Industrial Marketing Challenges: A Guide to Common Challenges

Several issues facing the manufacturing industry were highlighted in the second edition of The Marketing in Manufacturing Report, which was just published. The three main problems facing industrial marketers today are still producing enough high-quality content, gauging performance, and lacking a plan.  

Industrial marketing, also known as business-to-business (B2B) marketing, plays a crucial role in the global economy. Unlike consumer marketing, industrial marketing focuses on promoting products and services to other businesses rather than to individual consumers.  

This marketing segment presents unique challenges that can be complex and demanding. Understanding these challenges is vital for businesses aiming to succeed in the industrial sector. 

At Nova Growth, we delve into the most significant industrial marketing challenges and offer insights into how to overcome them.

4 Common Challenges in Industrial Marketing (and How to Solve Them)

Industrial marketing faces several unique challenges that require strategic solutions to maintain competitiveness. 

Four common challenges include creating enough high-quality content, a lack of strategy, measuring success/not knowing what works, and not generating leads quickly enough. 

Addressing these challenges involves careful planning, consistent effort, and the right tools to ensure that marketing efforts are effective and aligned with business goals.

Challenge 1: Creating Enough High-Quality Content

In industrial marketing, creating enough high-quality content is essential to engage a highly specialized audience. However, producing relevant, informative, and engaging content consistently can be difficult.

 The complexity of industrial products and services means that content must be both technically accurate and easily understood by potential customers. 

Approximately, 49% of manufacturing enterprises identify their biggest marketing difficulty as “creating enough high-quality content.” This is an all too regular scenario as marketing teams try to respond to frequently asked queries from prospects and stay competitive in search engines. 

60% of manufacturers belong to this category. This is especially true for manufacturing companies that have tiny or one-person marketing teams that service an entire company.

Content reigns supreme. Manufacturers need to figure out how to produce relevant, high-quality content for their prospects and consumers if they want to compete and win in search engines. Manufacturers will have to deal with the unpleasant reality of being invisible to possible customers if they don’t do this.

The numbers tell it like it is. As per Ignite Visibility, search engine marketers who rank first in search engines receive an average clickthrough rate of 43%, while those in position 10 only receive 3%!

How can producers get beyond this challenge?

1: Commit to a content strategy: Without a content strategy, you’ll wind up producing random, disorganized content that is difficult to produce and has no impact on search engine rankings. Making a content plan will save you time and produce better, more targeted content that has been thoroughly analyzed.

To overcome this challenge, industrial marketers should begin by developing a content calendar that outlines a strategic plan for content creation. This plan should identify key topics relevant to the industry and the target audience, ensuring a steady flow of content. 

2: Modify the content: Although it is the oldest trick in the book, very little use is made of it. Examine your current material to find areas where it can be revived and repurposed. You may make an infographic out of a news item or a film out of a blog piece. 

By doing this, you’ll be able to maximize your productivity and extract the maximum amount of value from each piece of material you produce. This blog article is a modified version of our course on Industrial Marketing Challenges and Solutions!

Collaborating with subject matter experts (SMEs) can provide the technical knowledge necessary for high-quality content. Furthermore, repurposing existing content, such as turning white papers into blog posts or infographics, can maximize resources. 

Outsourcing content creation to specialized agencies or freelancers with experience in industrial marketing can also be an effective way to maintain quality and consistency. 

3: Hire a third party to create your content:  We have experience in the marketing industry! It could be tempting to try to keep all the plates spinning because you have a lot on your plate. To make sure it gets done, it can often be better to contract out content development to a reputable industry specialist. 

61% of manufacturers outsource at least one content marketing task, most likely content development, according to the Content Marketing Institute (CMI). Experts in the field will produce top-notch content, freeing you up to concentrate on other, pressing duties.

Finally, leveraging content marketing tools like SEMrush can help manage the content creation process and measure its effectiveness, ensuring that the content strategy aligns with overall business objectives.

Challenge 2: A Lack of Strategy

Having worked with manufacturing companies for more than 20 years, we have found that many of their marketing problems stem from a lack of plan. It results in:

Manufacturers fail to consider who they are targeting, what their obstacles are, how to evaluate success, or even what kind of content to produce in the absence of a strong business and marketing plan.

A lack of strategy is a significant obstacle in industrial marketing, often leading to disjointed efforts that fail to achieve desired outcomes. Without a well-defined strategy, marketing activities may lack direction, resulting in wasted resources and missed opportunities. 

Many industrial companies focus on tactical execution, such as social media posts or email campaigns, without a cohesive plan that ties these efforts to overarching business goals.

How can producers get beyond this challenge?

