Manufacturing

B2B Manufacturing Marketing & PR

Over 20 years, we’ve built a reputation for helping our clients succeed in their marketplace through sustained, targeted and creative marketing activities. Our talented team marketing, design, digital and PR professionals have close to 140 years of B2B manufacturing experience shared between them, meaning that we know and understand the challenges every modern manufacturing marketer faces more than most other agencies do.

The challenges

We hear from marketers in manufacturing organisations that their activities are simply not working; that their message isn’t being seen by the right people; that there’s no uplift in enquiries, and subsequently no conversion. When it comes to marketing, the best investment you can make is to invest the right amount of time, supported by the right people.

Many of our manufacturing clients have been in business a long time; quite a few are family businesses who have achieved a lot with little marketing intervention. But when economic times are tough and competition gets ever fiercer, we’ve been able to help them stand out from the crowd, increase market share, launch new products, break into new markets overseas, win awards and grow their business.

Our experience

FIG resonates well with manufacturing clients because of our no-nonsense, ‘can-do’ attitude and lack of fluffy marketing speak; choosing to concentrate on getting the job done and getting results instead

Often the focus for a manufacturing business is to promote products. This is obviously an important part of marketing a manufacturing company and FIG has a lot of experience launching new products, and writing case studies about products and services. But we also know that a successful marketing strategy needs to look at marketing the brand and the company as a whole.

A complete demand generation strategy is required to support the marketing and sales process and to provide the content prospective customers need to make informed decisions. This will include good photography and videos to showcase product features and benefits.

On-line is crucial for manufacturing B2B marketing to educate and engage your audience. PPC, SEO, remarketing and retargeting all have a place in the marketing mix.

Here are some of the manufacturing companies we work with:

Glossop Cartons is the UK’s leading manufacturer of carton board packaging products to businesses across the UK. They are one of FIG’s long-standing marketing partners and we support Glossop Cartons with design, social media, emailshots, PR, exhibition support, LinkedIn articles, and campaigns.

Armacell, the investors of flexible foam for equipment insulation and a leading provider of engineered foams, develops innovative and safe thermal, acoustic and mechanical solutions. As a marketing partner FIG supports the head of marketing with design and copywriting services for brochures, adverts, product datasheets, roller banners, floor graphics, direct mail, web banners, emailshots, and social media assets. We also support their sales pitches with POS concepts and presentations, PPC and remarketing campaigns to drive product sales forward and PR campaigns.

Sandon Global is an award-winning manufacturer of anilox rolls and cylinders used in the flexographic, lithographic and metal decoration print industries, worldwide.

In line with a rebranding exercise and as part of the company’s growth strategy, Sandon Global engaged FIG to refresh its digital presence to showcase the depth of knowledge, expertise, credibility and brand values across the globe. The new website had to meet the new brand guidelines as well as being responsive, easy to navigate for users across the globe and access information quickly and easily. The site was to be future proofed, enabling language capabilities further down the line and to work seamlessly with Sandon’s CRM system.

Bowmer Bond, a leading specialist webbing manufacturer Bowmer Bond appointed FIG to provide strategic support for the launch of a new range of PVC-coated weldable webbing based solutions into the international marketplace.

The multi-channel campaign consisted of a new micro-site for SecuBond™, product and brand literature, video content, exhibition stand design and a targeted PPC search campaign. Seamlessly integrating SecuBond™’s innovation within the strong market-leading portfolio, FIG and Bowmer Bond collaborated to undertake detailed audience insight, competitor research, and brand position as well as sharpen Bowmer Bonds corporate messages for the bespoke online space developed to promote the new range.

Northwood is a group of associated companies that provide the manufacturing, supply and transportation of away-from-home professional paper hygiene products. Northwood appointed FIG as their marketing partner in February 2016, to provide branding, messaging, packaging and design work across their different product portfolios. As the marketing partnership has developed, we also provide packaging design, PR and digital services.

HealthyStep, a leading designer and manufacturer of insoles, orthotics and footbeds for the foot health care market enlisted FIG to undertake a branding and digital overhaul of the company’s many websites.

Following research FIG recommended rationalising its online presence to a single HealthyStep website that would showcase its considerable experience, consolidate costs for managing five websites, provide a significantly improved user experience, helping professional users find the information they needed and for end users to buy products.

The project included a complete rebrand and messaging refresh to position HealthyStep for its next phase of growth in the marketplace.

