There is nothing new under the sun they say and maybe they are right – certainly Industrial PR rewards client companies by putting them in front of engineers and buyers just at the point when they are forming their decision. It is an ever-present sales tool getting on with the job and responsive to the industrial environment. A PR profile once established needs only a regular monthly trickle feed to keep on working and building connections with customers.
Check out how by contacting us here.
When selecting a PR agency to work with, our own experience has been that trust has to be worked on and earned on both sides – this is true for any supplier – be they accountants, carriers or cleaners. It is also true that costs need to be evaluated and likely outcomes envisaged – like accountants, carriers and cleaners you will not initially know what you will really get whatever their proposal says.
The proof is truly in the eating of the pudding – poor practices exist in all industries but who would consider not using such suppliers on the basis of either not having any experience of them or of one bad experience ten years ago – as I have had explained to me?
To draw an analogy with our personal lives – I don’t suppose that many people stop dating or going on holidays just because one or two relationships don’t work out or last year’s holiday wasn’t as expected.
Amazing but even now it seems that the most overlooked and yet one of the most cost-effective promotional activities an SME can do is to make some videos and put them on Youtube. They can be slide presentations or personal demos – or expensive tech compilations. Whichever way you go they can attract hundreds of viewings over a year which is probably a great deal more than an exhibition for a lot less money.
In all the years I have been working in industrial marketing the most difficult PR stories to source have always been good application pieces – and yet they have always been the most sought after by editors. The same is true today – indeed I remember one company who gave a bounty to their sales team for such application stories.
Try taking a look through your accounts list and ask the question “what do they do with our widgets?” and remember it just has to be something that other engineers would be interested to read about.
Contact us to discuss what application stories you have
Here’s a thought – marketing is not just about numbers it is about understanding human behaviour. For example, if you just count click-throughs you will probably cut a lot of your promotion but remember a sale does not come from just one exposure, it comes from lots of exposures.
Remember the “rule of seven” – it is important to get your name out there in association with your product – then people will remember your name and “google” you – but you will not be able to track the enquiry to any one part of your promotion. It is the overall campaign that works.
It is important to understand what is going on and to have faith in your judgement regarding the relationship and balance of the activities.
As we see recovery in manufacturing industry SMEs are busy but sales/marketing opportunities have reduced – exhibitions have gone virtual and so have sales calls, so what can we do to ensure sales after the recovery? It might be tempting to think we have to follow all the complex online advice we are offered, but actually, it is simpler than that. The principles are the same as they ever were so maybe this is a good time to go back to basics.
Recovery and growth are in the air again, with estimates being ever more optimistic, so now is the time to plan a marketing program – unlike a one-time bulk investment in a machine where it starts producing quickly after set up – a marketing program always takes time to initiate and time to nurture. So if you want results now then start six months ago.
Don’t know where to start? – obviously, contact me at The Industrial Marketing Agency or ask your favourite friendly trade/tech editor for advice.
Have you found it is more difficult to reach people now? Are you one of the people who have used working at home as a way of locking the world out? Especially at a time of recovery we all need new options and the support of our trusted suppliers – if we pull up the drawbridge then we shut ourselves in and not only do we forego the new opportunities but we also make it more difficult for our existing suppliers to support us.
So what is your solution – how do you maintain trusted relationships and allow the space to make new ones?
Innovative – resilient – poised for take-off. The UK has the makings of a new success cycle based on new products and new markets. If you are a manufacturing SME we would like to help.
We are advised today by the “gurus” of the internet to focus on benefits, but in the industrial arena they are always the same – better, faster, cheaper, greener and so on – these are givens – so let us put ourselves in the place of a technical audience of intelligent problem solvers. Let us consider how does our product solve their problem, or how does it fit into a bigger solution?
This will inevitable lead us to a detailed description of product features – and more to the point we are addressing an audience of people who are interested in features because they understand them and need to know how a component fits into their own product and process.
This is the valuable information our technical media can pass on to its readers – and we can reach them through PR.
As we move into economic recovery let’s remember that business is personal even in lockdown. So let’s not forget how to convey important product knowledge to potential customers, and remember that industrial marketing is different from the one size fits all internet theories derived from B2C techniques developed in the US, to sell non-technical products en mass to non-technical people.
