Manufacturing is a crucial component of the global economy. According to the Global Manufacturing Industry Report 2020, as recently as 2018, the industry represented nearly 16% of the global GDP. Today, manufacturing is more critical than ever but faces a host of new challenges. Skilled labor is hard to find and keep. Consumers are becoming harder to reach. Technology is changing, competition is getting more fierce, and growing a manufacturing business during a global crisis is incredibly difficult. Here are tips to grow your manufacturing business with tools, technology, and methodology.
Manufacturing is Under Pressure
Efficiency is at a Premium
For industries in a crunch, efficiency is key. You’re required to do more with less in a way that serves your bottom line. Digitizing legacy sales and marketing processes has helped many manufacturers pick up the pace, but what if that’s not enough? No matter how great your products are, outpacing the competition won’t happen with the old way of doing things.
Choose the Best CRM to Avoid Silos and Reduce Friction
Choosing the right CRM for your business is challenging and can be complicated. Businesses often end up with cobbled-together systems that create silos between your departments and friction in your processes. Technology platforms that are not a good fit can stunt your growth, producing inefficiencies and unnecessary complexities to your processes.
Having worked with many software systems since we started in 2002, we have found that HubSpot provides an optimized technology platform for manufacturers that meets the needs of businesses as they grow — without adding unnecessary costs or complexity. According to top software ranking site G2, Hubspot is one of the highest-rated and highest performing products in the industry. Similarly, Captera ranks HubSpot with 4 1/2 stars. The all-in-one platform creates seamless integration across marketing, sales, customer service, and operations. This gives you visibility and insights into the entire customer journey, creating improved customer experiences and less work for your team by creating efficiencies in every step of the sales, marketing, and service processes.
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Operate with a Lean Marketing Strategy
Many manufacturing companies limp along with an ineffective website and digital marketing strategy that is not helping their businesses. A good website—designed with business goals in mind—will help you get more out of your existing customers and distributors and find new ones. Leveraging inbound marketing strategy, will attract customers, build trust, and nurture relationships. Most importantly, leverage reporting that provides the clarity you need to help you adjust and optimize our efforts.
When developing your marketing strategy, focus on:
- Search: Leveraging education and helpful content that attracts prospective customers to your website over your competitors
- Automation: Nurturing your leads to the point of conversion by building trust all along the sales cycle.
- Segmentation and tracking: Store all of your data in one place to best understand the full lifecycle and every touch-point of your prospective customers.
Scale With Confidence
Manufacturers are under pressure and need business solutions that address their unique needs. Finding and implementing the right tools is mandatory for companies to achieve and sustain growth.
Key takeaways:
- Avoid the inefficiency and waste that comes with cobbled-together solutions.
- Consolidate and integrate your technology and get all of your departments and their efforts on the same track.
- Whether it’s in-house, outsourced, or a hybrid of both, your marketing strategy needs to be lean and focused, with a strong methodology.
- Track your ROI with data-driven processes and unified technology.
Bridging the gap between your departments, reducing friction in your processes, and using data to track all of your efforts will improve your ROI and lift your bottom line.
