Download Content Marketing: The Opportunity for Industrial Marketers

CONTENT MARKETING FOR INDUSTRIAL MARKETERS
GLOBALSPEC WHITE PAPER
Content Marketing for Industrial Marketers:
Establish Thought Leadership, Build Brand Awareness,
and Drive Engagement Opportunities
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Contents
Executive Summary....................................................................................................................................3
What is Content Marketing?........................................................................................................................4
What Can You Accomplish with Content Marketing?...................................................................................5
Types of Content.........................................................................................................................................6
Industrial Inspirations................................................................................................................................8
Five Challenges of Content Marketing......................................................................................................10
Recommendations....................................................................................................................................11
How GlobalSpec Can Help........................................................................................................................12
Conclusion................................................................................................................................................13
About GlobalSpec.....................................................................................................................................14
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Executive Summary
Before your prospects even pick up the phone to call you or send you an email, they likely know who you
are, what you do and what you sell. This may be intimidating to some manufacturers and suppliers but a
huge opportunity for others if a dynamic content marketing strategy has been implemented to attract, engage
and inform your prospects.
According to the GlobalSpec Industrial Buy Cycle Survey, 83 percent of buyers review up to three pieces
of content before making a decision on purchases under $1,000, while 70 percent of buyers review four or
more pieces of content on purchases greater than $10,000. Industrial purchases as well as vendors are now
researched and evaluated online. This desire for information – mainly through online channels – means that
manufacturers need to step up their content marketing strategy.
There is no doubt that your prospects are savvy researchers and confident buyers. They are hungry for
content and are finding plenty of online and offline outlets to satiate their appetites. Providing your audience
with the valuable, authoritative content they need to help solve their problems will position your company as
an expert in your industry, build trust with your prospects and, ultimately, make it easier to sell your products
and services and drive revenue.
Content marketing is also at the foundation of your other marketing initiatives such as your website, vertical
industry websites, online directories, search engine optimization (SEO) and social media. Search engines are
doing a better job of surfacing top-quality content to the first page of their results. Your content marketing
activities – blog posts, press releases, videos and more – build links, which are critically important to search
engine ranking algorithms. The frequency of your content being shared and linked to – including from online
directories and vertical industry websites – increases how well your pages perform in search results. If you
want to be visible in search, compelling and engaging content is the key.
Industrial professionals are also increasingly using social media to search and discover information that
will help them do their jobs and guide their purchasing decisions. According to the latest GlobalSpec Social
Media Use in the Industrial Sector research report, 61 percent of industrial professionals use social media
sites to keep abreast of the latest company, product and technology news. Social media not only is a method
to distribute your content but amplify it as well. Engaging, useful content may be shared by your followers
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on networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, reaching a much wider audience and introducing your
products and services to potential new customers who become more informed about your company and
offerings.
Perhaps realizing these benefits of content marketing through digital channels, the recent B2B Content
Marketing: 2012 Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends report from the Content Marketing Institute and
MarketingProfs shows that b-to-b marketers are expanding their use of online channels such as blogs and
eBooks and reducing their reliance on traditional media (such as trade magazines).
Industrial marketers have also been trained to keep their materials short, attention-grabbing and to the point
as they have just a moment or two to capture the interest of a reader. However, content marketing lends itself
to include more long-form, detailed resources like white papers, research reports and videos.
What is Content Marketing?
A growing number of industrial marketers are incorporating content marketing into their marketing mix and
investing more time and resources into this strategy. You may be wondering what content marketing entails
or why it’s important. And you may be surprised to know that you likely are already involved in content
marketing to some degree and that you have the resources and materials to ramp up your efforts fairly
quickly.
Companies large and small across the industrial sector are successfully deploying content marketing
strategies to build demand, increase awareness and drive engagement opportunities.
For the purposes of this white paper, we’ll use this definition of content marketing from the Content Marketing
Institute:
Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable
content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience — with
the objective of driving profitable customer action.
Content marketing essentially is communicating without selling. Rather than pushing your products and services,
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you provide relevant, useful information to help your target audience make smart purchasing decisions.
This also positions your company as a thought leader in your industry and helps you rise above your
competitors. Among b-to-b technology marketers, “thought leadership and market education” is the fastest
growing goal of content marketing efforts according to the 2012 B2B Content Marketing Trends report.
Going beyond simply discussing your products, effective content marketers also provide competitive
analysis, industry trends, case studies, best practices and other materials that establish their companies
as the expert and “go-to” resource for their types of solutions and services. Through content marketing,
you have helped make your prospects better informed and more knowledgeable about your industry and
positioned your company as a potential answer to their needs. You’ve also begun a relationship with them
and can start fostering that critical – and often elusive – trust. Building a high level of confidence with your
prospects isn’t simple but is more important than ever. This will lead to a greater comfort level with your
company and make it easier for your prospects to buy from you rather than your competitors.
