Article | January 4, 2022
Content marketing for manufacturers has become an essential component of every organization, and the manufacturing industry is no exception. Manufacturers are concentrating more on increasing their presence in both the digital and physical markets. As a result, the content market is seeing a boom as novel techniques are aimed at reaching the end objective of the manufacturing company.
According to PRNewswire, the worldwide content marketing industry is expected to increase by USD 417.85 billion between 2021 and 2025, at a CAGR of over 16%.
“Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell.”
– Seth Godin
Why Is Content Marketing Critical to Your Business's Success?
Promotes trust
Helps in the formation of your brand's identity
Enables you to take advantage of organic search results
Performance is easy to assess
Produces leads and attracts ideal buyers
It balances the playing field, resulting in a higher ROI
It enables you to benefit from social shares
It entices visitors to return to your website on a regular basis
Manufacturing Content Marketing Strategies That Work
Recognize the Buyer's Pain Points
Writing amazing content requires knowing your target audience. Knowing your ideal customers helps you generate content that is relevant to them. When your potential buyer visits your website and finds content that answers his or her inquiries, you've already removed one hurdle for your sales staff.
How does your sales team define a good prospect?
Who are they?
What do they do?
Why are they visiting your business?
What is their industry knowledge?
The answers to all such questions influence what and how you write. Once you start recognizing your buyers, you can get the prospect and confidence in your organization to address your buyer’s difficulties.
Do Research on Keywords
Everyone appears to believe that skipping keyword research is acceptable. However, this is not the case. If you want to focus on marketing activities that yield big returns, you need a best manufacturer content marketing strategy backed by solid SEO.
Keyword research is the first step. Use one of the numerous internet keyword research tools to find terms with high search traffic, low competition, and relevance to your manufacturing company's activity. The better your keyword research, the better your content approach.
Create and Schedule Consistently Excellent Content
Writing outstanding content is by far the greatest strategy to increase your manufacturing company's SERP rank.
Hire a good content writer or content strategist who can combine your technical expertise, keywords, and purpose into a meaningful blog, case study, or content offer that gets results. Your material must be good to rank well.
Irregular content, like scattered production, always spells disaster. Having a defined timetable that your audience understands is essential to successful content marketing. Whether you produce material weekly, monthly, or quarterly, a timetable ensures that content is consistently released and updated.
Make Your Content More Visible
Once your content is ready, make your content visible to your target audience. Get your content marketing for manufacturing plan going to promote it in every way.
You're in a tough spot when it comes to content marketing for manufacturers. To stay ahead of the competition, you must constantly monitor the performance of your materials.
Keep an eye on everything you create and promote. Analyze which content form is performing well. Is it a blog? A time-lapse video? Or infographics? Identify your best-performing content so you can develop more of it.
Also focus on the content that doesn't perform well. Consider why that content didn't work for your audience. Is it too hard to rank that post? Is there a better platform or medium for the content? All of these queries must be answered to establish a strong content strategy for your company.
Optimize Your Content Marketing
The lack of industry-specific content marketing tactics is a major challenge for manufacturers. Many businesses use a generic strategy that ignores their particular customer connections, making different types of content marketing for manufacturers ineffective.
As the manufacturing business is a specialized business in any particular area, they also need specific content marketing strategies. Hence, focus on building a unique content marketing strategy that would help you optimize your business reach to your target audience.
General Electric Is Taking the Lead on Social Media
GE has come a long way from its 1892 beginnings. While it has retained basic product streams such as lighting, transportation, and power transmission, the goods themselves have developed dramatically. Social media marketing has become increasingly important as new technology transforms the corporate scene.
GE's Instagram Presence
GE's Instagram feed is an excellent illustration of widespread appeal. GE always shares attractive photographs with full explanations. It recognizes the power of pictures and captures common scenes in fascinating ways.
Final Words
Utilizing cutting-edge content marketing methods for manufacturing businesses is critical for increasing your business's visibility and reach with your target audience. Ascertain that you select the appropriate techniques to advance your digital and physical presence in the industry. Discover the most effective plan for manufacturing content marketing and change your present marketing methods into more refined and up-to-date ones.
