The industrial sector of our economy is unlike any other. So it comes as no surprise that its well defined segments and elongated buying cycles make lead generation a challenge. In this episode, the Industrial Marketer Podcast looks at how to bring an “industrial” lens to a variety of marketing tactics.
The industrial sector of our economy is unlike any other. So it comes as no surprise that its well defined segments and elongated buying cycles make lead generation a challenge. In this episode, the Industrial Marketer Podcast looks at how to bring an “industrial” lens to a variety of marketing tactics.
Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Industrial Marketer podcast, your place for the tips, tech trends and tactics for industrials who care about driving leads to their companies. I am one of your hosts, Joey Strawn, your industrial marketer connoiseur for the evening. And as always, I am joined by Nels, Nels. ring the bells, Jensen, how are you, man?
Nels Jensen:I'm doing great. Glad to be here with you, Joey. Looking forward to this.
Joey Strawn:I always love I have a set reminder when we're going to kind of get together and talk about industrial marketing stuff. And I always look forward to it. And I know you and I talk throughout the week. So it's not a matter of like, Oh, I never see you. But I always look forward to these conversations because they're, they're usually more free flowing. And we just get to talk about the things we deal with and the end ways that we can help more than maybe one client at a time. I hope you've been having a good week, it's good to see you.
Nels Jensen:Yeah, and as usual learning a lot. You know, it's a, this is a fascinating segment industry, whatever, however you want to refer to the industrial, you know, whatever we are, and it's never it's it's never dull. And I learn a ton every week, and this week has been no different.
Joey Strawn:I, I'm glad that you and you sort of segued perfectly for this now, but you're like in the industrial kind of whatever we are. Because our topic today, you know, we started this podcast months and months ago, and one of our first conversations is like what is industrial marketing? And we differentiated between B2B and industrial and sort of the, the specific natures. And it was a very high level general conversation, and I made the claim in that episode, I said, Guys, don't worry, we're going to come back to this topic. Because what makes industrial marketing, both industrial, and marketing is sort of the heart of what we want to keep getting at on this show. And so today's episode, "What Makes Industrial Marketing Industrial?," is that so we can sort of touch back on that conversation that we had a couple months ago, Nels, dive in a little bit deeper, and really define what that industrial, whatever the whatever it is, when we all sort of live it, we all I mean, we all definitely live it, we all are surrounded by it, we all know it. But like what really is makes it industrial? And so I'm excited to dive in, I think we've got a lot of cool stats, and we've got a lot of cool examples. We're going to play a fun game, in the second half of in our on the shop floor segment that I've that I've created. It may crash and burn valiantly. And it's gonna be amazing, either way. But I I'm excited. I mean, when you're thinking about this topic Nels, and we're coming in and trying to make and define what makes industrial industrial? Where was your head at? Like, where did you want to approach this from, from a big picture standpoint, before we dive into the definitions and the specifics, and, you know, all of that.
Nels Jensen:So it's, it's, it's rare that you ever see me speechless, right, I love I love to talk. And words are meaningful. I'm a word guy. And I but I also I'll concede that I struggle a little bit, it's part of it is not we overthink it, right? Industrial is, is there's gonna be some, you know, raw dust and, and big spaces and equipment. And then part of it is also, to me pretty simple that it's in the supply chain. And I know you can argue that a Walmart store is the end result of a supply chain. But a Walmart store is not industrial. You know, it's everything leading up to that is industrial.
Joey Strawn:That that's a great place to start. And we'll just kind of dive in there because I think that that opens the door to this conversation of so in the early episode, we defined what industrial marketing is. It essentially is a business communicating their products and or services and communicating their value to another to their prospect, whatever that prospect may be in order to nurture a lead through a conversion. And we've specified it to the industrial markets and the industrial sectors. And, and to your point that is nebulous. A lot of people use those terms, very sporadically, very nebulously. To give a little bit more definition around that, I want to dive into some elements that really make the industrial part of the industrial marketing solidified and we'll talk about the marketing stuff in a little bit, but the industrial side. These are industries that we know and that we've heard of, but like the agriculture industry, you know the aviation industry, defense contractor, construction, manufacturing, warehousing. When we're talking about the industrial markets, essentially what we mean is the goods and services that happen in order to get a consumer a consumer-facing end product somewhere. So whether that's a phone being developed, whether that's a, you know, wind turbine being installed somewhere, whether it's a car being manufactured and then released publicly, it is all of the connective tissue that starts at the raw materials and ends with the consumer-facing product. Those are the steps that we're really, really focused on for this conversation in this industrial marketing sector.
Nels Jensen:Yes. And it's it's not just the heavy equipment, right? You mentioned what construction defense, you know, agriculture, whatever, there's obviously lots of equipment involved in agriculture. But really the the output, you know, even if it's, you know, hey, we're, we're growing corn, you know, so at some point, the, the output is part of that industrial market, as well. But yeah, and so sometimes, it's, you know, the energy industry, you know, we're talking about the output is part of industrial, even though it's not a, you know, viable, it's not a product you can hold in your hand. It's just any distribution of that. Right, the distribution of that product is obviously very industrial. Right? Well, I think another another key thing, too, is just this, right, this is industrials play with other industrials. Right at some point, there's a, there's a handoff to, you know, consumers, we don't do any B2C marketing in the industrial space. Somebody does. But we don't. Right, most most industrial right, it's like, let's start with OEMs, you know, original equipment manufacturers. That's, that's the, you know, genesis of a lot other stuff, too. So, industrial does tend to be a little earlier in the consumption of goods and services, right.