A guidance on developing a marketing strategy for manufacturing enterprises may be found in this prior blog post. For every manufacturing marketing plan, the following structure is advised:

• As it stands now. This should be a summary of your company’s current state and the state of your marketing.
• Company goals. Clearly define your goals for your company and your marketing efforts. Recall that these goals must be SMART!
• To address this challenge, industrial marketers must develop a comprehensive marketing strategy that aligns with their business objectives. 
• This strategy should begin with a clear understanding of the target audience, including their pain points, needs, and decision-making processes. 
• Conducting a thorough market analysis to identify key competitors and industry trends can also provide valuable insights. With this information, marketers can define specific, measurable goals and create a roadmap to achieve them. This roadmap should include a mix of marketing tactics, such as content marketing, SEO, and lead generation, all working together to support the overall strategy. 
• Regularly reviewing and adjusting the strategy based on performance data is crucial to staying on track and adapting to changes in the market. Utilizing marketing automation tools can help streamline the execution of the strategy, ensuring that all efforts are aligned and working towards the same objectives.
• Based on those policies, you’ll have a set of strategies and activities that must be implemented by certain dates for you to overcome the challenges mentioned.

Lastly, each of those strategies/actions should be delegated to a particular team member to execute. 

Here, accountability is crucial! Instead of giving projects to groups of individuals, designate one person as in charge of making sure the task is finished on time!

Challenge 3: Measuring Success/Not Knowing What Works

A little over 41% of manufacturing companies said that calculating ROI and success is the biggest marketing obstacle. This is understandable given the lengthy sales cycles, complex buying teams, and numerous touchpoints manufacturing companies must deal with during the purchasing process. 

This frequently makes it very challenging to determine which aspects of marketing are most influencing potential customers.

Still, when it comes to gauging performance, UK companies undoubtedly consider the bottom line. More than 50% of manufacturing companies state that their main marketing objective is to “generate new business leads.” Also, 73% of marketers track the quantity of new leads they produce as a marketing KPI.

Measuring success and understanding what works in industrial marketing can be complex due to the long sales cycles and multiple touchpoints involved in the buying process. 

Industrial marketers often struggle to track the effectiveness of their marketing efforts, leading to uncertainty about which tactics are driving results and which are not. This lack of clarity can result in inefficient use of resources and missed opportunities for optimization.

How can producers get beyond this challenge?

This is where updating your marketing tech stack is essential. Too often, manufacturers are still utilizing marketing and sales technologies that are 10–20 years old. This technology frequently lacks integration, disrupts the user experience, and makes it difficult for marketers to see marketing’s overall impact on results.

To pinpoint the precise elements of your marketing that are generating sales, it may combine your website, CRM, email marketing, and sales management platforms. You’ll measure the things that count, like leads and conversion rates, and spend less time transferring data across systems.

To effectively measure success, industrial marketers should implement a robust analytics framework that tracks key performance indicators (KPIs) across all marketing channels. This framework should include tools like Google Analytics, CRM systems, and marketing automation platforms that provide comprehensive data on customer interactions and conversions. 

Establishing clear metrics, such as lead generation rates, conversion rates, and return on investment (ROI), will help marketers understand the impact of their efforts. 

Regularly analyzing this data allows for continuous optimization, enabling marketers to focus on the most effective tactics and adjust or eliminate underperforming ones. 

Additionally, using attribution models can help identify which touchpoints in the customer journey are contributing to conversions, providing deeper insights into what works. By making data-driven decisions, industrial marketers can ensure that their strategies are effective and aligned with their business goals.

Challenge 4: Not Generating Leads Quickly Enough

Manufacturers are sadly unable to produce leads fast enough as a result of all of these difficulties. Manufacturers who place a high importance on lead generation through marketing will suffer from this.

Setting campaigns live and seeing results might take anywhere from six to twelve months for industrial marketers. This drives a divide between sales and marketing as a result of increasing demand from sales teams that are ravenous for new leads.

High initial costs also deter risk-averse marketers from participating in some marketing programs out of concern that they won’t be successful.

In industrial marketing, generating leads quickly enough to sustain business growth is a common challenge. The long sales cycles and complex decision-making processes typical in the industrial sector can slow down lead generation efforts, leading to delays in revenue growth. 

Additionally, industrial marketers often face challenges in reaching the right audience and effectively capturing their interest.

How can producers get beyond this challenge?

Although it’s simple to believe that a large number of leads translates into a large volume of new business, this isn’t always the case. Knowing who you will be marketing to is essential before you start throwing precautions to the wind and hoping to increase the volume of inquiries. Which customers are essential to your business? 

Where can one locate extra prospects similar to those?

In the long term, producing a large number of unqualified leads could not be as beneficial as generating high-quality leads. However, an essential component of being able to achieve this is having a thorough understanding of your ideal client profile. I recommend you have a look at that next.

To accelerate lead generation, industrial marketers should focus on optimizing their lead capture and nurturing processes. This begins with a well-designed lead generation funnel that attracts, engages, and converts potential customers. 

Utilizing targeted content, such as case studies, white papers, and webinars, can effectively capture the interest of decision-makers in the industry. 

