Industrial & Manufacturing Marketing Articles
Blogging Still Lagging in Industrial Marketing
Compared to most B2B marketers, blogging still plays a minor role for most manufacturing and industrial companies. Look at these charts from two different surveys to illustrate my point.
The first chart is from the survey – Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs’ fourth annual B2B Content Marketing: 2014 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America.
Blogging is in the top five B2B content marketing tactics used. Interestingly, it is tied with In-person Events at 76%. Events and trade shows are always rated as number one in effectiveness.
Now compare this to the findings from GlobalSpec’s 2013 Trends in Industrial Marketing. Blogs are rated much lower at only 32%.
It is clear to me from my regular conversations that manufacturers and industrial companies understand and want the benefits of thought leadership and SEO from industrial blogging. Many of these companies have even taken the first step in launching a blog but the big problem is sustaining one over time.
Lack of time, producing enough content, producing the kind of content that engages and lack of budget are probably the reasons I hear most often. These are not different from the challenges faced by other B2B marketers. You’ll find lots of helpful articles that I have written that are categorized under Industrial Blogs and Business Blogs.
IMO, the single biggest reason for industrial blogging being low on the list of marketing priorities is the existing mindset. Somehow, blogging and content marketing in general are still seen as another form of one-off campaigns. Many of these industrial companies are not prepared to invest the time and the money for the process to develop and produce results.
It is really up to industrial marketing consultants and other marketing professionals to make them understand the difference. It requires a cultural change to convince the decision makers to stick with blogging. Studies like the one from CMI/MarketingProfs are a big help to me. The hard data provides proof of concept when I discuss industrial blogging with my engineering and technical clients.
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