Customized Communications Are Key

In the July 2010 Manufacturing ISM Report On Business, Norbert J. Ore, CPSM, C.P.M., chair of the Institute for Supply Management™ Manufacturing Business Survey Committee states, “The manufacturing sector continued to grow during June; however, the rate of growth as indicated by the PMI slowed when compared to May. The lower reading for the PMI came from a slowing in the New Orders and Production Indexes. We are now 11 months into the manufacturing recovery, and given the robust nature of recent growth, it is not surprising that we would see a slower rate of growth at this time. The sector appears to be solidly entrenched in the recovery. Comments from the respondents remain generally positive, but expectations have been that the second half of the year will not be as strong in terms of the rate of growth, and June appears to validate that forecast.”

The overall economy has also continued to grow, with reported expansion for the 14^th consecutive month. This is good news particularly given the oil spill crises that is affecting many non-manufacturing industries as well as Fabricated Metal Products, a manufacturing industry that expects that the “BP oil spill will impact business conditions over the next few months.”

Only 13 of the 18 manufacturing industries reported expansion in June, indicating a slower overall rate of growth within manufacturing attributed by Ore to a natural occurrence resulting from the “robust nature of recent growth.” Industries reporting expansion include: Plastics & Rubber Products; Transportation Equipment; Printing & Related Support Activities; Computer & Electronic Products; Electrical Equipment, Appliances & Components; Paper Products; Fabricated Metal Products; Food, Beverage & Tobacco Products; Furniture & Related Products; Petroleum & Coal Products; Nonmetallic Mineral Products; Miscellaneous Manufacturing; and Chemical Products. Unfortunately, Apparel, Leather & Allied Products; Wood Products; and Machinery each reported contraction during June. Wood Products representatives express that the “Market had begun to change, but it is now declining again.”  

Prices appear to be slowly increasing in some industries. 32% of respondents reported paying higher prices in June than in May, specifically Paper Products; Apparel, Leather & Allied Products; Fabricated Metal Products; Computer & Electronic Products; Furniture & Related Products; Printing & Related Support Activities; Food, Beverage & Tobacco Products; Electrical Equipment, Appliances & Components; and Chemical Products. 18% reported paying lower prices and include Wood Products; Nonmetallic Mineral Products; Miscellaneous Manufacturing; Primary Metals; Machinery; and Transportation Equipment. Overall, the ISM Price Index registered 20.5 percentage points lower in June than May. 50% of supply executives reported paying the same prices as in May.

As a company doing business in the industrial marketplace, consistency of your marketing efforts remains key. Continue to segment your existing customer groups, as well as identify groups that offer new business potential, in order to customize email and other forms of direct communications that go out to each targeted group according to a structured schedule and frequency. Take advantage of the information offered by website analytics and any offline reports to provide you with the measureable, actionable insight you need to understand what motivates buyers, what their current needs are, and what their prospective needs will be in three months, six months, et cetera. Understand what it takes to start the conversation and keep it going so you are first in mind when purchases need to be made.

Identify Performance-Based Metrics that Help You

Globalspec’s recent survey Trends in Industrial Marketing 2010: How Manufacturer’s Are Marketing Today doesn’t reveal any surprises but it points to the continuing trend to move marketing initiatives from offline where“25% are decreasing trade magazine advertising and 24% are decreasing use of printed directories,” to online where the “majority of manufacturers (51%) are increasing the online portion of their marketing budget over last year and 68% are increasing spending in online social media channels.”

The report reveals that the favored social media sites are LinkedIn and Facebook. It should be noted that Twitter’s popularity with many sectors of the industrial marketplace is on the rise, as indicated by the participation of a large number of industrial manufacturers and other industrial businesses who communicate via this channel. It appears that “email marketing using in-house lists” remains the online favorite, with 65% of respondents reporting this as their preferred online marketing channel. This is following by websites and online directories at 58% and search engine optimization at 50%.

With the top three marketing challenges in 2010 being “too few resources, not enough quality leads and a need to improve marketing ROI” industrial marketers need to start relying on the right kind of performance-based metrics, those that reveal the types of information that will help them to make the necessary adjustments that will improve results over the long run.