Joey Strawn:Yeah. And I agree. And one of the things that you mentioned a word I want to circle back to, which is the distribution of it is, right now what we're talking about is if you're thinking the industrial sector, and you're thinking, Oh, well, you know, they take the raw, you know, wood and paper pulp, and then they, you know, sell it to somebody that then does something to that wood, that makes, you know, gives it to somebody else who then makes a cabinet or installs it into whatever, you know, makes flooring out of it. All of those steps. And all of those pieces have to be connected. And the marketing does a lot of that. But there are also tools involved in those processes, and, you know, subscription type needs and repeatables and people that have to help manage the distribution, and the connective tissue to make all of the other businesses work. And that also is involved in this conversation around industrial. Nels when we were talking pre show, you mentioned the three Ds, which I thought are amazing. I loved it. And I wanted you to kind of dive into just the importance of understanding like the well you do it, what are the three DS?
Nels Jensen:distribution, distributors, and dealers. So you have distribution, distributors, and dealers. And in some cases, the words get used interchangeably. And I think it's just really important to remember that in the industrial space, distributors are a really key component that you're not just logistically distributing products. In many cases, distributors are used to sell products too and they'r, they're, what what local dea ers and local distributors often can be the same thing. And the're what they're what gives a l cal presence to a lot of t ese global companies is they rel on the knowledge and the connections of a l cal distributor. Graybar, for example, is an elect onics distributor that is in ev ry major market in the US. And s, you know, they are selli g and distributing parts that ome from the, you know, the t e big globals. You know, they'r, they're essential in this i dustrial equation. You know, t's not just the wareho sing and the logistic side o distribution. In many cases, these manufacturers, How do th y know who to sell to right A small manufacturer an't necessarily sell everywhe e. So they rely on in some cases dealers, and in some cases, d stributors. I mean, again, hese words get used intercha geably a little bit. But the, you know, industrial e osystem has many key players nd they're divided. That's what arts of what make this so fasc nating is, they're not all the ame that you know that the eco ystem in some segments is ar different than the ecosyste in other segments. And that's o e of the challenges. nd one of the opportunitie in industrial marketing is understanding the ecosystem fo your segment and for your ind stry.
Joey Strawn:I agree and and the ecosystem is so important. But one of the things that I want to make sure that listeners understand and one of the important things that you said that we hear this all the time, and I'm sure that if you're a distributor, if you're selling things through a distributor network, you've even said this phrase, but, Oh, our distributors are a lot of times our best salesmen. And it's because like, they have that mindset, they're out there doing that work. And so let's not forget that that is now a channel that we need to take care of that we have to absolutely efficiently market within and communicate within and not if they need assets, if there's collateral pieces, that is a channel that now can you can stream life blood through. And that's not a normal channel that other like retail, or B2C consumers can really have a direct line through a lot of times. It's pretty unique to this industry.
Nels Jensen:Yeah, and that's, that's another nebulous term, the channel partners means different things in different industries. And in, but it's, but it is obviously important in all of them, and just, you know, understanding that landscape in each segment, each industry is important. And, you know, honestly, as a, as a company, we're doing well, because we are industrial, we understand some of these. And if we don't, we know how to learn about them. And we know similarities. And, you know, you can't begin to develop a messaging platform, you know, the key pillars that you want to espouse if you don't understand the personas, and who is involved in the buying processes, right. So, again, it's it's probably no different than selling, you know, T-shirts versus shoes, right, you know, somebody in that industry has to understand the the distinctions within that, those systems. But yeah, industrial it is it is not the same. You know, so obviously, it's understanding the landscape is really crucial in industrial marketing. Right.
Joey Strawn:And I'm gonna segue right off of that, too, because another term that you use that I love is riches in niches. And this is it is incredibly accurate in the industrial sectors, because one of the things that is relatively unique about the industrial sectors is for the most part, a lot of them can be contained universes. The supply chain, your your ecosystem of potential customers, for your service, for your product for your fabrication technique, may only be 14 factories in the whole country. Yeah. So the idea of, Well, we always have to be advertising, we always have to be, you know, putting commercials out there because people and consumers ... That's not what we're talking about here. This is a unique element to, You know, what? We only have 14 people that we need to stay in front of, and how do we find and communicate to those 14?
Nels Jensen:Yeah, it's, you know, aerospace. How many how many people actually buy big jet airplanes or satellites? Well, actually, more people are buying satellites than ever, but it's still not
Joey Strawn:I was about to say. Bezos is going to space. Richard Branson is going to space. Nels, I I'm gonna make an announcement. Industrial marketer. Next episode. We're recording it from space. All right.
Nels Jensen:Well, we will.
Joey Strawn:I've got a Kickstarter going.
Nels Jensen:It'll be out of this world.
Joey Strawn:Oh! Zing, zang, zoom. Come on Ashton Kutcher: Give us money!
Nels Jensen:He can fly. He can fly with us. It'll be safe.
Joey Strawn:Exactly. I know you want to go back to space Ashton. We could do it together. Sorry, but I took your. But I love that phrase. It's another one of yours.
