Because I oversee marketing for several client sales and marketing teams, I learn a great deal about what works and what doesn’t for smaller industrial manufacturers.
If you’re wanting to achieve business growth, you need to do three important things:
- Create a long-term strategy and goals
- Share your strategy and goals with your entire time and get their buy-in
- Consistently work to meet your goals
In fact, without these three factors, you won’t succeed, no matter how much marketing you do.
Having a strategy and goals that everyone understands and is focused on makes my job much easier. I’m not guessing at things and can set KPIs, and the tactics needed to achieve the goals, while meeting the client’s budget and timeline.
Behind the scenes . . .
When I first begin working with a client, the expectation is leads or inquiries will come in super fast. This is due to pent up excitement. We’ve completely rebuilt the website, refined the brand and messaging, and have set marketing KPIs. Everyone is ready to work.
I love this initial excitement, but unfortunately, it takes time for stuff to happen. I use my spin class analogy: You have to get the flywheel turning. When results trickle in slowly, energy begins to deflate.
This is the exact time when consistency comes into play. If you’ve set your marketing goals, and you have a plan, you have to stick with them.
My role is to keep you on track and help you drown out the noise. Instead of focusing on the sugar high of “impressions” and marketing hype, I keep you focused on conversions — aka inquiries: contact form submissions, email, phone calls, and e-comm sales — and the quality of your leads.
I listen to you and ask lots of questions. My team and I adjust here, and make a change there, based on your feedback and analytics data.
If something absolutely isn’t working, I’ll try something else — but will first ensure it’s aligned with your goals and brand. I do push back if needed.
My team and I will also fix anything we notice that’s broken; for example, one client had issues with Shopify and how the products were appearing on mobile. We used Matomo and its Session Recording tool to watch how people used the shopping cart and made adjustments. (See “Matomo Analytics: A Game Changer for HIM.”)
What I don’t do is give up.
The following chart shows the results of consistent marketing in terms of website conversions (or top of funnel). The client saw a 72% increase in inquiries from when we started tracking in 2021 to end of year 2024. In fact, 2024 was their best year ever.
The “secret”: Consistent marketing tactics
✔️ Countless minor and not so minor tweaks to the website to improve the user experience and remove distraction.
✔️ Weekly discussions about the company’s customers and what they needed.
✔️ Highest-quality, original content written to answer people’s questions versus gaming Google.
✔️ Ensuring everything was on brand, from LinkedIn messaging and images to business cards and letterhead.
Plus, lots of other things too numerous to list.
Most important, I tracked everything, every week, so the client team and I always knew where we stood — and could respond to changes quickly.
For me, this result is wonderful. But another key indicator is just as important: time to conversion.
Over 70% of people who convert do so on the first visit. Over 80% convert within two to three visits. What does this mean? It means they come to the website and say, “Oh, this company can help me.” And so, they reach out. It’s really that simple.
Marketing is a partnership
Our best client engagements are when clients and their sales and marketing teams see us as their partner — versus a “vendor.” Relationships are based on trust and mutual respect; we cheer all the wins, large and small.
When our clients succeed, we succeed — and that’s the best result I can think of.