FAQ
What are the best ways to market a manufacturing company?
The best approaches to advertising any manufacturing business are to concentrate on improving content, email marketing, SEO, press releases, and event sponsorship.
Is marketing vital for manufacturers?
Yes, since marketing opens up a whole new world for manufacturers, and a strong brand helps any business stand out from the competition.
Read More
Article | October 27, 2021
Technologies in the manufacturing industry are upscaling daily. Manufacturers are keen to embrace the latest manufacturing trends to improve their manufacturing process, total production rate, and product quality at their factories. Manufacturing technology advances have also boosted production speed while retaining product quality.
“As technology takes over and enhances many of the processes we used to handle with manual labor, we are freed up to use our minds creatively, which leads to bigger and better leaps in innovation and productivity.” – Matt Mong, VP Market Innovation and Project Business Evangelist at Adeaca.
Apart from manufacturing technology developments, we will look at new manufacturing business trends in this article, which will help you achieve maximum customer engagement and a positive relationship with your target consumer groups.
So, let's see some of the top manufacturing business trends that are assisting the industry in improving its business processes.
Manufacturing Business Trends: 2022
Manufacturers must adopt a business procedure that focuses on the target consumer group. Also, incorporating social responsibility and technology into company procedures would be beneficial.
Here are five ways manufacturing leaders are becoming more communicative and results-oriented in their manufacturing and consumer experience strategies.
Deliver a One-of-a-kind Digital Experience
Every industry's target demographic is now online. Manufacturers must use digitalization to interact with their target consumer group to be noticed and remembered. Maintain an active presence on all popular digital platforms used by your target demographic. Post your new products, business strategy, or get genuine customer feedback on your brand and products. Engage your target audience and keep them informed of your progress in making their lives easier.
“Marketing is VERY important to any company, although I generally see it being justified by the number of web hits or ‘leads’ that come in” – John Hays, Director of Sales at BALYO
Allow your clientele to interact with your products digitally. To be a part of the new digital revolution in any industry, create a new digital business model.
Initiative for Ecosystem Partnership
An ecosystem partnership is a network of enterprises working together to provide a product or service to meet changing market needs. A partner ecosystem can generate customer-ready solutions faster. It also helps firms to co-create value. This value is demonstrated in extraordinary customer and partner experiences. The B2B ecosystem partners work together to bring mutual benefits to their companies.
Revenue Generation via Data Monetization
Data monetization allows industrial CIOs (Chief Information Officers) to monetize their digital products and services. Rapid digitization in manufacturing generates massive data. CIOs may monetize and distribute data across ecosystems. CIOs can leverage information as a resource to generate new services or business models. This ensures revenue even when external reasons like supply chain issues or human resource shortages interrupt the firm.
Using the Equipment as a Service (EaaS) Approach
EaaS, or Pay-Per-Use, is defined as: A business model where equipment is rented rather than sold, with remote diagnostics and predictive maintenance solutions offered by the vendor.
Using Eaas reduces capital expense, improves data reliability, and lowers operating costs. As a result, producers can undertake all production-related tasks with precision.
Bosch RexRoth CytroBox – a Perfect Example of EaaS
The global equipment-as-a-service market is estimated to develop at an 11.5 percent CAGR from 2021-2027. (OpenPR)
The RexRoth Cytrobox from Bosch is an example of EAAS. This hydraulic power unit converts electrical power into hydraulic fluid pressure and flow to move and force a machine. They are widely utilized in presses and tooling equipment.
It can handle up to 33 kW in a small space. Its exceptionally flexible; its unique design allows it to run efficiently and quietly. In addition, modern automation and sensor packages allow easy integration into modern machine designs.