Nels Jensen:Well, it's, you know, the, as you know, I'm a former B2B journalist. And it was fascinating as I learned State organizations will but but it's a contained universe. It's that space about like, how narrow marketing could be. You know, I met somebody who was very successful in basically creating a marketing environment for dentists. And that was it. And it was they were masters in SEO, they knew the websites, what was good, what was not, what was. You know, they could even basically tell you what systems to use for your back offices that linked with other ones and, and they had phenomenal success, and they expanded quickly. And it was just, you know, we're not gonna deal with eye doctors. We're not gonna deal with other offices. We're just going to deal with dentists. And, you know, that's when it kind of it clicked for m and it was kind of like, okay expertise, right. So, but i some industrial markets are lik that, where there's thousand out there and there's plen y of partners. But you know, how many people buy some of these arge turbines? You know, it's energy producers do and, you know, the, you know, aviation does, and not like, Remember, we recently researched the lighting industry. And there are thousands upon thousands upon thousands of light, because the raw materials are relatively cheap. You know, you can get them and distribute them and Yeah, so I think that's what also makes industrial industrial sell them and profit off of them. And there are dozens and dozens and dozens of potential targets and competition pieces, and the industry is incredibly saturated. And that's a stark difference from some of the energy companies, you know, that we have really dived into the back end on where they have like, five people that they really need to be in front is these really narrow markets. And there is technology that can help you. And yes, sometimes, sometimes it's going to cost more than, you know, B2C marketing where you're, you know, basically just, you know, blasting out, you know, to a right wide audience, whatever. But the scores when you, you know, convert a lead, it's it's way, way, way more valuable as well. So, the industrial marketing aspect of it, yes, it's extremely narrow. And yes, there's all sorts of complexities. But in some ways, you know, you know, the more value that you can bring to understanding leads and scoring leads, the more you're going to help your customer, your client, your company.
Joey Strawn:And that's that expertise. And every industrial listening to this is like, well, that's what we sell is like our expertise. We've been in this game, we can fabricate anything out of anything. You know, my grandfather's grandfather started this business with a lathe and a hammer. And like we can do it like I we, we hear those stories all the time. And expertise is truly important when it comes to these markets. Because you've seen it, you've done it, you know the pitfalls of it, and how to sidestep things that rookies may make a mistake on and that that fits in industrial marketing, and industrial manufacturing and the industrial supply chain, as well. But you said a word that I love, and it's value. And this is kind of one of the big things that I want to like wrap up our What is industrial and what makes it industrial? Is there's an old adage, and I think it gets attributed to four or five different people. But the adage is something to the effect of I lose 50% of my my advertising revenue. The problem is, I don't know which 50%. And the idea is that, oh, we're just flinging out a bunch of marketing. We're flinging out a bunch of advertising and it's working. But I don't know what's working. And that mentality, I will say, does not apply within the industrial sector. In my experiences. If you cannot tie the activities that you're doing back to some sort of either lead funnel, revenue stream or exact dollar turnaround, then then your plan's not working. Then you need to look deeper, and you need to take some steps. Because when it comes to marketing, in the industrial sectors, being able to have revenue impact, and showing with data, how the money is performing, that's being put towards those efforts, is incredibly important, even if it's just in general terms of we now know that we did emails this year, and we did not do emails last year, and we can attribute a 5% growth in our pipeline, our you know, proposal pipeline from emails. That's at least something but you have to be able to say something.
Nels Jensen:Yeah, and it's often also right, it's, Yes, you might not have closed some of these leads, but you can learn a lot from what you didn't close too, right? It's these are the leads we're seeking. And maybe some aspect of sales is performing better than another aspect. So what can you, what can you transfer? Maybe it's a salesperson. Maybe it's, you know, part of the process. But the data helps you learn and helps you adjust. You know, if nothing else, you can turn those input dials more quickly. Right? What you know what that data as opposed to waiting for an entire year to see what you ended up with for sales. So it's, Yes, th ROI is obviously important. Bu the more data you have, the mor you can refine and experiment. nd not just what doesn't work, ut what does work. How can you m ke it work even better? So t at the revenue, the revenu impact is not a one-off it's, it's a if you bring th t continuous improvement minds t to your lead environment, th n you're, you're doing wel
Joey Strawn:And what a better way to kind of put a bow on
that:continuous improvement. Kaizen. It's, it's the heart and the core of the industrial mindset. You know, it's something that people who have worked in these industries, the you know, the Toyota Kata method, and people have heard about these things. So that idea of continuous improvement, if you're not applying that to your marketing efforts, then it's not industrial marketing, because that's a DNA, fundamental component of industrial.
Nels Jensen:Right. So that was actually perhaps my biggest awakening Aha! moment when I got into this industry, much later than you did was that, Wait a minute, these manufacturers these industrials, the logistics, they know if it's better taking a right turn or a left turn with these 18 wheel vehicles, the manufacturer knows if they run it at at a hundred times, a hundred units per hour, they get this efficiency and if they run at 105 units, they, so there is this this lean mentality this data, this this efficiency quotient in manufacturing, that's off the charts. Yet, industrials, have not been applying the same mindset to their marketing. I mean, are industrials, are industrials, even digital?
