How can you market better in 2015? IHS Engineering360 Media Solutions (formerly known as IHS GlobalSpec) conducted its annual Trends in Industrial Marketing survey of marketing and sales professionals in the industrial sector to find out. The survey revealed that marketers should expand their online, measurement and content marketing tactics in 2015 in several ways.
Deepen Online Efforts
With 40 percent of survey respondents revealing they feel neutral about their company’s online marketing efforts, and another 25 percent saying they are dissatisfied, it’s clear there’s room for improvement in this area in 2015.
As the audience of industrial companies continues to use a variety of digital platforms to search for information, products and suppliers, marketers need to become better aligned with this behavior to both increase satisfaction and get these professionals the information they want, when they want it.
Yet less than half (46 percent) of industrial companies’ marketing budgets are currently spent online. Company websites command a quarter of these online resources—more than twice the spending of any other channel. Although these websites are likely to remain important, a company’s digital mix should be optimized, with a portion of the budget shifted to other online channels such as e-newsletters, webinars and banner advertisements on industry websites.
Measure Success
Ironically, websites do produce a lot of measurable data, but much of it does not convert to a true ROI. This means that marketers should help companies determine ROI for all digital tactics (such as search, email, SEO, banner ads, social media, video, webinars, etc.). If marketers are able to help industrial companies understand the ROI of digital investments, it would encourage additional funding for these efforts moving forward.
Measuring the direct link between marketing and a sale is always a challenge, but, surprisingly, many companies say they are already doing this. Sixty-four percent of respondents say they are currently able to measure the success of their marketing initiatives by sales attributed to their marketing campaigns.