Benefits of Bosch RexRoth CytroBox
It provides data insights during the long lifecycles
Using this hydraulic power unit on a lease can save a lot of money which cost $100.000
It requires heavy maintenance cost as per its type of usage that can be avoided with the EaaS approach
Shifting the Emphasis from B2B to B2C
Many firms are moving their attention from B2B to B2C to understand their target consumer better. This new strategic approach helps producers identify market needs and gain real-time feedback on their products. This method helps producers increase profit margins while also controlling the product's interaction with the intended audience.
Final Words
The latest manufacturing trends will take you to the cutting edge of manufacturing. The manufacturing developments in 2022 will boost the total manufacturing market in the coming years, allowing manufacturers to generate more business revenue.
FAQs
What is the manufacturing industry's future?
Industry 4.0 is rapid technological progress in production and is transforming the worldwide manufacturing industry. According to bccresearch's market research, the global manufacturing and process control market is predicted to increase from $86.7 billion in 2020 to $117.7 billion in 2025, a CAGR of 6.3 percent.
What is the industry 4.0 technology in the manufacturing industry?
IoT, industrial internet of things (IIoT), Cyber-physical systems (CPS), cloud computing, artificial intelligence, big data, machine learning, robotics, virtual reality, augmented reality, and additive manufacturing or 3D printing are some technologies that are used in industry 4.0 factories.
What are the current technology trends in the manufacturing industry?
AI, robots, 3D printing, and the like are all the latest manufacturing trends in manufacturing technology. Additionally, enterprise resource planning (ERP), cloud computing, and machine vision all play a significant part in advanced manufacturing.
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "FAQPage",
"mainEntity": [{
"@type": "Question",
"name": "What is the manufacturing industry's future?",
"acceptedAnswer": {
"@type": "Answer",
"text": "Industry 4.0 is rapid technological progress in production and is transforming the worldwide manufacturing industry. According to bccresearch's market research, the global manufacturing and process control market is predicted to increase from $86.7 billion in 2020 to $117.7 billion in 2025, a CAGR of 6.3 percent."
}
},{
"@type": "Question",
"name": "What is the industry 4.0 technology in the manufacturing industry?",
"acceptedAnswer": {
"@type": "Answer",
"text": "IoT, industrial internet of things (IIoT), Cyber-physical systems (CPS), cloud computing, artificial intelligence, big data, machine learning, robotics, virtual reality, augmented reality, and additive manufacturing or 3D printing are some technologies that are used in industry 4.0 factories."
}
},{
"@type": "Question",
"name": "What are the current technology trends in the manufacturing industry?",
"acceptedAnswer": {
"@type": "Answer",
"text": "AI, robots, 3D printing, and the like are all the latest manufacturing trends in manufacturing technology. Additionally, enterprise resource planning (ERP), cloud computing, and machine vision all play a significant part in advanced manufacturing."
}
}]
}
Read More
Article | December 28, 2021
Successful manufacturing marketing strategies are all you need to grow your business and make it visible in every way to your target customer group. Many manufacturers are now becoming vigilant towards B2B marketing and have started forming an individual marketing budget in their annual budgets.
“We should quantify marketing to inform what we do – not to decide what we do.”
– Rory Sutherland, Vice-Chairman, Ogily
As per Statista, nearly half of B2B organizations said they’re planning to boost their content budget in the next year.
As a result, B2B marketing for manufacturers must be redesigned and smartly strategized in order to be more effective and fruitful.
This article will focus on the significant challenges manufacturers face in B2B marketing and how manufacturers use the three most sales-driven manufacturing marketing strategies.
4 Biggest Marketing Challenges in B2B & Manufacturing
Develop Tailored Experiences
You have a few seconds to capture the customer's interest. When done correctly, personalization may help. With persistent multi-channel marketing, you may strengthen your brand in target areas. Additionally, an account-based marketing approach enables you to focus on important clients while generating customized content for them. Integrate agile methods to test novel ideas across your business without demanding extensive approval. Further, crowdsourced content, B2B communities, and advocate marketing should be prioritized.
Convert Leads into Sales
With the right strategy, you may generate more high-quality leads. Relate marketing expenditures to sales and demonstrate the impact of marketing on the bottom line. Align marketing and sales by focusing on the customer's purchasing journey. Increase the quality of your leads, transparency, and collaboration with your partners.