Joey Strawn:You know what? That is the other thing that I wanted to say, because the other half of this is industrial marketing. We've talked about what makes it industrial, but the marketing side of it, and especially, you know, we're biased, we're a digital, you know, we live in digital, we are born in digital, we love it. But a lot of things that we hear is like our customers just aren't digital, like we're should, you know, we're in the manufacturing work. We're in warehousing. You know, we're not digital. But I pulled some stats for any naysayers out there. And so I just want to go through some stats, make sure a lot of people are like, Well, yeah, duh, Joey, of course, our customers are online. But I wanted to go specific into some more channels. So you know, one, if you're not showing up on Google, this is this is one of those analogies I like to make: If you're not ranking on in a search engine, primarily Google. But if you're not ranking online, and you don't care, too, it's essentially just like not being listed in the phone book, or the green book directories. Or in the white papers, like you just kind of don't exist. I mean, one of the stats I found was as of January of 2020this is last year 96% of all searches in Google were four words or longer. So not only are people always going to Google, but they're being very specific about the types of things that they're searching for. It's not just like manufacturing. It's a string of phrases. So making sure that you're specific on your site? Super important.
Nels Jensen:You live in, you live in this world. So, you know, the examples you have on some of these what works what doesn't work, it's yeah, yeah. But I think people, Well, anyway, keep going. Go on.
Joey Strawn:Okay, okay. You know, another one is like, oh, Okay, my, you know, my kids use YouTube and I don't really care about any of that we don't need to make videos for for our company. YouTube is the second most visited website, according to multiple, multiple website tracker trackers. And not only
that:87% of video marketers say that video specifically has increased the traffic to their website. It's been the sole reason that traffic traffic has increased to their website. We talk to a lot of people about video, this is one of those where you may not think you need to market yourself online, but you need to show what you do and what makes you great online because people watch a lot of videos and videos get found a lot and can get people asking questions about you. So, super important. The next one that I found is more about the emerging workforce. We hear a lot about, you know, workforce issues and people in the workforce getting younger. But millennial industrials and engineers are more likely than older colleagues to choose social media to identify product reviews. So you know, they'll look for jobs and employers there as well. But specifically for industrials that have products on the market or products that they want connected to their buyers, millennials are looking on social media for those. So if you're not having your listings connect over to your profiles or you're not putting ads and carousels out there, you may be missing a big opportunity. And then finally is, this one is just more about the devices and the things that are coming up and as an SEO guy, why it is incredibly important to understand the words that you're using on your site. Because in 2020, more than half of smartphone users engage voice technology on their device. So like asking Siri or Alexa or whatever it may be for advice, from their phone or from a device. And by 2023, the number of digital voice assistants will reach 8 billion units, which means that people will be using voice search, voice identification, voice readers more than they're using typed search in some cases. So, if your site does not use the words that your customers use, that they will search for, that they will be asking about, then you will have another channel voice search that you are now not showing up on. So yes, there there. Yes, it's a lot of business could be potentially earned from digital channels. And more is coming, especially after last year when almost every company in the world and every consumer in the world was relegated to being digital.
Nels Jensen:But this is not a surprise to manufacturing. HMIS, human machine interfaces, you know, if you if you still have a keyboard at your machine, when you're programming your machine for the upcoming job, you know, your your younger, newer employees are shaking their head. They want something they can touch, they can swipe and voice activation, even the eye recognition. Come up, scan. Oh, okay, I know operator Joey is on this machine, the machine will instantly ask you, Hey, do you want the same settings as the last time we did this run? What do you? So you know, this is coming to machining and assembly lines and everything else? It's already there for the big employers. So it should be no surprise that that's coming from marketing as well.
Joey Strawn:Yeah.
Nels Jensen:I got a great idea for a business man, we you know what we need to do? case video case studies. You know, it's like, yeah,
Joey Strawn:Oh, man, don't give all the secrets away here.
Nels Jensen:We need a new product line here.
Joey Strawn:Well, that's the thing is we you know, every episode, we talk about how can we make this valuable for people. And obviously, our conversations are just so thrilling that that's value enough. But we didn't want to stop there. So there's always some opportunities. We've kind of babbled and talked about a lot. So there are a couple of things that I do want to identify before we go into the shop floor as some opportunities I see with all of this conversation that we've just had. But one of the things is, as the industrial sectors are, and tend to be, there's contained units, we've talked about that. But they're also they have long buying cycles, and for the most part, they operate relatively consistently. So don't, don't chase all those shiny objects. If you're like, Oh, we got to be on Tik Tok or we got to be on whatever the emails, communications, website clarity, making sure that you are showing what you're doing in the right places. Don't always chase the shiny objects, make sure that you are presenting yourself well in where you are without just trying to always be distracted about some things. So the industrial sector while it is very unique, it is unto itself, not usually a shiny object type of type of market. So, you know, I know it's exciting. And trust me, I love new things as much as the next guy. But you know, play it safe. The next one if the stats didn't convince you, and if me and Nels haven't been able to convince you by now that invest in video, I don't know what's going to. Bideo is a huge market, it's a huge opportunity coming up. And just we see more and more and more that algorithms favor those types of content pieces. So if you have video, use it. Clean it up, cut it up into pieces, use it. If you don't have video, find some way to invest in it. Get a videographer out there. There's a lot of companies that do it relatively cheap, but film some video, film your processes in action, film your, you know the stuff you can share, but film some of your machines, film some of your you know, people talking about the successes that they've had working with you. Just get it out into the market. And then the last one, the last
opportunity is:We've talked about, you know, a unique market ecosystem. We've talked about a long buying cycle, you have to nurture your leads. A lot of companies, it's great now that they're out of spreadsheets and are using things like Salesforce or Nutshell, you know, a CRM of some kind, but please keep it up. Connect with marketing, make sure that they're getting you know, promotional emails, make sure they're getting business updates, make sure that the salesmen who are working those accounts, even if it's through a dealer network, have the assets and the collateral and the answers to the questions that they need. Those are huge opportunities that every industrial should be taking advantage of. Even if you don't have like, Oh, well, we can't produce a YouTube show. Well, don't. Start small. These are things that everyone needs to be thinking about. Anything to add Nels? I kind of I kind of talked a lot right there.
