Manufacturing makes up a significant portion of the B2B world. Most businesses need equipment, supplies, and even machinery to run. B2B manufacturing is all about creating those products that other businesses need to run. But with 591,720 manufacturing companies in the United States, your manufacturing company has to find a way to stand out from the competition. You can do that through marketing.

In today’s blog, we’ll offer a handy guide to marketing a B2B manufacturing business.

Have a Strong Website — And Keep It Updated

Let’s say a potential customer hears about your business while searching for a manufacturer. Maybe they run a hospitality business and they need a good furniture manufacturer to furnish the rooms. They could have been referred to your business by one of your customers, or they could have found you in a directory. What’s their next step?

You might hope that their next step is to pick up the phone and ask for a quote from your company. In most cases, however, they’re probably going to want to do their homework first. They’re going to look for your website…and if you don’t have a website, they might just move on. Your website should be your central hub online: not a social media page, not a directory listing. 

A good website will be aesthetically pleasing, easy to navigate on both desktop and mobile, and contain all the information people need to know about your business. Your products and services, your experience, customer tutorials, answers to your most frequently asked questions, and of course, your contact information.

It’s also important to keep your website updated as time goes on. If your information changes, you’ll need to change it on the website. 

Boost Your SEO

So you have a great website. Now you need people to actually find it. Google processes over 99,000 searches per second, and it can be hard for people to keep up. Especially a busy business manager or business owner is likely not going to go past the first few search results. That’s why you need to boost your SEO so that you can rank as highly in the search results as possible.

You can start a regular blog on your website, with educational information about your industry or, better yet, the needs of your customers’ industries. Landing pages of at least 1000 words or more for each of your services can also help to boost your SEO. A few more tips include:

• Running a keyword search for your industry and working those keywords naturally into your content
• Run analytics to monitor what works and what doesn’t in terms of SEO
• Ensuring that your website is mobile friendly and easy to navigate
• Creating a Google My Business page
• Using tools that give your content SEO rankings to help you improve them 

Create Buzz With a Unique Brand

If you create a unique brand for your business, you’re far more likely to stand out. Be thoughtful with the choice of your business name, your logo, slogans, and promotion materials. Make sure your brand truly represents who you are as a business and what makes you different from the competition. Even color choices should all be a part of creating a unique brand.

A unique brand that sticks in people’s minds means that when conversations about manufacturing come up, people might be more likely to think of your company. If they spread the word and other people look into your company, then you already have buzz going about your brand. 

Attend Networking Events

Businesses love to mingle at networking events, and manufacturing is the sort of thing that needs to be seen in order to show the effectiveness. Trade shows, conferences, and other networking events are a great opportunity for you to make contacts who could become potential customers. You can add new contacts to your email list and send them exclusive deals to begin the business relationship with them. 

Encourage Brand Loyalty

Another skillful way to market a B2B manufacturing business is by encouraging loyalty towards your brand. The best way to do this, of course, is to offer a quality of manufacturing that can’t be found anywhere else. If you have something your competitors simply don’t, your customers who look for that will seek you out first. However, there are also marketing and discount tactics you can use to encourage brand loyalty.

Consider offering a discount to loyal customers who refer new customers to your business. You can also offer discounts to customers as a reward for their loyalty. Some manufacturers have even started to use a subscription model of payment for their manufacturing, in which customers pay a monthly or yearly fee in exchange for service whenever they need it.