Content Marketing for Manufacturers – Relevance and Importance
The advent of the internet and its adoption beyond scientific and academic circles saw the birth of online content marketing. A channel for businesses, marketers, salespersons, technologists, and entrepreneurs to communicate their values, thoughts, messages etc. to reach and engage people.
Though the internet was used primarily as a resource for unlimited information, search engines and browsers ignited its latent business potential. Since then, we have the world wide web in its current form – exponentially growing, sophisticated, complex, and with seemingly infinite data and data consumption possibilities
1. What is content marketing?
Content marketing is an interest and demand generation activity that requires digital marketers and content creators. And as the name suggests, the pivot here is the creation and sharing of content.
Content marketing is unique and also connected to other interest and demand generation efforts. The typical content marketing campaign runs for several months or even years. And the anticipated outcomes in terms of quantity and quality gains momentum over this period.
2. Why is content marketing relevant for manufacturers?
The manufacturing domain under its sheer essentiality to the world and civilization is focused on meeting production targets, technology innovation, quality control (from the last century), and supply chain management (from the 1980s).
Other than these areas, manufacturers followed a ‘build and they will come’ philosophy. Till now, that is. With B2B decision making becoming increasingly online, manufacturers are investing more time and effort into digital marketing. And how would they not when career marketers are posting data like this from time to time?
3. When will content marketing for manufacturers start showing results?
Content marketing is the evolution of stuffing keywords in the early 2000s that are used to attract traffic.
Content marketing for manufacturers also involve the same constituents as for digital marketing, namely
- Target personas
- Buyer journey mapping
- Messaging development
- Content creation
- Channel planning
- Content calendar
- Marketing calendar
- And an inorganic boost from time-to-time etc.
Where content marketing differs is that it is predominantly an inbound/pull marketing effort and the search marketer’s best friend. This is no different for manufacturing businesses.
Content marketing is being continually reshaped by the changing modes of audience engagement with digital assets. For instance, businesses across domains have been increasing efforts to capture the target prospect’s attention across multiple channels. This has led to omnichannel digital experiences for audiences.
The bottleneck here is the time required to create quality content that delivers value to the audience and the challenges faced when analyzing the performance through marketing metrics and refine strategy.
Content marketing, when done right will result in digital assets (in focus) rank high across the multiple touch-points. Creation of sheer quantity of digital assets and overlapping keywords demands a substantial investment of time.
Also Read: Value of unrealized B2B sales potential is larger than the GDP of 77 countries – combined!
4. What are the components of content marketing for manufacturers?
Content marketing for manufacturers is a time-consuming effort. But with a review and feedback mechanism, it is possible to build a lead generation engine.
The broad components of content marketing are as follows,
I.Offer Identification: Content marketing starts by identifying specific offerings around which content would be developed.
II.Buyer Journey Mapping for Manufacturers: Here, marketers will build the path taken by target personas – by role, responsibility, company, and industry. (Email us to hello@minorilabs.com for a buyer’s journey template and messaging persona template for manufacturers)
For example, a spare parts manufacturing company could target the following persona.
| Target Persona | Paul from Procurement |
| Role | Director, Procurement Operations |
| Reporting To | VP Supply Chain |
| Responsibility | Ensure strategic purchase of raw materials for manufacturing while maintaining cost competitiveness. |
| What Keeps Paul Awake At Night | Unanticipated supply chain disruptions for manufacturing like unplanned logistical requirements, shortages, lack of alternatives etc. |
III.Messaging Development for Manufacturers: Buyer journey mapping is initiated with messaging development, a step that ensures that there are clear goals for each part of the content development. A process where messages are defined for each stage of the buyer’s journey. (Email us to for the messaging template for manufacturers)
IV.Content Mapping for Manufacturers: The messages created need to be carried to the target audience and gain the attention of highly relevant prospects. A well-defined content map helps plan and develop the appropriate content pieces for the different stages of the buyer’s journey. (Email us to for the content map template for manufacturers)
V.Content Marketing Calendar for Manufacturers: Messaging and content mapping to the buyer’s journey help define a definitive timeline to create content. (Email us to hello@minorilabs.com for a content marketing calendar template for manufacturers)
VI.Project & Return on Investment (RoI) Tracking: As mentioned earlier, the success of content marketing lies in the executor’s ability to collect data, draw inferences from it, and keep experimenting with solutions based on feedback. (Email us to hello@minorilabs.com for a Project & RoI template for manufacturers)
5.Getting started on content marketing for manufacturers
Big-ticket selling with a high-intensity sales process will benefit from content marketing. This is made possible with this approach’s inherent ability to deliver focused messaging and make the relevant content available to the appropriate target audience.
MinoriLabs helps B2B manufacturers and service providers to set up and maintain their content marketing efforts.
Talk to us or drop us a mail to know more: hello@minorilabs.com