Nels Jensen:Yeah, that's okay. It's, you know, yes, don't be, don't be rash. Don't be, you know, in panic. But don't get left behind, too. So some of these it's, you know, there's nothing wrong with you know, opening up the hood and taking a look underneath every couple of whatever with some frequency on your just because you have a new website four years ago, doesn't mean it's serving you as well as it could. You know, so that's, but you know, what, like my, my, my Aha! moment, though, too? Hey, if you're if you're doing it for your operations, why wouldn't you do it for your sales and marketing?
Joey Strawn:Yeah, I agree. Okay, so we we've talked in part one a lot. So now, we need to head on down to the shop floor. Because Nels, I have created a game for us to play today. Are you do you want to go? You're excited? You want to go play
Nels Jensen:I'm competitive.
Joey Strawn:All right, well, let's head on down to the shop floor, and we can play our game.... Whoo, here we are, we walked all the way down. And now we're on the shop floor. And this is where we make it actionable. This is where we do the work. You know, Nels, sometimes we have a guest, sometimes we bring like a top five list. This time, I've created a game that I am calling Make It Industrial. Oh, yeah! That's the name of the game, Make It Industrial.
Nels Jensen:How do I how do I play?
Joey Strawn:That's, that's the greatest question that have after someone tells you, they are gonna make you play a game. So the way that it works is we have identified five generic marketing activities. And then you went through and identified five different types of industrial companies that have, you know, unique elements to them. And then we tweaked the list just a little bit. And what we're going to do is we're going to figure out how a very unique industrial-based company could use a generic marketing tactic to their benefit. We're going to kind of brainstorm a little bit and ask some questions, and maybe give people some questions that they can ask when they're answering similar types of things. So the first one, we're starting off easy, it's an email blast. Everybody likes emails, except for all the people that say email is dead, and it's not. But everybody loves an email blast. But how would a logistics company use an email blast? So Nels, where would you start with, you're asked by logistics company to like write us an email? Where would you start? What questions should we ask?
Nels Jensen:Well, you know, the, the first question is, What do you want to accomplish? What is the goal? How do you align this with company goals? And with, you know, the, like that. So you know, assuming that you're given direction, like, okay, so logistics company wants to ...
Joey Strawn:They're looking to hire somebody. So most likely we're working on recruiting for a logistics company. They're always hiring.
Nels Jensen:If it were, you know, we've branched out and now and now we're dealing with, you know, whatever we're dealing with, right, automobile parts, as opposed to just right, you know, warehousing for retail, you know. last mile attribution or something like that. So, so let's say hiring is a big one, because there is such demand for over the road, right? For drivers and whatever.
Joey Strawn:Okay, so now, so now we have an email, we know, we need to send an email where it's going to be about recruiting. So one thing that I know of about any logistics company is they're going to have a database of people that have applied for jobs in the past. Like they're taking in applications, the truck driving industry is a quick turnover one, so a lot of people are applying for a lot of jobs at a fast rate. So there's a there's a possibility right there to mine the database that we already have for people that have applied for your jobs in the past that didn't get hired. So then you have a readymade email list and an email blast that can go out. You didn't have to buy a list. All you have to do is write an email and send it to the people that say, Hey, you know what, we opened up a new lane in your area in Georgia, and I bet you'd like to check it out.
Nels Jensen:Sure. And for content, you know, hopefully you're telling your company story at some point. You're finding ways to link that, here's the, here's a cool thing that we're doing now that you know, is relatively new, or is innovative or whatever there's, that, you know, the content should not be an issue if you've done a good job with your website, in terms of being customer focused with your website, right? Because you certainly, you can even take, you know, hey, here's a solution we offer, you know, and here's, here's a way to frame it into a headline and 40 words, 50 words, right? That just links back to your website. It's certainly the email blast could content could include, you know, a driver testimonial, it could include a customer testimonial about how much they appreciate the company, what the company brings. It could be career opportunities, it you know, the, like I said, the content should should not be an obstacle. But I understand that some logistics companies that might be because they just don't think that way. But if you're in your job, if you're looking for drivers for you know, by all means, you need to be framing this on why people should want to come to work for you, right? It's not, you know, it's not a job description that's just, you know, do X, do Y, do Z. Right? What is it that you, what is it that's good about working at your company?
