5 Reasons Why You Should Actively Market Your B2B Industrial Business

Everyone knows that marketing is important. If you are a SaaS, IT, or tech company, nobody has to tell you why you should actively invest in marketing your solutions.

However. this is not the case with many other domains in the B2B world. The industrial sector is a great example of this. Companies selling machine components, packaging solutions, and measurement devices often limit themselves to channels such as events and marketplaces to promote their products.

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There are a few reasons why these businesses haven't resorted to online marketing methods. They include:

• Their target audience is not active on platforms like LinkedIn. Neither do they look for solutions on Google.
• They most often go with word of mouth and peer recommendations.
• Traditionally, the product selection process has relied on touch and feel. So in general, prospects don't prefer to evaluate a product by just seeing it online.

In addition to these, the biggest reason why niche industries have not actively leveraged marketing for growth is the inertia. They all have been operating a certain way for decades and don't want to change it.

This is true on the buyer as well as the seller side. While the buyers are not used to looking up solutions online (except for marketplaces like IndiaMART for example), sellers are not convinced of the benefits of online marketing.

However, I believe this is set to change in the coming years. In this edition of the Elevate Your Marketing newsletter, we move against the wind by exploring a different perspective on marketing industrial solutions. We discuss 5 key reasons why online and digital marketing are going to be extremely important for B2B businesses in the industrial and manufacturing sectors.

Why you should actively market your industrial business in 2024?

Are you in the business of selling industrial and commercial drones? Do you offer supply chain and logistics solutions to FMCG companies? Or is your business into selling dunnage bags? It doesn't matter what you do in the industrial space. Here are five reasons why you should consider extending your marketing efforts beyond events:

1. Generation shift

This might sound very obvious. But this is something that is going unnoticed in the industrial sector. The buying committee is getting younger and younger. Currently, a vast majority of key decision makers in the industrial sector are Gen X. With time passing, the baton is being passed on to the next generations (Gen Y and even Gen Z).

Given that the average screen time on the internet is increasing with newer generations, there is no reason why industrial sellers shouldn't leverage online marketing methods.

2. Gen X is becoming more tech-savvy

According to Global Web Index, 76% of Gen X say they have purchased a product online using any device. While this is not specific to B2B industrial buyers, it tells you that the affinity towards online purchases is high among Gen X. More and more people are becoming tech-savvy.

In addition, not being active online and on social media platforms has created a FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) among many experienced business professionals. This means that the ability to reach your target audience online will only increase in the coming years.

3. Print magazines are turning online, so should you

The industrial sector is one of the domains that has continued to use print magazines for the longest time, especially in countries like India. But most print media companies today realize the potential of building an audience online and have created online versions of their magazines. Hence, promoting your business using relevant third-party media websites is a must.

However, that's not enough. When you depend on these media companies, you are not building first-party data. In a cookie-less world, building your own data is extremely important. In addition, you need to have control over your marketing campaigns.

The point is, you have to think like one of these magazine owners. As they say, every company is a media company today. The trend of making everything online is universal. Though the industrial sector has lagged behind, I believe it is going to be the torchbearer of online adoption among the late entrants in the next decade.

4. Omnichannel is necessary for scaling

As an agency owner, I often hear complaints from clients about SEO not giving the right results even after creating a ton of SEO-optimized content. A part of the reason for this is the lack of topical authority of your website. Search engines look at multiple signals online to evaluate the authority of your content (remember the E.E.A.T framework from Google?). This necessitates you to be present in as many channels as possible to attract enough traffic to your website.

Further, your business is most likely to hit a saturation point if you rely completely on offline channels, especially if you want to expand beyond your home territory. For these reasons, investing in online marketing early can give you a competitive edge and an early mover advantage.

5. Innovation starts with disruption - be the first to do that

What comes to my mind now is the famous Henry Ford quote: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

Just because the industry has been running a certain way for decades, it doesn't mean that you have to follow the same path. If you as an industrial marketer or business owner ask your ideal customers today about their choice of platform for communication, they would probably go with events and specialized marketplaces. While they work, other platforms leave plenty of opportunities to explore and grow.

Imagine this. If more and more sellers start publishing useful content on LinkedIn, don't you think buyers would love to be on the platform? Be the first one to start the revolution. As others follow, you will always have the first-mover advantage.

Final words

Being someone who comes from a very niche industry (embedded systems), I very well understand the skepticism behind making online marketing work. But I have led a 15-member marketing team in a traditionally engineering-led company to success with a wide variety of marketing tactics. So I have seen it work on the ground. All it takes is the will to embrace it and a bit of patience. With the right tactics, marketing can be the biggest growth lever for your B2B industrial business in the long-term.

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Visit our website to learn more about what we bring to the table. You could also write to us at [email protected].

More learning resources

Skalegrow has a blog that has more than 60 articles on various topics in B2B marketing. We discuss content, ABM, demand gen, martech, LinkedIn marketing, and much more there. Check it out here.

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As always, until we meet next time, happy learning!