Many years ago I noticed that while most of the country was focused on GDP etc the growth or otherwise of the manufacturing company where I was marketing manager did not follow the same trends – or so I thought until a few years had gone by when it became apparent that our B2B industry was out of phase with the rest of the country who were only looking at B2C.

The difference could be one or two years – and yet we had to work with an economic environment created for the benefit of the high street. the result was that each time round the economic cycle manufacturing industry pulled the rest of the country out of its problems, and it looks like we will have to do it again.

Issues over Brexit have further muddied the waters on this so I am indebted to Mark Simms of MachineBuilding.Net for the following insight:-

“Two interesting pieces of data in the last few days contrast the UK’s GDP with its manufacturing base. While we have slipped a position to sixth in the global league table of GDPs, being overtaken by India, the UK’s manufacturing sector has climbed one place to eighth in the world rankings, overtaking France. This surely highlights the importance of our sector, and Make UK asserts that if the Government commits to its call for a manufacturing target of 15% of GDP, then the sector could aim to match seventh ranked Italy. But yet again it’s all going to come down to how much the Government really values our sector, because it’s going to need more than just lip service.”

Yes indeed everyone is talking about AI so I had a look recently and asked a simple question ” show me the top ten UK suppliers of enclosure hardware”

How surprised was I to find that I was offered two enclosure manufacturers and one of our clients who actually supplies hardware components.

Brilliant – but actually I shouldn’t be surprised – our clients have consistently shown up well on search engines and my question was simply a shortcut way of finding the same thing.

It is therefore interesting that we have used the same strategy for thirty years – submit valuable information to places where potential customers can be expected to find it. We believe that B2B is not just a slightly different variant of B2C – B2B requires a fundamentally different mindset. A mindset that we understand – so call us here

I have been surprised from time to time over the past many years when an industrial media person has told me how well our client releases have performed in their journal – and it happened again recently “your press release was our top enquiry piece”.

Given the simple nature of our client’s products and the simple way in which we promote them – these days I am less surprised, especially when I remember how high in the organic searches our client content performs.

Strangely we use a simple strategy – 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration

We don’t need to complicate things and we don’t need to overcharge – we just do the job properly – so contact us here to find out how we can help you 

So you’ve decided you need to do something to support sales – maybe you have some marketing skills in your background – maybe not. So the question is – what to do?

If you go online there are lots of websites promising to write any kind of content, fill it with keywords, send it to everywhere and report back their success. Without understanding your business or that of your customers, or understanding your salespeople. Of course, you can employ an expensive junior who can run a keyboard to deal with this – but will probably have no idea what your products are or what they do or why customers might want them. But a junior is “my person” well yes, except without many years of knowledge, they are handicapped from the start.

You could possibly get a sales engineer to do some marketing – maybe social media – but they are likewise handicapped and now they are not only expensive, but they are not doing the sales job you need them for either.

On the other hand, an external marketing agency can understand your products and services – which may be very specialised. They can understand the relationships in and around your business – and from long experience, they can deal with the media to ensure that valuable information is channelled from you to your potential customers. They may well have worked in sales across a variety of industries and so be adept at adjusting to your environment – a good agency can effectively become part of your company.

We are very proud that over the past nearly 30 years we have helped clients through many economic ups and downs and enabled a lot of people to keep their jobs.

Contact us to discuss how we can help achieve your goals in this economic cycle.

I heard this recently and have to agree:-

“Companies think hiring a junior to handle their social media is ticking the marketing box! The marketing function has become more important, not less post-Covid. Particularly as sales teams are struggling to get hold of prospects by phone / f2f in the way they used to!”

It seems to me that the online bubble created in B2C is set to burst for B2B, if it ever really did what was claimed for it, and more experienced, proven techniques are called for – so who ya gonna call – Ghostbusters?

So presumably there is an answer? Of course, pretty much anything that still requires one human being to talk to another – such as …

• Long-term relationships with many editors and publishers.
• Established reputation for the provision of good content.
• Long Experience in the manufacturing industry.
• A complete cost-effective service
• Niche agency – a specialist service for small to medium-sized component suppliers.

So contact a human being to discuss your industrial marketing needs now.

Net Zero presents a huge and little appreciated opportunity for us all – I recently went to a meeting of manufacturing business people, where Net Zero was discussed at length. What I understood from the conversation that day was that Net Zero is seen only as a way to save on costs. Actually it is much bigger than that – it opens up completely new markets – a whole new customer base for new products, new equipment, and new manufacturing approaches.

Net Zero is first and foremost a new sales opportunity for everything that is required to do things differently – to minimise waste, to maximise recycling or to eliminate the need, to convert to renewable energy or to reduce energy use. Every time a company wants to move toward Net Zero it is likely they will need new equipment or new technology to enable the process. Each project presents a new opportunity to increase sales and save the planet whether for 3D manufacture or recyclable packaging.

If we don’t do this our children will end up living in a world resembling an overheated rubbish tip with a few parks and zoos.

Somewhere down the line, there are many, many political issues to be dealt with but whatever the politics ingenious technologies and manufacturing industry can help provide the solution.

Contact us to see how we can help you be part of this opportunity.

In conversations over the past year or so I have noticed a trend – where many companies have walked away from successful marketing activities stating their intention to do it in house. Now with a year or so to look back on I see that to varying degrees they have done very little in-house or otherwise – while the ones who have stayed with proven activities are having record sales.

There has been a lot of panic and a dash for change, all for the best of possible reasons, so may I respectfully suggest that now would be a good time to review the past, put aside our pride, consider carefully the shiny bells and whistles of the Googlesphere and choose to do some simple, effective and low-cost marketing.

Contact us to see how we can help you get it right!

Just to refresh for the sake of anybody considering their way forward I offer a personal view of the role of PR in B2B sales/marketing

• PR is an integral support for the sales team
• PR/media activities reach potential new customers without the need for cold calling
• They free salespeople from low-value calls, which are in any case not well received by people often working from home with their phones switched off
• A media/content program frees a company from the need to employ high-quality and expensive sales engineers to do low-return cold calls.
• This enables sales engineers to focus on what they do best – dealing with specification enquiries and resolving problems – often requiring face-to-face interaction.

Who wouldn’t want such a program on their team at this time of change?

Contact us here to see how you can enhance your team with a PR player