Measure Marketing Performance
Marketers will be asked to demonstrate ROI and forecast future actions. Proactively calculate the MROI (Marketing Return on Investment) on marketing and sales investments. Determine how to get the most out of your marketing budget by doing more with less. Focus on making data-driven judgments rather than relying on guesswork.
Maximize the Marketing Tech Investment
As a manufacturer, you have access to a number of tools and resources. You will need to collaborate with your technical team to integrate it. Collaborate with your IT team to effectively adapt, innovate, and apply technology. By integrating current technologies, you can automate and improve marketing campaigns more efficiently.
“Marketing professionals have to act as conveners and connect the dots so that there is alignment between stakeholders like sales and operation teams and executive leadership on what products and services will drive growth in any given quarter."
– Maliha Aqeel, Director of Global Communication, Fix Network World in conversation with Media7
3 Best B2B Marketing Strategies for Manufacturers That Drive Sales
Consider Purchasing an E-commerce Platform
Consumer behavior is driving manufacturing transformation, particularly the shift to digital channels. Manufacturers who still handle consumers solely by phone, fax, or email risk losing their loyalty as their worlds and tastes grow increasingly digital.
Manufacturers have clearly acknowledged the digital transition in 2021. This year's Manufacturing & E-Commerce Benchmark Report says 98% of manufacturers have, or plan to have, an e-commerce strategy. Moreover, 42% of manufacturers who engaged in e-commerce and digital said it strengthened client connections.
How does e-commerce benefit manufacturers?
Distributes a customized catalog to your customers
Ascertains those spare components are visible
It allows customers to customize items online
Sells your whole range online
Increases your consumer base
Focus on the User Experience and Interface (UX/UI)
The term "User Experience" refers to all elements of an end user's engagement with a business, its goods, and services. The purpose of user experience is to establish a connection between company objectives and user demands. An engaging user interface or user experience keeps users engaged and consumers pleased. Additionally, it enhances the rate of return on investment (ROI). That is why it is necessary to maintain great UI/UX quality.
How does UX/UI benefit manufacturers?
Increases the number of conversions
Support is less expensive
It helps with SEO
Brand loyalty is increased
Embrace an Omni-channel Strategy
Millennials represent 73% of those making buying decisions for companies. Part of this means offering a seamless, consistent shopping experience across a variety of channels. With the right CRM solution, you'll eliminate a lot of the legwork associated with targeting specific buyers. Manufacturers can leverage omni-channel to increase availability, promote sales and traffic, and connect digital touchpoints.
How does Omni-channel benefit manufacturers?
Supports marketers in developing trust
Enhances the user experience with the brand
It clarifies a complex subject
Final Words
Developing a successful manufacturing marketing plan is all that is required to set your organization apart from the competition. Consider thinking outside of the box and developing innovative manufacturing marketing strategies that will surprise your targeted customers and keep you on their minds at all times. B2B marketing for manufacturers has long been a priority, since manufacturers frequently overlook this aspect of their business when they should. Utilize the above-mentioned sales-driven manufacturing marketing methods to assist your organization in growing and reaching the maximum range of target prospects.
FAQ
What is the goal of business-to-business marketing?
B2B marketing's goal is to familiarize other businesses with your brand name and the value of your product or service in order to convert them into clients.
How can manufacturers energize their market presence?
Manufacturers may boost their market presence by advertising on various social media platforms, opting for native language ads, and partnering with influencers to promote their products or services.
Read More
Article | March 4, 2022
Cyber manufacturing is a term that refers to a modern manufacturing system that allows for asset management, reconfiguration, and productivity maintenance in a way that is easy to see and use.
Industry 4.0 anticipates an era of enormous opportunity for innovation and prosperity. Additionally, it introduces new risks and challenges in today's manufacturing cyber scene.
“Cybersecurity is starting to become more prevalent within organizations, so opportunities to grow in this industry will never end if you have the correct drive and determination.”