It is far too frequent a practice to be complacent with regard to online marketing assets like websites, landing pages, newsletters, banner and text ads, and email creative. When applied accurately, performance-based metrics provide insight into such things as:

• user/respondent behavior
• effectiveness of creative/message
• types of respondents
• where respondents are coming from
• cost of lead acquisition
• cost of sale
• return on advertising spend
• lead time to sale
• % of overall revenue
• Branding effectiveness
• And much more

Offline results must also be factored into what occurs online, which means you have to initiate consistent offline tracking mechanisms as well. If you don’t measure at all, or you don’t evaluate the statistical information that is important to your goals and business, you are reaching for something in the dark. Google analytics is free. There really is no good reason not to implement it and set your conversion goals. If you are unsure about how to implement it or use it effectively then hire a professional who can guide you. It will be money well-spent.

The internet provides many opportunities to generate leads and sales. But it isn’t magical. The concept of “build it and they will come” doesn’t exist here. It is not a “field of dreams” but rather an avenue of opportunity. Learn what your choices are. Budget appropriately. Enlist the help you need. Create a long term strategy with short term and long term initiatives that can be rolled out according to a set plan. And by all means, measure and make adjustments as needed – to your website, to your copy, to your images, to your text ads or banner ads, to your email and perhaps even to your mindset.

The internet is a liquid environment that is evolving at a fast pace. Uncover where your target audience groups are spending time, the language they use to communicate the kinds of things you offer, and what their specific needs are today as well as their anticipated needs three months from now, six months, or even a year from now. Then develop marketing assets that incorporate everything you know now about them; and be prepared to make the changes over time to reflect the ways in which they change, including changes in what they need, where they spend time, and how they communicate. You don’t have to “risk it all” by reaching in the dark. Performance-based metrics provide the light you need.

Companies like Global Spec offer a clear example of the effectiveness of newsletters as a marketing tool. The company publishes over sixty vertical titles and currently boasts over 9 million opt-in subscribers globally. Listed below are several key ingredients to publishing successful e-newsletters:

Focused, Targeted Content: Providing your readers with compelling topics that speak to their present-day concerns and objectives is critical to acquiring and maintaining your readership. Concentrating on a specific vertical or niche market will allow you to build an audience based on the highly focused content you provide. If you are inviting advertisers to display their ads on your site be sure you limit advertising to those who offer products, services or information that is of interest to your target reader groups.

Targeted Opt-In Subscribers: There are a number of ways to attract targeted opt-in subscribers that require more of your time than your money. Start with the people you already know. And don’t be shy about asking them to let their friends, clients and colleagues know about your newsletter. Be sure to include a link to it in all the obvious places – your website, your social networking accounts, and your business card and all your print materials. Post links to each issue to your Twitter account. If you keep a blog remember to include posts there too. Most importantly, make sure you archive each issue at your website.

Search Engine Optimize Your Titles: Another way to develop your readership is to attract it on the web. Carefully compose and search engine optimize your newsletter titles so that they accurately reflect the language being used by your target audience groups to search for what you offer. As long as your content remains relevant and compelling you should be able to maintain your readership once you’ve acquired it.

RSS Feed and Inbound Links: Invite relevant websites of quality to receive your newsletter by RSS feed so that they can offer their members, customers, or colleagues the valuable, free information you provide. Approach reputable, preferably “popular” websites with a high Google PageRank™ where you believe your target audience groups spend time. Many informational websites are looking for quality content to offer their site visitors. Send an email that describes what your newsletter provides and attach a link to an issue or your archive. The beauty of this kind of relationship is the volume of quality traffic you receive that works to increase your rankings in the search engines based on your “popularity” score.

Consistent Publishing Schedule: People love routine. Decide on a publishing schedule and stick to it. Remember you have to research and write your newsletters so I suggest starting with once a month. If you discover you have enough content and enough time to do more than one a month then try bi-monthly issues. You never want to produce more than your readers can handle or more than you are able to maintain consistently. And always put quality ahead of quantity.

Encourage Reader Participation: Allow your readers to comment. It’s great way to engage them and identify their interests.

Only start a newsletter if you feel you will have something of value to offer on a consistent basis. Newsletters are work to maintain. The marketing benefits come from the quality and consistency of what you offer.