Joey Strawn:Yeah, no, I, I agree. I, I like that round one I feel is a success. I feel like anyone who listened to that was like, all right. I know some questions to ask about how to make an email work for me because most people are like, Eh email is not going to work for me; I'm a fill in the blank. We just proved that we can be done. All right, well the next one was squeeze page. Ooh, a squeeze page or a landing page. We see these all the time. Most of the time. It's like, hey, download, you know, download this and get access to a new video game or download this. It's very B2C facing. But a squeeze page for a custom fabricator.
Nels Jensen:So how did the user land on the squeeze page?
Joey Strawn:So that's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking for a custom fabricator. If we were going to use a squeeze page. One of the instances, one of the scenarios in which we would want it, we would probably recommend a squeeze page, or a landing page, or an ad-based landing page for a custom fabricator was either if they had new machinery and capabilities.
Nels Jensen:So you said ad-based. So basically, somebody is clicking through. Right.
Joey Strawn:Either that or their website. So if we were having a like a banner at the top of the website that was calling out like, Hey, check out our new capability. Let's just we'll go with capabilities, that's probably the most
Nels Jensen:But somebody's already clearly already in the mindset. An email blast, you know, you're choosing to open whatever, but here's somebody who already has some intent related to your company, right?
Joey Strawn:Most squeeze pages I feel like you're either going to be coming from an ad to get cold leads, or could be SEO base to get warm leads intent-based.. So if the capability that you're building the page around was like a searched term, like you know, wide band sanding, like wide blade sanding or something, and that was what people were searching, you had the new capability that page ranked. So that that could be a good way to use a squeeze page as letting people know that you do a thing for an industry that may not be called out as well on your site.
Nels Jensen:And I realized I'm being Captain Obvious here with how did you get there?
Joey Strawn:No, no, it's great. Because they got to get there from somewhere.
Nels Jensen:Yeah, so you, you have intent, so they're looking to you to fabricate something.
Joey Strawn:Yeah. And so you have a new capability. And you need to communicate that with people who either know you or don't know you know, about you. So you've created that page to say, Hey, we can do this capability because of machineries. Click here to find out more and talk to us if you need that. And you can send that anywhere, you can put that behind an ad, you can send an email about that, you could put that in your directory listing on on on like a Zycon or ThomasNet. But you can do a bunch of stuff as long as you have it. And that's a great way for a custom fabricator to be like, Oh, I don't need to create a thing. You could. Is there something that your clientele doesn't know that you do that you want them to know you do? Well create a page about it.
Nels Jensen:Yeah, and you your squeeze page, obviously you want to quickly bullet points are always good on a squeeze page quickly answer some of the questions they're asking about that intent. So hopefully you frame this well enough that you That or being, having them identify their specific need. So kind of know why they're on this page. So solutions oriented, customer oriented, you know, what, what your capabilities are, should be framed around, what problem are you solving for them, whether it's, you know, higher, higher quality with or, you know, faster production with harder materials or, you know, we can help you, you know, with reduce your inspection time, you know, or we can whatever it may be, but yes, it's as any of this content, solution oriented. An the squeeze page is a is a real you've got a lead, right Somebody has already show intent. So is this this i basically how do you convert it could give you profiling them a little bit more. you know, a lead into a goo lea Right. Getting that customer information you don't have, perhaps you don't get it until now. But yeah, how do you collect? Right? And it's so that could be try our calculator to see what size you need? Or it could be this configurator. How does this work with this?. So, you know, the squeeze page is an opportunity to, you know, give your sales pitch about solutions, and it's also an opportunity to present a further defining your lead.
Joey Strawn:I agree. And, you know, to your point, it can show people that are a little bit more warmer and more like deeper down the funnel so maybe your salespeople can reach out a bit faster.
Nels Jensen:Yeah, but don't pack don't pack too much on there. Well, you know, you know me. I'll put lots of words on any page you know, cuz I'm the word guy.
Joey Strawn:Words are good. Topics. We want one topic per squeeze page. We want it to do one thing.
Nels Jensen:But it doesn't have to be super simple. My point is, you can you can help you can help them. How do you make the purchase process easier? How do you streamline the purchase process is ultimately what you're trying to do. And there is definitely a role that squeeze page can play for custom fabricator to convert that lead.
Joey Strawn:I like it. All right, round two I deem a success. Round three is the online ad. We went super generic for this one. It's like just a banner ad on the internet. And this one I have put as a manufacturing software company.
Nels Jensen:And we did not talk about service providers as part This is one thing that we didn't talk about so much in the episode. And that I know, I don't want these guys to go under the radar. There are people that make manufacture software, computer programs, devices, specifically for manufacturers to use to make manufacturing and the warehousing and other things, all the better. So those people shouldn't be left out, either They gotta have manufacturer and distributors buy of the industrial what is industrial? But it is industrial is holistic. There are you know, Joey, you, you probably are aware of many, many type of SaaS, you know, products out there Software as a Service, you know, your your enterprise resource, you know, planning ERP, your MES, your manufacturing execution systems. I mean, there are and these things work together. And they, there is ...
Joey Strawn:There's even like pipeline management, like raw material pipeline resource management, software companies. And hey are also in the hat, they're also in this world of, we have a very specialized thing that only a certain type of people can use. And sometimes they don't even know that they need it, that we do it, that it that a solution exists for a problem that they have. And so that's where usually the online ad is going to be the best play for if you're making software for industrial sectors, an online ad, the best way to use it, in my opinion, is to identify the solution, or the solution that your software gives to the problem.