Content marketing

With content marketing so crucial in the digital marketing mix, you need to regularly update your digital tools with fresh, relevant and engaging copy. This is important because it helps keep B2B customers interested in you and it has a huge impact on your search engine rankings. Content marketing is important to engage, educate and resolve buying obstacles of your potential prospects. Content can and should include blogs, videos, social media, case studies, LinkedIn thought leadership pieces, photography, and infographics.

Channel partner/distributor toolkits

Whether it’s a dedicated partner portal or a simple downloads area or simple online depository, channel partners and distributors will appreciate marketing and sales support to help sell your products and solutions. This could be as simple as Point of Sale materials, datasheets and case studies, to sales presentations, sales briefs, social media image banks, emailshot templates and language translations.

Branding and messaging

Often not given too much thought for some manufacturing companies, getting your brand and messaging right can have dramatic effect on the marketing and sales process. Ensuring your brand and messaging is consistent, on point and relevant to your audience is paramount.

Design

Achieving visually appealing content online and in your marketing materials will provide greater engagement and effectiveness. Design can help companies to stand out, be bold and concentrate on their key strengths and capabilities.

B2B PR

FIG’s experienced B2B PR team offers professional, effective and creative PR services that will promote your brand, engage your target audience, meet your business objectives and positively impact your bottom line.

Public relations is about sending out the right message about your business to the right people, building your credibility and brand awareness and at FIG we work hard to get under the skin of your industrial business, finding out what really makes you different and then shouting about it. Our award-winning PR campaigns have seen us deliver everything from media relations, social media PR and award entries to exhibition support and crisis management for our wide-ranging B2B industrial client base.

Video

Video is one of the most effective and creative ways to reach customers, giving your manufacturing business the human touch.

FIG has experience creating promotional, corporate, training and explainer videos as part of your business’s overall brand strategy. In manufacturing settings video can showcase your expertise, your innovation and complex solutions, clearly and in an engaging way.

We’ll organise and manage the production process, provide creative input and content and brief participants to make sure the finished product is exactly as you imagined it.

Case studies

The manufacturing sector can use case studies to great effect, as they can be used to demonstrate innovation and talk through complex solutions with clear benefits in mind. They’re fantastic for educating the marketplace but also as a sales tool to showcase products and solutions.

Photography

Our experience arranging commercial photography for B2B clients means we understand that different images you might need for a range of contexts from adverts to websites, merchandising to brochures.

FIG will arrange and manage commercial photography as part of your overall marketing strategy, giving specific direction to the photographer so that the images you end up with have maximum impact and faithfully reflect your business’s key messages. We manage our own-house product photography.

Social Media

The social media landscape for manufacturers has drastically changed the way companies do business. While B2C industries have been fast to take advantage of this change, B2B has been slower, particularly when it comes to B2B industrial manufacturers. Even today some B2B marketing managers in the manufacturing space claim that social media is not a relevant platform for reaching their clientele. The truth is actually the opposite. When implemented correctly, social media can be a valuable resource for lead generation and content promotion for manufacturers. Every marketer has limited time to spend on social media marketing so it’s important to know which platform is best to focus on.

Twitter

B2B marketers who use Twitter generate twice as many leads as those who don’t. (Social Media Today 2017).

Twitter is best used for:

• Posting daily company information and photos
• Promoting content marketing (blogs, infographics etc)
• Developing customer relationships & responding to customer queries •
• Keeping up to date with relevant industry news

YouTube

Video marketing is a great way for manufacturers to showcase their products and resolve questions that existing customers may have. With YouTube, the big opportunity is in SEO and social sharing value. YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine. Manufacturers that leverage both YouTube (for social media and SEO) and an ad-free, unbranded video marketing service (for website videos) see the greatest return on their video content.

• 50% of all manufacturing professionals regularly use YouTube and similar video hosting/marketing platforms to publish and share information 10 B2B Marketing & Communications (Content Marketing Institute 2016).
• 66% of manufacturers consider YouTube as the most effective social media channel (Content Marketing Institute 2016).

YouTube is best used for:

• Instructional product videos
• Meet the team clips
• On location videos
• Sneak peek videos of new products
• Customer testimonials

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a great way to make important connections with potential customers and industry leaders, and if you have an active LinkedIn profile (posting comments and articles and updating your profile regularly) you can enhance your business’s credibility, putting it firmly on the radar of companies who need the products you make.

LinkedIn is best used for:

• Sharing articles relevant to the manufacturing industry
• Positioning yourself as an expert in your industry by creating weekly articles & tips
• Joining relevant manufacturing groups, and connecting with other experts in your sector