Content marketing doesn’t replace your current marketing strategy or initiatives. It’s a complement to what
you’re already doing. For example, you have committed budget and resources to email marketing, public
relations, and online events among other programs. Here’s how content marketing fits with your plan. A
new customer testimonial is included in an email marketing campaign. A customer survey on trends in your
industry is turned into a research report for a press release and distributed through a targeted e-newsletter
publication. A presentation on your latest product development can be showcased at an online event or
Webinar.
What Can You Accomplish with Content Marketing
As with any marketing initiative, you need to set your goals and expectations along with how you will
measure your efforts. Content marketing is ideal for developing thought leadership in your industry, building
brand awareness with your prospects and creating new engagement opportunities for your sales team. In
fact, according to BtoB Magazine’s 2012 B2B Content Marketing: Ready for Prime Time report, the top four
reasons b-to-b marketing professionals use content marketing are to:
• improve engagement with their target audiences
• make their brands a trusted source
• take advantage of the rise of digital marketing
• achieve faster and more relevant touch points in the market
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Once your goals are in place, you’ll need to determine the best ways to get in front of your target audience.
In an ideal world, every prospect would enter your company name into a search engine and land on your
website ready to buy. In reality, you need a strategy that places your company in front of your audience as
they search and discover the products, components and services they need to do their job. It could be online
events, e-newsletters, Webinars, blogs or any number of avenues that your audience uses to retrieve the
content they need to stay informed, make buying decisions and perform their work responsibilities.
How do you measure the effectiveness of your content marketing? Some basic metrics include the traffic
to the content on your website or blog and how those visitors are arriving at your content (social media,
search engines, e-newsletter advertisement, press release, etc.). You should also measure social media
engagement (how often your content is shared and by whom).
Also, look at the time spent by these visitors with your content. A longer time spent on a page could mean
increased engagement with the content. The number of downloads is another good measurement and if
the content is behind a sign-up form, track the quantity and, more importantly, quality of the engagement
opportunities from those registrations.
Ultimately, your strategy will need to lead to increased revenues. Be sure to track each piece of content a
prospect accesses throughout the sales cycle so when that prospect becomes a client you can look back
and see the information that may have influenced the buying decision.
Types of Content
The heart of any content marketing strategy is obviously the content. The thought of developing content
may seem overwhelming, especially if your marketing department is underresourced. What you may not
know is that you likely have the content and resources needed to get started and sustain your initiatives. For
example, you can rely on the engineers and product experts in your company to supply some of the more
and technical and product-focused information.
Having the right content for your target audience is the first step. Placing it into the right formats and
channels your prospects rely on when looking for the information you have to share is equally as important.
As mentioned, industrial professionals are shifting their product discovery, research, evaluation and selection
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to online channels. Is your content optimized for online discovery, viewing and downloading? Are you using
video, case studies and white papers? Is your content available through the media channels industrial
professionals prefer such as online catalogs and directories, your website and even social media.
Some examples of content that will help build your thought leadership position in your industry as well as
brand awareness with your audience include:
• Articles
• Blog posts
• E-Newsletters
• Industry research, analysis and insights
• Press releases
• Webinars and podcasts
• White papers and e-books
This type of content will show your expertise in a given field and create confidence in your company. In
B2B Content Marketing Trends, 81 percent of b-to-b technology marketers said “engaging and compelling
storytelling” was the most important element of effective content. While you may sell complex products
or equipment, content that is engaging and dynamic is more important at this point than highly technical
documents. Your prospect may not be ready to buy but is still attracted to useful, relevant information.
For prospects that are just beginning to research and discover information to support a purchasing decision,
you can provide:
• Charts, diagrams and product images
• Competitive analysis
• Customer case studies
• “How to” and Selection Guides
• Interviews with product managers
• Product catalogs
• Product demos
• Tutorials
As you continue to establish trust with your prospect, show how your products can be used to solve a
problem. Here’s where your customers can play a big role. It’s far more compelling to hear your customers
talk about how your product or service helped solve their problems rather than your company tout the
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product’s benefits. Video testimonials from customers offer an even better opportunity for you to tell their
stories in unique, creative and compelling ways.
As prospects continue to move through the buy cycle and start to look for more specific and technical
information on your company’s products and services, you can feed them:
• Applications notes and overviews
• CAD drawings
• Installation guides
• Product comparisons
• Product specifications
• Technical briefs
• Technical data sheets
Now you’ve given them the details they need to make informed decisions.
Industrial Inspirations
These are just a few examples of industrial suppliers that are effectively using content marketing to build
brand awareness and thought leadership as well as providing the critical information purchasing decision
makers need when selecting a vendor. It’s important to note that these industrial suppliers are delivering and
linking to their content by using a variety of distribution channels including their websites, online directories,
social media, Webinars and more.
