Previously we discussed three ways manufacturers or owners of industrial companies could be more accessible to their audience and clientele. These included registering their companies on local and industry listings, adding contact forms in useful places on their company websites, and making sure that those websites are optimized for mobile use. Here we will discuss two additional ideas: blogging and utilizing social media.
Manufacturers and other companies that sell or market their products business to business are at a disadvantage in the traditional marketing scene. However, in terms of using new marketing strategies like blogging and social media, they may have an advantage right now. This is because few manufacturers are blogging or utilizing social media outlets in order to make business contacts or capture the attention of would be clients. It’s easy for companies that make or sell consumer goods to market them to the public either by using pictures or advertising on Facebook. For a metal fabricator or pallet manufacturer, that’s not a very effective strategy. Still there are benefits, both in terms of SEO and increasing awareness.
Google rewards businesses that create original content, and regardless of what your business manufactures, there is alway original content to create. This may mean pictures of your product or your product creation, detailed information about your products, their uses, or how to utilize them, company history, unique manufacturing processes, or anything else that illustrates how your business does business.
If you can write blog pieces longer than 300 words about any of the above, Google will find them and factor their existence into its algorithm, rewarding your business with higher search rankings for any terms you highlight. Add pictures that are optimized in the same way for SEO, and the effect is magnified.
You may believe that no one will ever read about these topics, but you might be surprised. Students often have to write reports about different industries and may consult your blog content. Companies who might be looking for a metal fabricator may come upon your site because of a search you have targeted and discover that your company both exists and cares about its products and processes. The local news may go looking for an industry example and link to your company’s website. Many opportunities are possible for anyone willing to invest in a long term strategy of creating original and interesting content.
The second strategy – using social media – also ties into this. Any company with social media can use those outlets – whether LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Facebook, or others – to promote its own content and make contacts within their market. An interesting article on new technological developments in parts washing might attract notice and result in a customer reaching out to your company. After all, both blogs and tweets are always available in searches, unlike ads that air on television to whatever audience happens to be watching at the time.
There are always ways to market to increase customer awareness of your company’s products or services. That’s because that product or service has an intended customer; you need only reach them in an effective way. Both social media and blogging are useful tools available to manufacturers and industrial companies in order to make that happen.
