Against the Grain: Manufacturing

Most companies have had a website for 10 years or more. They’ve probably completely revamped it two or three times. And They’ve probably never really found the pot of gold at the end of the cyber rainbow.

That’s because they built an online brochure or a reference shelf, not a sales or lead generation tool.

But like all other marketing tools (and it is a marketing tool, regardless of what IT says), a site’s primary goal should be converting cold prospects into warm leads. Can it have other uses and be a deep resource of content about a company and its products? Certainly. But don’t let that get in the way of closing business.

Trilix is a full-service advertising agency headquartered in the Midwest with expertise in helping manufacturers market effectively and drive sales success. Learn more at www.trilixgroup.com or email Todd Senne at tsenne@trilixgroup.com. 

When your sales team has a marketing challenge or opportunity, who are they calling? If you’re like many of today’s companies, there’s likely no one to call on, so your sales people end up doing the work themselves. Unfortunately, this is all too commonplace in today’s environment.

Left with no clear marketing leader, it’s every (sales)man for himself.

When marketing responsibilities are distributed across your entire sales force — with dozens of individuals creating their own ads, presentations, literature and more — your brand, message, best practices and value proposition can become frayed and inconsistent. And without a consistent message and position, you may be better off doing no marketing at all.

If your company is like most manufacturing companies, you don’t sell directly to customers. There’s a dealership, distributor or retailer between you and the end customer. An intermediary you rely on to move product, drive profits and serve your brand.

You are treating them like royalty, right?

Your dealer or distributor network is your front line sales team. And failing to support, coddle and motivate them can drastically reduce your end-of-year sales. Does the dealer have the materials they need to close a sale? Have you given them reason to recommend you over a competitor? Do you regularly train their sales staff? Show the dealer some love and they’ll return it ten fold.

Many of the manufacturing companies we’ve come across share a common internal characteristic — they’re consumed by an engineering mindset. And for good reason. But this feature-minded, product-centric outlook causes trouble for marketing and sales.

Engineers and customers don’t care about the same things.

Your engineering staff is a valuable resource when developing your marketing materials… but they’re not marketers. They’re often so enamored with the engineering minutia of a new product that they lose touch with why a customer should care. They’re selling the features and celebrating the challenges their department overcame to deliver the product. But you have to keep your eye on the only thing that matters — how it benefits the customer.

The primary goal of a manufacturer’s marketing efforts is to generate leads for a sales team and dealer channel. Educating the marketplace, positioning products versus the competition and brand building are all parts of the message… but the end goal is the same. Sell more stuff.

One thing many marketers are forgetting to do: Ask the sales team for marketing advice.

It’s commonplace to find an organization that has completely separated the two disciplines. But their job is to feed each other. Marketing feeds leads and awareness to sales, and sales feeds market insight and customer feedback to marketing. It’s a perfect circle. Ahhh… the symmetry. Make it happen.