Saying that it can be difficult to grow a company within the industrial manufacturing industry is an understatement. Perhaps you’ve tested and set up a variety of marketing campaigns and strategies in the past, but you haven’t seen those campaigns yield much in terms of results. Or perhaps you have a solid marketing plan in place, but you’d like to tweak certain areas of the plan to see even more growth.
The same challenges face home service contractors who deal with B2B suppliers and distributors. Whether you’re a manufacturing company selling to distributors or a contractor needing reliable supplier relationships, effective marketing hinges on the same fundamentals.
No matter what your specific marketing needs might look like, the experts at Valve+Meter can help. We’ve put this guide together to help your industrial manufacturing company achieve transformational growth.
Analyze Your Existing Plans and Materials
If your industrial manufacturing business currently has a marketing strategy in place, be sure to thoroughly analyze and inspect the plan. Discuss factors including your target audience, customer responses, return on investment, and your competitors. Determine just how successful your marketing campaign has been, and determine if any tweaks are needed.
Additionally, go over any existing collateral that you’ve used in your marketing plan. This includes any content, physical materials, images, videos, graphs, emails, and so forth. If you’ve used it in your marketing efforts, be sure to analyze it to ensure that it’s consistent with your overall marketing message and conveys the information that your company wants it to.
Similarly, contractors working with manufacturing suppliers should audit the marketing materials and partnerships those suppliers offer. Are their resources helping you attract customers? Do their case studies and testimonials align with your service offerings?
Create a New Marketing Strategy
For companies that currently have marketing tactics in place, determine if some tweaks can be made to the current strategy to make it more effective, or if a completely new strategy should be set up. If your company doesn’t have much of a lead generation strategy, though, it’s essential to create one. But where do you begin creating a successful marketing strategy in the manufacturing industry?
Many industrial manufacturing companies start by running a SWOT analysis, determining their value propositions, and performing competitor analyses. Taking these steps will show where you have weaknesses, where you have opportunities to grow, and how your competitors are choosing to market their similar products or services. This is a significant first step in creating a marketing strategy that will lead to growth for your company.
For home service contractors, this same framework applies. Understanding your competitive landscape, your unique value (emergency response speed, warranty terms, technician expertise), and your market weaknesses helps guide resource allocation.
Establish Metrics and Goals
What do the results of a solid marketing plan look like to you? How do you determine if your marketing plan was successful? To answer questions similar to these, it’s important to establish metrics and goals. Not only will these help you know how effective your current campaign is, but they’ll also help you determine what areas of your strategy need to be tweaked in order to fully take advantage of the strategy.
Key metrics to keep track of include:
- Conversion rates
- Cost per lead
- Bounce rate
- Site traffic
- Cost per job (for contractors)
- Lead response time
- Customer lifetime value
- Return on ad spend (ROAS)
Optimize and Adjust Strategy as Needed
Unfortunately, your marketing strategy likely won’t be perfect right out of the gate. To capitalize on the marketing strategy that you’ve created, What areas are performing well, and which ones need to be adjusted a bit.
For example, if you’re getting a decent amount of traffic to your website, but are finding that not many of your visitors are taking the next step in the buying process, conversion rate optimization might be necessary. Or, if you’ve put a heavy emphasis on digital marketing but are finding that it’s not leading to new visitors on your website, you may need to add search engine optimization to your content marketing efforts, as well as set up a social media strategy to attract potential customers.
For manufacturing companies selling B2B, this might mean your trade show presence needs strengthening. For contractors, it might mean your Google Business Profile needs optimization or your direct mail needs better targeting.
The key is measuring what’s working and what’s not, then shifting budget toward high-performing channels.
Create a Data-Driven Feedback Loop
The most successful companies don’t just set goals and hope; they measure everything and adjust continuously. Set up tracking for every marketing channel—UTM parameters for digital, unique phone numbers for direct mail, QR codes on print materials.
Use this data to build a clear picture of which marketing activities actually drive revenue. A manufacturing company might discover that LinkedIn content works better than trade shows. A contractor might find that seasonal direct mail outperforms year-round Google Ads.
When you can tie marketing spend directly to revenue generated, you can make confidently shift budget from weak channels to strong ones.
Contact Valve+Meter for Industrial Manufacturing Marketing Services
Marketing for manufacturing companies isn’t easy. Industrial manufacturing companies face unique challenges that many other businesses in other industries may not have to face. The professionals at Valve+Meter are experienced in helping industrial manufacturing companies just like yours achieve transformational growth.
Valve+Meter is a full-service performance marketing agency that is completely dedicated to helping our clients reach new heights. By offering our clients a fresh and innovative marketing experience, there’s no limit to how far they can grow. Get in contact with us today to discuss your industrial manufacturing company’s marketing needs, and to see how we can help.