Blogs
Indium Corporation is a materials supplier to the global electronics assembly, semiconductor fabrication
and packaging, solar photovoltaic, and thermal management markets. The company blog is a mix of useful
product applications and industry expertise. To maximize its exposure, Indium Corporation links to its blog
and other social media outlets from its GlobalSpec supplier profile page.
Belden manufactures cable, connectivity and networking products that transmit signals for data, sound and
video applications. Its “The Right Signals Blog” discusses hot topics relevant to its industry such as malware
and shares customer testimonials.
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Technical Information
FUTEK Advanced Sensor Technology, Inc., a load cell manufacturer and supplier, offers a well-organized, easyto-navigate set of application diagrams that’s accessible from the futek.com home page as well as product
specifications and technical articles on its GlobalSpec supplier profile page.
Thought Leadership Campaign
The centerpiece of TE Connectivity AD&M’s “Design Smarter. Faster.” campaign is an online information hub
that features the company’s best thinkers, insights, news, social media feeds, videos and other content. The site
targets design engineers and allows them to connect with subject matter experts to help solve their problems and
challenges.
Videos
A producer of optics, imaging, and photonics technology, Edmund Optics supports the R&D, electronics,
semiconductor, pharmaceutical, biomedical, and military markets. The company offers a series of short videos
that showcase its products and applications. The videos are also available through YouTube and on its GlobalSpec
supplier profile page.
While not focused on its products, semiconductor company Texas Instruments “Thank an Engineer” video
series helps build the company’s brand awareness.
Webinars
Patton Electronics Co. provides a line of voice and data gateways, servers, routers and integrated access
solutions for TDM, packet, leased lines, multi-services and dial-up. To help educate its audience, Patton hosts
a series of Webinars and provides them on demand on its website as well as shorter tutorial videos through its
GlobalSpec supplier profile page.
Websites
Leica Microsystems provides microscopy, camera and software solutions for imaging and analysis of macro-,
micro- and nanostructures. Prime real estate on the Leica Microsystems website home page is devoted to content
like news articles and press releases.
White Papers
As part of its educational resources that include connector charts, application overviews, technical briefs, product
comparisons and installation guides, L-com, Inc., a manufacturer of interconnect products for the electronics and
data communication industries, provides in-depth white papers on topics important to its target audience through
its website and GlobalSpec supplier profile page.
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Five Challenges of Content Marketing
Content marketing can be an integral part of your strategy to build demand, awareness and engagement
opportunities for your company. But you may find yourself faced with some challenges before fully realizing
the benefits. Here are some of the more common road blocks to content marketing success.
1. Producing the right kinds of content
Talk to your customers. Understand their information needs and what they want from a supplier, then deliver
it to them. Go through your Web analytics, social media monitoring channels and other measurement tools
and see what content gets the most attention. Look at what others are doing in the marketplace that seems
to generate interest from your target audience.
2. Producing enough content
We’re in the Information Age and your prospects are hungry for content. Do you have enough to keep them
satisfied throughout the buy cycle? It’s not enough to just present your product collateral on your website.
What have you done to show that your company is the right one for the job? Have you built that level of
trust with your prospect? Also, are you making it easy for your prospects to buy from you? Is your product
information easily accessible so your prospects can make informed purchasing decisions?
You can also generate content by curating information from third parties and encouraging user-generated
content.
3. Re-using content
Your prospects are seeking information and conducting research using any number of online and offline
channels. Of course, everyone is different in where they find their information and how they like to digest
content. They subscribe to e-newsletters, read social media, watch videos, attend online events and
search online catalogs and directories. Find out where your prospects spend their time when searching and
discovering trends and technologies as well as conducting research for their purchasing decisions. That’s
where you need to be. With content marketing, it’s actually easy to be “everywhere” at once. A single piece
of content – a customer testimonial, for example – can be re-purposed across a number of channels to
reach your target audience.
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4. Finding the budget
Content marketing is cost effective, as materials can often be created in-house and used across multiple
online and offline platforms. Research from B2B Content Marketing: 2012 Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends
indicates that marketers spend more than 25 percent of their budget on content marketing and 60 percent of
b-to-b marketers plan to increase their spend on content marketing over the next 12 months. Interestingly,
the same report also found that smaller companies (in terms of employee count) “allocate a larger share of
their budget to content marketing than do larger companies.”
5. Getting buy-in from the C-Suite
Relate how content marketing ties into a business objective or overcomes a challenge in the marketplace.
Any other purpose may be viewed as a distraction. You may be dealing with tight budgets and resources so
your marketing initiatives must be mapped to your company’s goals.
