Content Marketing for Manufacturers: 3 Common Mistakes to Avoid

Content Strategy / 23 Mar 2022

Have you got lots of content marketing ideas but not much in the way of a content strategy? Want to finally invest in a robust content strategy that will deliver on your marketing KPIs, but still coming up against naysaying stakeholders?

You’re not alone. The Content Marketing Institute found that more than half of manufacturing marketing managers were still trying to overcome traditional marketing and sales mindsets within their business. 

It seems the magic of SEO content writing is still struggling to penetrate hard-set viewpoints.

So, to build a strong business case for content marketing for manufacturers, you need to make sure it’s watertight. To that end, make sure you avoid these three common mistakes marketers make in their marketing strategy for manufacturing.  

1. Not getting buy-in across departments

To get other stakeholders on your side when it comes to content marketing, you need to gain their trust. 

This means building a content strategy that doesn’t just focus on creating content, but on adding value to other parts of the business. It’s a sure-fire way to warm up more sceptical stakeholders to the benefits of content marketing for manufacturers. 

Make sure you talk to other departments to see how content could help them. For example, does your sales director need any content to help them move sales conversations on? 

Stakeholders are far less likely to shoot down their own ideas. So integrate the ones you think will work into your content marketing strategy for manufacturing and see buy-in grow. 

If you already anticipate certain stakeholders blocking your strategy, address their concerns at the outset. Worried about how long stakeholders will take to sign off content? Tee them up in advance. Don’t have enough content writing capacity in your team? Hire a manufacturing marketing agency. 

Crucially, don’t forget to prioritise quick wins. 

You’ll likely have a long list of business objectives that content marketing can help you reach; some will be short term and some will be long. You obviously need to prioritise them based on capacity and business objectives but you also need to consider which can help you quickly build good will across departments. 

Quick wins prove to stakeholders that your content marketing strategy works and the subsequent good will will see you through when you want to pursue those longer term projects.

In short, use your content as a tactic.

Start out small by integrating pieces of content into individual campaigns. Then, as your team becomes more confident and the ROI becomes clearer, you can integrate more and more into your marketing. 

2. Not accessing content creation expertise

Videographers, illustrators, copywriters. It takes a village to raise a good content marketing strategy. It’s therefore unlikely that you’ll have all the skills you need in-house to succeed. 

That’s where a manufacturing marketing agency can help. In fact, well over half of the most successful B2B businesses outsource their content marketing. Whether you need website content writing, SEO blog writing or lead magnets, make sure you consider these questions when picking your content marketing partner: 

• Do they have experience working with a business similar to yours? 
• What are the results from their previous campaigns or projects? 
• Do they understand your business or have technical expertise in-house? 

3. Not properly tracking ROI

Tracking the ROI of your content will reveal how your content strategy is directly affecting conversions and sales. 

To make this as easy as possible, invest in analytics tools or customer relationship management (CRM) software that can track and analyse customers’ interactions with your content. Plus, make sure your team has the training they need to use these tools and the insights they provide effectively. 

It’s only with these insights to hand that you can update your content strategy so it continues to deliver a great ROI. 

That’s right, this isn’t a ‘one and done’ situation. Your content strategy needs to evolve as your business, market and customers evolve. 

Team up with us 

Having worked with a variety of manufacturing businesses, content marketing for manufacturers is our thing. Our expert team of SEO content writers and technical professionals can get your content marketing delivering results your stakeholders will lap up. 

To find out how, book your discovery call today.