An engineering marketing agency is a very niche area of expertise. As you know, engineering is a difficult industry to understand for anyone without experience. Consequentially, finding someone who can successfully market engineering companies can be a difficult task. As a company that have worked in both engineering and construction for years; we can see that a lot of these businesses are still stuck in their ways when it comes to marketing. This is unfortunate, as it means that they are not achieving their true earning potential.
Today’s blog is going to outline some basic steps to take when marketing engineering companies. We will take a look at some techniques that will improve both your outbound and inbound marketing.
Here at VerriBerri, we have a very diverse team who come from a multitude of backgrounds, one of them being engineering and construction. This means that our team is able to integrate themselves into this industry with ease. It goes without saying this is a huge benefit for any engineering company looking to outsource their marketing and lead generation to an engineering marketing agency.
How do you market an engineering company?
There are many marketing techniques that can be utilised. Some examples include, blog posts, SEO, digital PR and social media marketing.
Below our team have broken down some effective elements of a winning marketing strategy for any engineering company.
Target audience.
First and foremost, as with most marketing strategies, you will need to iron out who exactly your target audience is. It may sound simple but to truly get to grips with your audience you need to really understand them. You will need to create a document outlining what your perfect customer looks like and figure out where you will find them. Will they be on social media, read the daily newspapers or keep up with the latest in industry news? Asking yourself questions like these will help you identify where your marketing material needs to be showcased.
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to your market research. It is an essential step that can easily be overlooked. However, this is the foundation of your marketing strategy and will need to be as solid as possible before starting any campaigns. If you are struggling to outline the criteria for the perfect customer you could start by looking at regular or old customers that you enjoyed working with and replicate the repetitive criteria.
Start the ball rolling by looking at companies you would love to work with, then move your focus onto the people who run these companies. At the end of the day people buy from people. You will need to concentrate on this in order to place your marketing campaigns effectively.
Blogs and why you need SEO.
Blogging to improve your website’s SEO isn’t a new concept. However, many businesses in the engineering industry are still failing to fully utilising blogs to improve their search engine optimisation. Blogging has the potential to increase your ranking on search engines such as Google and generates leads. In fact companies that regularly blog on their website generate 67% more leads than those that don’t.
To generate more leads and improve your websites SEO using blogs you will have to do some homework. Google makes, on average, nine algorithm changes a day that could affect your websites ranking. Making sure you are up to date with these algorithm changes ensures that the blogs you are writing are having the desired effect. If you fail to maintain to Google’s SEO criteria then you could find your website falling down the rankings.
It can be difficult for you to fit in writing a 1000 to 2500 word blog once a day. However, this is what Google would want in order for your website to rank as high as possible. If you manage to find the time to write these blogs you will need to bear in mind that whatever you write and post on your website will be judged by your potential customers; they will look at not only your writing skills but also the value that the content brings them. In other words, you need to be answering the questions they are asking with your blogs.
What if you don’t have the time or the SEO knowledge to write your own blogs? If this is the case, it is important that you outsource this job to an engineering marketing agency that has knowledge in the industry to confidently write content for you and promote your brand. Luckily, here at VerriBerri, we have exactly that expertise. As such we have been able to offer an SEO and blog writing service to a number of engineering companies with excellent results.
PR for engineering companies.
PR comes in many forms but the one we are going to talk about today is editorial content. Many engineering companies are entrenched with old fashioned marketing methods. Although word of mouth and referrals are effective at generating leads they are very limited in their reach. PR may not even be on the radar for some engineering companies. However, this can be a very effective method of gaining massive exposure for your company and generating quality leads that massively increase your turnover.
Editorial content means that a publication will feature your company or an ambassador of your company in an article. Having your company’s opinions, thoughts or advice feature in the press will place you as industry leaders. After all not just anyone gets a feature in a national, local or trade publication. This technique of PR is great marketing for engineering companies, as it builds credibility around their brand. It also offers you the chance to show people on your other marketing channels you have been featured in X Y and Z.
Our PR team have excellent media connections in both local, national and trade press. They are able to pitch article ideas that will gain your company positive brand exposure to these outlets regularly. The readership and reach for some of these publications are huge meaning your company has the potential to be seen by thousands of people. Alternatively our team are able to look at trade media that will have a much more targeted audience. It is ideal to have both mainstream and trade as the more times your company is seen, the more likely you will generate leads.
Engineering your social media marketing.
When creating a social media marketing strategy, you must consider your target audience. If your target audience isn’t using Facebook then there isn’t much point being on there. Seeing as the majority of engineering companies operate in a B2B market we would suggest focusing on LinkedIn for your social media marketing campaigns. It is always a good idea to run campaigns on multiple platforms. This not only extends your reach but also adds more credibility to your business. Regular posting on social media channels such as LinkedIn shows your company as a passionate brand within a saturated market.
Social media is a fantastic tool for marketing engineering companies. Ideally, you want to be posting on the major social media platforms at least once a day. This can take up a lot of time so if you are looking to enhance your social media marketing, it may be worth looking at the options for outsourcing this task to a PR agency that has experience in your industry.
If you are focusing on your marketing campaigns going into 2020 in order to help grow your business, then it may be time to talk to our expert engineering marketing agency. Contact us today for no obligation conversation and proposal.