Nels Jensen:So I'm on ads, right, you don't get many words. So you know.
Joey Strawn:No, you don't. It's either going to be a banner ad, which is going to be very visual, or you're going to have one of those search ads that pops up at the top of you know, Google searches, or Bing searches, and shows phone numbers and sitelinks and all of that. But if you're, yeah, if you're not get grabbing their attention, it but if you have if your software solves a problem, and let, listen, I've seen it a thousand times, you know, it's like, Oh, well, we created this process. And we call the process the ubiquitous solutions provider process or whatever. It's like, Great, that sounds neat, but no one else in the world calls it that. What does it solve? And like, Oh, well, it solves you know uptime for uptime notices for machines. It's like great. That's what your ad is. Your ad is that you solve that problem. And then when they get to you, you tell them about the ubiquitous protocol processor whatever thing. The online ad should be very focused on the problem that you're solving.
Nels Jensen:Yes. So one of the next as a service things it's going to emerge in the in the industrial world. Is blockchain as a service.
Joey Strawn:Uptime as a service is coming.
Nels Jensen:Yep. That's right. So, you know, the so in the case of, you know, you know, blockchain, you know, could be the answer to your supply chain planning or blockchain is key to your food traceability, you know, I mean, the. Yes, there there, the very narrow that. So one of the one of the great things about media plays is the ability to target that ad, you don't need to blast that ad all over, you know, Google, you just need to understand where are your customers looking. And so in many ways, the online ad can be the most targeted of all these things we're talking about.
Joey Strawn:Yeah, and you may not have to have any, and again, not to get too nerdy and technical. But if the bids are super high, because it's a phrase that everybody's searching, maybe just bid on that one thing and only show up like the once or twice that people are searching for that. You're not spending a whole lot of money, but you're getting very targeted turnarounds. So that's how you know you're selling software for manufacturers. That's how that's a very quick way that you can use that generic marketing tactic and see some turnedaround and see some benefit from it. All right, we've got the last two, the number four, the general tactic that we talked about was just a blog post. Up, we got a blog post, everybody's gonna write a blog post. But Nels, let's say we have a turbine manufacturer that comes to you and says, Hey, we want you to write a blog post for us. How would you make that valuable? How would you turn around and make that valuable for them?
Nels Jensen:So let's go back to the personas point. If one of your key initiatives is to, you know, educate engineers, then you can be very technical about what differentiates this turbine from other turbines, right. And so you know.
Joey Strawn:Already already, you've been like, Oh, well, we're not just going to be like, our turbines are awesome, you're talking to engineers with this blog post.
Nels Jensen:Correct. And then there could be, but if you are trying to educate the finance department, you know, the buyers, as we've talked many times about this buying process, that you don't just have to win over the engineer, you got to win over the CFO and the procurement officer and everybody else. So it might be a, you know, how to make the ROI case for this turbine. And it, you know, the facility manager, you can talk about how it improves uptime and the engineering, you can talk about the great differentiator and the, you know, the finance department, you can talk about that the expected ROI time that some clients have done this in two years, or 18 months, or seven months, or whatever. So, you know, that, you know, you're speaking to different people, you know.
Joey Strawn:Well, and that's interesting, because one of the things you brought up with that one is, let's, you know, turbine manufacturer is the is the game example. So, let's say, you know, like part of our process every single time, we're going to talk to engineers, and they're going to put a proposal together, we're gonna work with them and do files and then eventually a procurement manager or somebody has to get involved. And they're always going to check out our site and do our, you know, see our legalese, or whatever. Well, then if you know that that step is there, then Nels, to your point, having a blog post that's very highly being like, Hey, finance, here's how we turn around. Like, here's how we make this a good investment for you. And it's highlighted, and it's easy to find, and it's linked to, then that makes that finance person's job a lot easier. And honestly, if you've done your job right beforehand, you've probably given that link to the engineer to give to that finance person. So it saves them a step of Googling it in the first place. So having that page, having that blog post is just an evergreen way to answer that question over and over and over again, because you know you're going to get asked it. That's a great example, Nels.
Nels Jensen:Yeah, but we can't just be product oriented, right? What what's, what are we solving? What are the questions are the customers asking? What are they looking for? So your blog posts can cover a wide variety of that, because a wide variety of people are coming to you as part of the buying process.
Joey Strawn:One of my favorite questions to ask any anyone that works with us is what are the five or six questions that you guys get asked in the sales process every single time that you're tired of answering. And then we'll hear them and then when I go to their website and be like, By the way, none of these questions are answered on your website. So if you want to, if you're tired of having to answer them, write it down and let's just put it there. So I love, I love that idea. I love, that's a fantastic way that a turbine manufacturer can take the idea of a blog post and actually use it in a way that doesn't have to generate a thousand hits a month on search engines. It can just be a very specific tactical usage to help the buying, help the buying process happen faster.
Nels Jensen:Right. And we're not saying that the product features aren't important. They just can't be the exclusive message. Right.
Joey Strawn:Exactly, exactly. All right. Number five is our last one. We said, we talked about video earlier. So we have video. And we've got, you know, video can be anything, I guess. But what we've decided to do is we're going to try and pair video with like a parts distributor. We talked about distributors earlier, we talked about how important they are to the industrial sectors and the industrial processes. So how would someone that distributes things for somebody else actually make a video?
