Those of you who know me well know that in a prior life I worked for a private equity company that focused on acquiring mid-size manufacturing companies.  I then became a small business owner/operator investing and running a specialized construction company.  I can tell you that it has not always been easy to make the long-term investment over the short-term instant results when it comes to marketing. Do you feel the same way?

Seeing my logo on a web banner, my name on a billboard, or hearing my voice on a radio ad made me feel like I was doing something to promote my business. So many eyeballs, and so many ears! It’s gotta be working, right?

Industrial construction business-to-business company marketing is a complex, two-pronged necessity for businesses today to increase lead generation.

Attribution is a huge buzzword in the marketing space right now, and for good reason. For many companies, metrics-driven challenges (such as generating leads and proving ROI) continue to be the biggest challenges in their organizations, and they lack tools to help them track concrete results for their spends.

Similarly, members of associations struggle to attribute the results of their association membership fees. Without attribution, members don’t see the value and your association might be on the chopping block for their investment in coming years.

If the biggest issue you face as an association is membership retention and growth, then congratulations - you’re in the majority.

It's not common to find marketing agencies specializing in construction, but luckily, you've come to the right place to learn more. In the past, I've talked about how industrial commercial construction company marketing is complex, so construction companies, especially those in specialized industries, need specialized marketing. Today's post focuses on lead nurturing, part of the conversion-to-closing process. Need a refresher? We've created this handy infographic about the inbound process and how it works for B2B construction companies.

Lead nurturing is the next step in the process after you've attracted someone to your site and converted them into a first-time lead: they've filled out a form and given you permission to communicate more with them, but they're not quite ready to purchase. Lead nurturing is what happens between conversion to a lead and closing a sale.

Each year Fortune Magazine publishes a list of 100 best companies to work for. The list contains industries from IT to insurance and consulting with companies such as Google, ACUITY Insurance and Mayo Clinic. For an untrained eye, it might seem that these companies do not have much in common; and yet, something behind their names keeps many jobseekers wanting to be a part of them.

I had four things on my to-do list today:

1. Eat cheese
2. Smell cheese
3. Do some cheesy networking
4. Follow up on cheesy leads

Our home-base of Milwaukee, Wisconsin is hosting the International Cheese Technology Expo just up the road from our office this week. Our strategist has written about prepping for tradeshows the inbound way, but how are you planning to conduct lead follow up post-show? Or, better yet, during the show? With inbound, the final to-do item on my list isn't disa-brie-able at all (see what I did there?).  Don’t make these critical errors when following up on qualified leads. 

Is your manufacturing sales strategy built upon cold calling, trade shows, and other traditional lead generation tactics? Have you considered hiring an outside vendor to provide more leads - at a volume that seems too good to be true? Does your sales process seem convoluted, inefficient, and ineffective when it comes to generating new leads, or following up with new ones?

It sounds to me like your manufacturing company's lead generation tactics are stuck in the ‘90’s. Welcome to 2016: where content marketing helps sales teams build more pipeline.

Inbound Smarketing is a Competitive Advantage

Making the change from sales to consulting in a smarketing (sales + marketing, explained more here) way is a strategic initiative. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Why Good Strategies Fail: Lessons for the C-Suite, “88% of respondents say that executing strategic initiatives successfully will be ‘essential’ or ‘very important’ for their organizations’ competitiveness over the next three years” (p. 5).