– Joe Boyle, SEO of SaltDNA
Numerous manufacturing organizations are experiencing an increase in cyber-attacks on control systems used to oversee industrial processes. Some of these systems may include programmable logic controllers and distributed control systems, as well as embedded systems and industrial Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
To help you develop a strong and secure manufacturing operation, this article will outline the multiple sorts of cyber-attacks in manufacturing and how you may improve manufacturing security. Let's begin with the importance of cybersecurity in the manufacturing industry.
Why is Cybersecurity in Manufacturing Crucial?
From January to March of 2019, the number of ransomware attacks in the manufacturing industry has increased by 156%. This is a big change, so it's important to have strong cyber security in the manufacturing process. Wherever software is in use, there is a high probability of cyber-attacks. The manufacturing industry is digitizing itself with cutting-edge technologies connected via the internet and various software. Therefore, the manufacturing industry is particularly vulnerable to cyber-attacks.
The following are some of the key reasons why manufacturers should prioritize manufacturing cybersecurity:
Increase in the use of IoT devices in the industry
Increase in the cost of data breaches
Increase in the number of cyber-attacks across industries
Increase in the severity of cyber-attacks
Increase in the use of widely accessible hacking tools
Increase in the use of remote workers
Five Major Types of Manufacturing Cyber Attacks
Ransomware
Due to the rising value of ransomware, cybercriminals have switched their attention away from selling personal and financial data. Unfortunately, industrial companies stand to lose a lot. Until the hacker's demands are met, this malware locks files on a network and makes them impossible to use.
If a ransom (typically millions) is not paid, threat actors may sell or leak important data. Until the ransom is paid, ransomware users render the company's network inaccessible. This strategy works well for attackers in the manufacturing industry because downtime is costly, and no manufacturer would like to encounter it for a long time.
Ransomware assaults generally occur on weekends or holidays to maximize damage before the attack is realized. This allows hackers to wait in comfort during a busy manufacturing period. Manufacturing enterprises are a desirable target for numerous reasons. A wide network of OT devices and a long supply chain make many endpoints and security flaws.
Phishing
Phishing is the most common type of network assault. Phishing emails are frequently used to gain access to a target firm to carry out further detrimental assaults or acts. For instance, in 2016, a CEO sent an email to a global solar panel manufacturer’s employee.
The email claimed that precise information about internal employees was required. The employee transmitted the data without confirming it. The CEO received the information. Unfortunately, the CEO was a cybercriminal, and the employee was phished, disclosing firm secrets. Perhaps the next generation of thieves will commit even more advanced and sophisticated penetrations and attacks.
Phishing attacks are characterized by the following characteristics:
Emails with malicious attachments
Emails with hyperlinks that differ from well-known websites and are misspelt
Emails with an attention-grabbing title or content
Emails from an unusual sender
Urgent orders or to-do items
Supply Chain Attacks
In the manufacturing business, no single firm can complete the entire production cycle. It must rely on several manufacturers' parts and components to complete the manufacturing and assembly of the entire product. As a result, numerous parties should coordinate to ensure an effective production process. This technique introduces the risk of supply chain attacks.
Numerous criminals utilize supply chain hacks to steal critical data and intellectual property rights from manufacturers. If a malicious attacker gets permission from the manufacturer's partner to access their network, they may steal critical information or data, and even essential manufacturing records, wreaking havoc on the business.
Additionally, manufacturers' external software or hardware poses security vulnerabilities, and there is a danger of attack along the equipment and system supply chain. Most products are developed using open-source or closed-source components, yet all these components have some level of security vulnerability.
The following are common indicators that your network has been compromised by a third party:
Incorrect usernames and passwords are used to access software systems
Strange redirects to unknown websites
Pop-up advertisements
Ransomware messages
Software freezes or crashes
IoT Attacks
As the intelligent transformation of manufacturing continues to progress, the Internet of Things' role in facilitating this process becomes increasingly critical. Manufacturers can optimize production processes more effectively and precisely by utilizing various IoT devices. For instance, businesses track assets, collect data, and perform analysis using IoT sensors embedded in devices. These sensors continuously monitor the various operating parameters of the equipment and critical data to enable automatic recovery and minimize maintenance downtime.
