3 Ways to Target Manufacturing Audiences Better

Industrial marketing is a specialised job because it involves marketing products or services that are typically sold to other businesses or organisations, rather than to individual consumers. Industrial marketing involves complex sales cycles, longer sales cycles, and larger deal sizes than traditional consumer marketing.

The world of audience targeting is quickly evolving, so you shouldn’t hesitate to invest in a new tactic because you’re unsure it will work. If you still aren’t sure where to start, here are three ways to get started with better audience targeting to help you get more qualified leads. The sales process in industrial marketing is different from traditional B2C sales. Industrial sales are often more complex and involve multiple decision-makers within a company. Industrial marketers need to understand the various steps in the B2B sales process, including lead generation, lead qualification, relationship building, and contract negotiation.

1. Start With Intent Data for Audience Targeting

Proper Audience Targeting Allows You to Cut Through the Noise It’s increasingly more important to know who your key audience is and what types of messaging you should be using. We are bombarded with digital marketing. The messages that sell are the ones that speak directly to the challenges of the people hearing them. And that’s what all of this targeting really allows us to do in a world of so much noise. Intent data is information about the online behaviour of potential customers that can be used to predict their future actions and interests. It can be collected from various sources, such as website visits, search queries, content consumption, social media engagement, and more.

Intent data is valuable for audience targeting because it helps businesses understand what their target customers are interested in and what they are likely to do next. By analysing intent data, businesses can identify patterns and trends that indicate the intent to purchase, allowing them to tailor their marketing efforts to meet the needs and preferences of their audience.

1. Personalising content: By using intent data to understand the interests and preferences of their audience, businesses can create personalised content that resonates with their target customers.

2. Optimising ad targeting: Intent data can help businesses identify the keywords and topics that their target customers are searching for, allowing them to optimise their ad targeting and reach the right audience with the right message at the right time.

3. Improving lead scoring: By using intent data to understand which leads are most likely to convert, businesses can prioritise their sales efforts and focus on the leads that are most likely to become customers.

2. Take Baby Steps into Account Based Marketing

Account-based marketing (ABM) is a marketing strategy that focuses on targeting high-value accounts or customers with personalised, tailored messaging and content. If you're new to ABM, here are some baby steps you can take to get started:

Identify your target accounts: Start by identifying the accounts that are most important to your business. This could include existing customers, high-value prospects, or key players in your industry.

Define your buyer personas: Once you have identified your target accounts, create buyer personas that represent the key decision-makers and influencers within those accounts. This will help you understand their pain points, motivations, and interests, and tailor your messaging and content accordingly. Use your buyer personas to create personalised content that speaks to the specific needs and interests of your target accounts. This could include blog posts, case studies, white papers, and other resources.

Apply targeted advertising to reach your target accounts and drive engagement with your personalised content. This could include social media advertising, display advertising, and search advertising. Measure the success of your ABM efforts and optimise your strategy based on the results. This could include tracking engagement metrics, lead generation metrics, and revenue metrics.

Tools can help you uncover contacts and surround those contacts with messaging, whether it’s HubSpot, emails and content marketing, ads through a programmatic server, SMS, or direct mail pieces. Use all the touch points that you have access to. The more personalised you can be in your direct messaging the better. People respond to personalised messaging. The more directly you target those companies, the easier it is to make those experiences more personalised. Find a tool that will allow you to uncover contacts at those companies. Then surround them with personalised, key messages.

3. Revisit Your Buyer Personas

A good buyer persona is going to be very detailed. Do you know this person’s typical goals in their position? Some of your personas are going to be more concerned with machine uptime and overall equipment efficiency. Some are going to be more concerned with the P&L or ROI, or maybe maintenance. Some positions are more likely to include people who want to be the technology leaders at their company.

Do you know their objections to buying your product or service? That will vary, too. Or their motivations? The advent of the industrial buying committee has made industrial marketing more complicated. But if you know who is on a buying committee at your target company, you can go back to the tools and tactics we have mentioned to execute your plan.

As a matter of fact, blogging is one of the most effective ways to get your message out and attract manufacturing blog readers. But there's a lot more to it than just writing blog posts. If you want your blog to really resonate with your audience and get them interested in your products or services, you need to understand their unique needs, interests and buying habits. With that in mind, let's explore three specific ways you can better target and engage manufacturing blog readers.

By recognising their unique challenges, and crafting content tailored to them, you can develop a strong connection with your audience - something that every business should be striving for!

- Bejoy Peter,

Digital Marketing Consultant & Brand Strategist (Pune, India)