing end of year accounts. What you have clearly identified the top pain points of your target customers, you then need to create an action plan – a list of activities that will build awareness in your target market that your product/service is the solution to these pain points. How can you do this?
Building awareness of your product in your target market
Below is quick summary of the key things to do (however I strongly recommend consulting with a marketing expert before you dive in)
– Set clear, measurable, objectives
– Identify the search terms your prospects will use when they are searching for a solution to these pain points and optimise your website for these terms. (Well optimised content on your website can bring traffic and leads to your website for years to come)
– Create content that explains how your product or service will solve their problem. Make sure this content is focused on their problem and avoid too much unnecessary information about your company. All your prospects care about is getting a solution to their problem.
– Make sure you have content of different formats so that you can serve your prospects at the 3 different stages of their buyer journey. (For example, a buyer who is only beginning to think about getting a solution won’t want to read your detailed blog but he or she may take a couple of seconds to look over an infographic that gives him her a quick summary of your a quick summary of your product/ service. However, a prospect who has done all their research and now are close to reaching a decision will prefer to read a detailed blog about your product or service).
– Share your content on all your social media platforms and on your website.
– Re-share your content ruthlessly! Repetition is the key to learning and your prospects need to learn about how your product or service can fix their problem.
– Monitor your social media platforms and reply to all comments. If possible, connect with everyone who has engaged so that you begin to build up relationships with these people, a percentage of whom will be your target prospects.
– Share your content consistently – use social media scheduling software to ensure you maintain your social media presence. (Software such as Buffer, OneUp and Hootsuite are inexpensive and easy to use).
– Controls – analyse results, improve and repeat the above steps
How are you getting on with marketing your technical/ industrial/”hard to explain” product? Drop me an email.
At Yellow Ruler Marketing, we create digital marketing plans and social media content for B2B businesses.