Increased security risks occur because of the proliferation of various IoT devices in manufacturing plants. IoT devices have networking capabilities and can be easily connected to a network. Typically, manufacturers' IoT, industrial control, and office networks are not adequately isolated. They can get into the industrial control network through public flaws or zero-day attacks on IoT devices. They can then launch malicious attacks on critical production equipment, which can stop production and cause processing accidents.
Insider Threats
Most manufacturing cyber attacks are carried out by outsiders, but nearly 30% originate from insiders or those with access to the company. As with external hackers, these attacks are frequently motivated by financial gain. However, some employees or former employees attack a business out of rage or dissatisfaction.
Internal threat actors do not require network access. They can access sensitive data by leveraging their existing knowledge or credentials. A threat actor is more likely to carry out an attack invisibly and undetected with pre-existing credentials. Unfortunately, former employees can typically access this information if passwords or entry methods are not changed to prevent such attacks.
Because of the increased use of personal devices and remote work, employees can unintentionally be the cause of an internal breach. Most businesses were unprepared for the regulations that would accompany a global pandemic. As manufacturing companies looked for ways to stay afloat by maintaining employees remotely, few had the necessary technological equipment to keep each employee as safe as the company's employees.
Many home-based employees discovered that working from home was not easy, as the line between personal and work time became increasingly blurred and eventually vanished. For hackers, these home networks and the use of unprotected personal devices have opened a new avenue for obtaining sensitive data from large andsmall businesses.
How to Mitigate Manufacturing Cyber Attack
Make Sure Your Software Is up to Date
Install software patches to prevent attackers from exploiting known issues or vulnerabilities. Numerous operating systems include an automatic update feature. If available, ensure that this option is enabled.
Utilize Current Antivirus Software
Install software patches to prevent attackers from exploiting known issues or vulnerabilities. Numerous operating systems include an automatic update feature. Ensure that this option is enabled if it is available.
Make Use of Strong Passwords
Set up password rules. A stolen or default password is used in 63% of confirmed data breaches. Create strong passwords that are difficult to guess and use unique passwords for each program and device. Experts advise using passphrases or passwords of at least 16 characters.
Make Use of MFA Tool
MFA validates a user's identity using at least two identification components. This stops attackers from taking advantage of weak authentication mechanisms, which lowers the risk of someone getting into your account even if they know the login credentials.
Train Employees on Security Awareness
Security awareness training unites employees, eliminates risks and events, and protects both the company and the employees. Employees should also be taught how to look for and deal with threats like phishing.
Final Word
Industry 4.0 is all about smart technologies that operate with the help of the internet. It increases the probability of manufacturing equipment and software being hacked. Therefore, while you intend to create a smart environment in your manufacturing facility, you must take the necessary cyber security measures.
The strategies mentioned in this article to mitigate the cyber-attacks will ensure that you take every precaution to keep the working environment safe. There are many ways to protect your manufacturing business from cyberattacks. The techniques and the types of attacks described in this article will help you know what to opt for and which attacks to look for in your manufacturing business.
FAQ
What are the most common cyber security threats?
Phishing attacks are the most common cyber security threats that employees fall for. With the advancement of phishing attacks, many employees lack the knowledge necessary to spot a phishing email. Additionally, many employees have poor cyber security practices, such as using the same password for work and personal devices, which is also one of the reasons for rising phishing attacks.
What are the cyber security challenges in Industry 4.0?
Smart factories are vulnerable to the same types of attacks as conventional networks, including vulnerability exploitation, malware, denial of service (DoS), device hacking, and other typical attack tactics.
What is CPS in manufacturing?
CPS (Cyber Physical Systems) are defined as designed systems that are comprised of and reliant on the seamless integration of computer algorithms and physical components.
Read More