The following 16 out of 18 manufacturing sectors have reported growth for May: Paper Products; Wood Products; Transportation Equipment; Electrical Equipment, Appliances & Components; Fabricated Metal Products; Computer & Electronic Products; Furniture & Related Products; Miscellaneous Manufacturing; Plastics & Rubber Products; Primary Metals; Printing & Related Support Activities; Chemical Products; Nonmetallic Mineral Products; Machinery; Apparel, Leather & Allied Products; and Food, Beverage & Tobacco Products. Only Petroleum & Coal Products reported contraction during May; however, they were also one of 12 that reported growth in employment, which may indicate anticipated growth for June.

Although prices are still registering higher than usual, they have stabilized to some degree with 35% of respondents having reported paying the same prices as in April. Supplies are low in some sectors, particularly technology where, according to the report, excessive inventory de-stocking during the downturn has resulted in component shortages.

With industry growth there are opportunities for you. A targeted email marketing campaign may be your best bet right now to get the conversation started with your key audience groups. Start by contacting your existing client base. Remember to segment your contact list by interest, production timetable, or whatever allows you to develop highly focused messages that clearly identify the customer’s need and the solution. Uncover what their pressing needs are right at this the moment in time and what they may expect to need over the next eight to ten weeks. Don’t try to accomplish everything in the first email. Clearly define your goals and establish a schedule of highly focused emails that engage your audiences with compelling questions and messages relevant to their present-day objectives.  Try to encourage them to comment, answer questions or even ask questions. Writing effective emails depends on how well you understand your customers. Get to know them.

By demonstrating to your target audience groups that you keep abreast of the demands they encounter and the types of needs that may arise for them you establish yourself as a trusted partner with foresight. Oh how I love to hear a client say, “I never thought of that” or “thanks for bringing that to my attention.” Be prepared to adjust the content on your website to address current needs. Refreshing your website content with solutions that are relevant to current demands demonstrates your commitment to serving your customers as they need to be served, according to their present reality.

Both manufacturing and the economy are demonstrating continued growth. Now is the time for you to create opportunities for yourself by reaching out to your target audience groups to let them know you’ve done your homework and understand how to get them what they need to meet their goals.

iPad Tablet

Email marketing pioneer Jeanniey Mullen points out the characteristics of user markets that gobble up new technology like the iPad and Android Tablet in her recent ClickZ article New World Email. She refers to this set as “adventurous fun people who like to try new things” and who are also “socially connected.” Her point being really that it is important to properly segment and maintain your contact databases in order to conduct effective email marketing campaigns, such as one that will take advantage of this group and it’s particular mindset.

Mobile communications devices have been around for a long time now. Archos, for example, has had a consumer mobile tablet product for at least 6 years or more.  I bought one to easily transport my digital photos. It has internet access and mobile communications through WiFi. The real change is the emergence of social networking sites and more sophisticated mobile communications applications. Consumers are always the first to jump on the new technology bandwagon. Industrial and commercial businesses, in comparison, have to justify the investment based on a need or an improvement in the way something is accomplished. Courier companies already use tablets. Many businesses are adopting them as a portable POS system or for sales presentations.

HTC Android Tablet

It is definitely important to understand the possibilities that are provided by new technologies. It is, however, less important to understand what the hardware does and more important to understand what the applications allow users to do. It will be interesting to learn how the industrial market place continues to adopt the new mobile technologies. Right now as an industrial marketer you are best served by taking advantage of social networking sites like Twitter, Buzz, Facebook and YouTube, for example, to garner an understanding of what your target audience groups are thinking about by either “listening in” on conversations or commencing ones that yield the kind of information you’re after. Additionally, take some time to learn about the new mobile applications and see if they are useful in helping you get the right message to each of your target audience groups.

Ms. Mullen wants us to understand that it is important to know your audience, segment your contact lists, and strike while the iron is hot. Investigate whether iPad and Android Tablet technologies open up the possibilities for you to do that effectively. Even if your crowd is not the “adventurous fun” and “socially connected” type, the new world of email marketing may very well be mobile communications. The phenomenon is definitely worth a proper investigation.