Additionally, leveraging paid advertising, such as PPC campaigns and LinkedIn ads, can help reach a broader audience more quickly. Implementing lead nurturing strategies, such as email marketing and personalized follow-ups, ensures that leads are continuously engaged and moved through the sales funnel. 

Integrating marketing automation tools can streamline these processes, allowing for faster and more efficient lead generation. 

Finally, regularly reviewing and optimizing the lead generation strategy based on performance data will help industrial marketers identify bottlenecks and make necessary adjustments to improve lead conversion rates.

Conclusion 

Industrial marketing is fraught with unique challenges that require specialized strategies to overcome. The complexity of products and services demands a deep understanding and the ability to communicate technical information effectively. 

Prolonged sales cycles necessitate sustained engagement and lead nurturing to keep potential clients interested and moving through the buying process. Identifying and targeting the right audience is central for success, especially in niche markets, and requires a highly personalized approach. 

Lastly, the digital transformation challenge highlights the importance of embracing new technologies and adapting to the evolving digital landscape.

Through targeted solutions for addressing these issues head-on, industrial organizations can achieve long-term growth and noticeable improvements in their marketing efficacy. 

Understanding the unique requirements of the sector and having the flexibility to adjust to shifting consumer demands and technological advancements are essential. 

Those who can successfully traverse such challenges in a market that is becoming more and more competitive will not only survive but also prosper, establishing themselves as leaders in their respective fields.

FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

1: What are the common challenges in creating high-quality content for industrial marketing?

Creating high-quality content in industrial marketing is often challenging due to the technical and niche nature of the industry. Industrial products and services typically require content that is both highly informative and accessible to a diverse audience, including engineers, procurement professionals, and decision-makers. 

The challenge lies in striking a balance between technical depth and simplicity. Additionally, industrial marketers must continuously update content to reflect evolving industry standards, regulations, and innovations. 

Overcoming this challenge involves collaborating with subject matter experts, investing in content creators with industry-specific knowledge, and regularly conducting audience research to ensure content resonates with target segments.

2: Why is it difficult to develop a comprehensive industrial marketing strategy?

Developing a comprehensive industrial marketing strategy is difficult because it requires a deep understanding of a complex, often B2B-driven market. Industrial products typically involve longer sales cycles, multiple decision-makers, and a need for detailed technical specifications. 

Marketers must also navigate the intricacies of industry-specific regulations and compliance requirements. Additionally, the strategy must align with broader business goals while being flexible enough to adapt to market changes. 

To address these challenges, industrial marketers should engage in thorough market research, collaborate closely with sales and technical teams, and continually assess and refine their strategy based on performance metrics and feedback from key stakeholders.

3: How can industrial marketers measure the success of their campaigns effectively?

Measuring the success of industrial marketing campaigns can be challenging due to the long sales cycles and the complexity of tracking multiple touchpoints throughout the buyer’s journey. 

Unlike B2C marketing, where success metrics like conversion rates and customer acquisition costs are more straightforward, industrial marketers need to focus on metrics like lead quality, engagement levels, and the influence of marketing efforts on sales pipelines. Implementing robust CRM systems and analytics tools is essential to track and measure these metrics effectively. 

Marketers should also establish clear KPIs that align with business objectives, such as the number of qualified leads generated, the length of the sales cycle, and the return on investment (ROI) from specific campaigns. Regularly reviewing and adjusting these KPIs based on campaign performance helps ensure ongoing success.

4: Why is lead generation slow in industrial marketing, and how can it be improved?

Lead generation is often slow in industrial marketing due to the nature of the B2B sales process, which typically involves longer decision-making cycles, multiple stakeholders, and complex purchasing requirements. 

Additionally, industrial buyers are often cautious, conducting extensive research and requiring detailed product information before making a purchase decision. To improve lead generation, industrial marketers should focus on nurturing leads through personalized, targeted content that addresses specific pain points and needs at each stage of the buyer’s journey. 

Implementing marketing automation tools can also help streamline the lead nurturing process, ensuring timely follow-ups and consistent communication. Additionally, leveraging data analytics to identify and prioritize high-potential leads can accelerate the lead generation process.

5: How can industrial marketers overcome the challenge of a lack of resources in their marketing efforts?

A lack of resources, including budget, personnel, and time, is a significant challenge for many industrial marketers. To overcome this, it’s important to prioritize marketing activities that deliver the highest ROI and align closely with business objectives. 

This might involve focusing on key areas such as content marketing, SEO, or account-based marketing (ABM) that can yield long-term benefits. Marketers should also consider outsourcing specialized tasks, such as content creation or PPC management, to external agencies with industry expertise. 

Additionally, leveraging marketing automation tools can help maximize efficiency by automating repetitive tasks and freeing up resources for strategic planning and execution. 

Finally, building a strong case for increased marketing investment based on data-driven insights and demonstrating the impact of marketing on business growth can help secure additional resources.