Nels Jensen:Well, I would go back to my, my early answer that you sort of it depends answer, right? What are you trying to accomplish? What are the goals, whatever? So, you know, I'd work backward from there. But you know, what, what are your your value proposition? Is it that we're fast? Well, then show us how you are faster than somebody else? Well, if we have more parts, then show us the vast array of parts. You know, it, you know, there is basically aligning your, your goals with your value props. What are you trying to, what are you trying to get done?
Joey Strawn:I love that you got there, because that was what I wanted you to say Nels is that I, you know ... I was gonna kind of the, oh, yeah, you totally win.
Nels Jensen:All right, well I win? You got all the points. A thousand points to Nels just for that answer. But like the, with a distributor, that is what it is. Like it's your value proposition. So if you're like, Well, we can't show all the you know, our warehouses because that's proprietary, or we can't show this because it comes from, you know, an AI controlled factory or whatever, you can't, if you if what you're telling your customers is that will the reason you should work with distributor X Y Us is we have verything. There's, there's no ube, and no protection coating hat we don't have that that we an't get you or someone else's ike everything you asked for, e'll get it to you before you inish the sentence. It's like, ow, that's impressive. Like, hat's what the video should be, s, that's how you show that ecause what's going to happen s people are going to come to our website, whether you send hem there, whether they find ou, they're going to at some oint. And if there's a video hat shows them, because people re lazy, they're not going to ead all 800 words on your site hat you put there to get good S O. They're gonna see a video a d be like, Hey, this is why d stributor X Y Us is awesome. C ick video, two minutes, makes hem smile, they get their uestions, they can contact you. It really needs to. And the answer of it depends. It depends on what your value proposition s. But that's how you use vi eo, in my opinion, I think th t's why you get a thousand poin s, Nels. Because the answer of how does a parts distributor use video is it's not showing hat they distribute. It's sho ing their value. It's showing w atever it is they are about, hy they are valuable. Sure. And some people are afraid of video from the proprietary, you mentioned there the Oh, well, we can't show that, you know, there's a lot of things in a manufacturing that, that the companies are hesitant to show. Well, if you have on your distributor website, Hey, here are the brands, you got a brand page and here's the five big logos and whatever. Yeah, you can't, you might not be able to show that the product X from company Y costs Z, right? You can't show that. But you can certainly show, hey, these are the quality of companies that we work with. And these are the type of part you can show a lot of that, you know, the manufacturers, often distributors, they're often, you know, afraid, for rightful reasons, of being giving up proprietary information. But that doesn't mean you can't show some things. So understand what's fair game and what's not. And I wish more companies were understood that because case studies and examples and things like that, you know, I think people are missing out because they're afraid that well I can't share that. Well, you can share a lot of it, you might not be able to share how much money you save them. But you can share information about the processes and how you arrived at it.
Joey Strawn:And, and honestly, that was the whole point, Nels, of this game. And so I'm going to give you another 1,000 points just for that amazing statement. Because the point of this game wasn't that, Oh, we're giving these solutions and this is the exact way to do it. But it is, If you ask the questions, as opposed to just saying, Oh, well, where are this company so we don't do that. Ask the questions of, Well, who do we need to speak to? Who would make a benefit in our sales process? And then, Oh, well, how could we communicate that via a this? So talking through it, having an honest communication about what our strengths are, who we need to be talking to what our ecosystem looks like, all the things that we talked about the first half, Nels, is that's how you apply them to these marketing tactics. That's how you play this game. in your everyday life, is you ask these questions, you have these conversations, and you figure out the right way to use the right tool. So, this has been fun. Thank you for playing my silly game with me, Nels.
Nels Jensen:I love it. I got to go figure out what to do with my 2,000 points. I'm going to go redeem those for great prizes and free snacks or whatever.
Joey Strawn:Oh, yeah, no, just if honestly, Nels, if you go up to the industrial market, or counter, Devin will help you. Unfortunately, it does cost 10,000 points to get a teddy bear. But we have some little hopping frogs and some Starburst candy that I think you're really gonna like,
Nels Jensen:I'll fill up my industrial marketer mug, which I'm holding, of course you can't see in a podcast, but I'm, I'm holding up my mug.
Joey Strawn:You are holding it. And it looks very snazzy. Well, this has been fun. Nels, as always, thank you for joining
me. And listeners:Thank you for joining both of us on another Industrial Marketer podcast. We are here every other week to bring you the tips, tech, trends and tactics that are going to help you drive those leads. We've spent the entirety of today talking about what makes industrial marketing industrial. And this won't be the last time that we talk about it. So if you're not already subscribed to the podcast, please subscribe. We're gonna hit you up with good stuff. Good examples, good ideas, every single episode. If you're not subscribed to the newsletter on industrial arketer.com, what are you even doing? It's got better information than we do here on the show. So this just always great stuff coming to your inbox and it's free. You don't have to pay anything for it. And lastly, if you're not following us on social media, you should. We'r sharing cool articles fro around the web. It's just thing that help people living in thi weird, wacky world of industria marketing, get better at thi craft, and help us really mak sure that those sectors sta strong because they're s important. So guys, thanks a always, and until next time we're Joey and Nels for th Industrial Marketer podcast. An I hope you have a fantastic day