It seemed that not so long ago, manufacturers sneered at the idea of content marketing. After all, the industrial niche has an image distinguished from other businesses that thrive on social media, email newsletters, and even blog posts.
However, content marketing has proven to be one of the most impactful game-changers in the industrial world. Over 56% of manufacturing marketers believe their organization’s content marketing was somewhat more successful than what they did a year ago.
Thought Leadership Is a Game Changer
Suppose the company’s culture neglects the importance and effectiveness of quality content. In that case, the content created is less likely to be relevant to consumers, and thus the ROI of content marketing will decrease further. Therefore, building thought leadership that values building a long-term relationship with the audience is mandatory to boost your content marketing return.
For example, craft unique content for prospects at each stage of their customer journey. Create a well-balanced mixture of easy-to-read top-of-the-funnel content and bottom-of-the-funnel materials that focuses on building customer loyalty.
Build a Comprehensive Content Marketing Strategy
Having a documented strategy is vital to boosting your ROI. An increasing number of businesses in the industrial world are starting to build a systematic approach to their content marketing efforts.
Back in 2019, only 21% of manufacturers had a documented content marketing strategy. The number nearly doubled and reached an impressive 41% in 2020 — the highest ever since 2016.
As one of the leading content marketing agencies specializing in the manufacturing niche, C-leveled has put the strategic planning process into a few simple steps you can follow:
- Decide your goal
- Find your mission statement and unique value proposition.
- Find out what topics your audience cares about
- Decide on format and distribution plan.
- Establish a means to track KPIs
- Build a content score system for quality assurance
Design Content For Multi-Level Decision Makers
Now that you have a strategy written out, it’s time to venture into the content creation world. Designing content for multi-level decision-makers will significantly increase your content marketing ROI. This means your content needs to suit the consumption behaviors of individuals with different positions.
According to a recent survey on content marketing efficiency, the industrial audience, regardless of their seniority level, consume short-formed articles and social media posts most frequently. Other popular formats include:
- Long-form articles for SEO purposes
- Video, webinars, and live streams
- White papers, eBooks, and case studies
The idea is to create an organic content system where each component supports one another, so your content resonates with individuals from different organization levels.
Build an Outsourcing Partnership
As of 2020, content creation remains the most-outsourced task by manufacturing companies, accounting for 87% of outsourcing. The next on the list were content distribution, content technology, and KPI measurement.
While you may know the most about your industry, it’s a different story with marketing. As an agency, C-leveled customizes content marketing services to respond to our client’s individual needs. This will save you time and money spent, and therefore increase your ROI.
Agencies also have more knowledge regarding the technical side of content marketing, such as how to increase your SEO efficiency. Therefore, working with the right agency partner may be the last piece you’re missing to double your content marketing ROI.