• Use research. A number of content marketing research reports have been cited in this white paper. Select some of the trends and findings from these reports and include them in a presentation. Some executives are more comfortable with new initiatives if there is evidence to back up your claims and proposals.
• Check out your competitors. If you can show how your competitors are effectively using content marketing to build their brand and thought leadership position in your industry, it may motivate your company to step up its efforts.
• Start small. If there is some resistance from top-level executives, engage in a handful of content marketing activities at first and measure the results. If you met your goals and objectives, you will have an easier time getting the go-ahead for more expanded efforts.
Recommendations
If you’re ready to get started with your content marketing strategy or looking to jump start your campaign,
here are a few tips to put you on the path to success:
Develop a Strategy
Involve others outside the marketing department such as customer service, sales, product management and
engineers. Get their perspectives on what types of content your clients and prospects want. There is not a
one-size-fits-all content marketing strategy. Your plan will be determined by your audience needs, overall
corporate objectives, resources, goals and measurements.
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Conduct an Inventory
Make a comprehensive list of your content assets and determine what can be used in content marketing.
Some materials, like technical diagrams, may need to be converted to PDFs or other Web-friendly formats.
Fill the gaps
After you’ve made your list, look at how you can fill the gaps. What’s missing? Do you have enough product
information? Could you use additional customer case studies? Create a plan and prioritize the content you
need to complete your offerings.
Integrate your efforts
Content marketing doesn’t occur in a silo. It weaves through all of your marketing platforms from your
website to e-mail campaigns to social media and beyond.
For example, you just produced a report on a new trend or technology in your industry. A summary of
your findings (linking to the original report) can be part of an e-newsletter, posted to a company blog and
distributed through social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Slideshare and LinkedIn. It can be the
basis for an article that can be pitched to industry-specific trade magazines, online publications or blogs
and turned into a print collateral piece for a direct mailing or trade show. An interview with the author of the
report can be turned into a podcast or a short video for a YouTube channel. With one piece of content and
a well-constructed strategy around it, you have delivered valuable information to your prospects where they
are most likely to turn for these resources.
Start exploring
Content can take you almost anywhere. Equipped with your white papers, product videos, customer
testimonials and more you can pursue avenues such as advertising in industry- or product-specific
e-newsletters (highlight a product demo), online events (showcase your latest technologies), Webinars
(feature new research or thought leadership), online catalogs and directories (promote product specs and
technical articles) and more.
How GlobalSpec Can Help
Leading industrial marketers utilize GlobalSpec digital media solutions as content marketing vehicles.
Through GlobalSpec online catalogs and directory programs, they promote videos, technical articles,
product specifications and link to their social media properties including their blogs.
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They advertise in GlobalSpec’s suite of industry- and product-specific e-newsletters to reach a highly
targeted audience with their thought leadership pieces and product demos.
Exhibiting at GlobalSpec Online Trade Shows and Events allows industrial suppliers to offer dozens of
content pieces for attendees to download as well as showcase new products and technologies.
Custom Webinars deliver a targeted audience for a “how-to” product demonstration, customer case study
or presentation on new trends and technologies in your industry.
Conclusion
Ultimately, the reason why content marketing is an essential piece to your company’s strategy is revenue.
You are placing your prospects in a better position to buy from you rather than your competitor by delivering
the information they seek, becoming the authority they want and building the trust they need before making
a purchasing decision.
With content marketing your company is:
Solidifying its thought leadership position
Content marketing can be used to promote your thought leadership position within an industry or
marketplace, which showcases your expertise and knowledge.
Raising its profile in your industry
By distributing relevant, useful content for your target audience through the channels (social media,
e-newsletters, online events, etc.) they use most often, you are building your brand awareness, which is one
of the first steps in being considered for a purchasing decision.
Building credibility and trust with clients and prospects
Both current and potential customers will gravitate to manufacturers that have the knowledge and expertise
to potentially solve their problems.
Enabling decision makers with the right information
The more relevant information provided to purchasing decision makers the better equipped they will be to
evaluate and buy your company’s products.
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About GlobalSpec
GlobalSpec, recently acquired by IHS Inc. (NYSE: IHS), is the leading provider of digital media
solutions designed to connect industrial marketers with their target audience of engineering, technical,
industrial, scientific and manufacturing sector professionals. GlobalSpec provides its registered users
with a domain-expert search engine to search more than 50,000 supplier catalogs by specification,
a broad range of proprietary and aggregated Web-based content, over 15 annual online events,
and more than 70 e-newsletters - helping them search for and locate products and services, learn
about suppliers and access comprehensive technical content. For suppliers, GlobalSpec helps
generate awareness, demand and engagement opportunities among the professionals they are
looking to reach – from inbox to desktop, through networks and via real-time engagement.
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For more information about GlobalSpec:
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