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Oftentimes, we are asked if a piece of content should be utilized on a client’s website or pitched to an industry publication. Your piece must meet at least one of the criteria below in order to be worth pitching either a local or industry publication. Continue reading to learn the 4 main factors of newsworthiness.

Timing

Timing is a key element of newsworthiness. Does your story relate to a current event in your industry? Does your story tie into a hot new trend in your industry? If so, your content is timely and could potentially be newsworthy. Editors at local and industry trade publications are looking to cover current news, not old stories. So, if you have been sitting on a case study for a year or a story idea, it may be better suited for your blog or an email campaign to prospects and customers. 

Significance

Another key component of newsworthiness is the overall significance of the story. Ask yourself, who will care about this story? Would the story appeal to manufacturers as a whole or only to manufacturers utilizing 3D printing? It is important to have an understanding of who may be interested, as it directly impacts where to pitch the story. For example, a general manufacturing story could be good for IndustryWeek Magazine, while a story about 3D printing might be better suited for 3D Metal Printing Magazine. For tips on industry publication, read our blog: How to Use Publication Media Kits to Target Better Prospects

Next, determine if your content is niche (only appealing to 50 people perhaps) or is it widely interesting and applicable to the majority of a publication’s circulation? This is a key element to understanding if your story concept should be pitched to a publication, and one point much appreciated to the editor of the magazine.

Finally, ask yourself what are 3 reasons someone would want to know this information? If you cannot answer this quickly and without hesitation, the story probably isn’t right for the industrial trade media. 

The Industrial Manufacturer’s Guide to Public Relations

Proximity

Proximity is an important factor when determining where your story should be pitched. Does my story relate to a specific region? For example, is your story relevant just to Northeast Ohio manufacturers? Then perhaps, pitching to the Crain’s Cleveland Business’s manufacturing reporter would be appropriate. Is your story relevant worldwide? Then you should consider an industry publication with a readership around the globe. 

Human Interest

Most of the time, editors are looking for stories that are timely. However, there is one caveat. A story does not necessarily have to be timely if it fits into a human interest piece. Do you have a story idea that evokes strong emotion? Emotions such as happiness, amusement, sadness, or laughter make for a good human interest story. Examples include the following: an employee-owned manufacturing company raising significant capital for a childhood cancer charity, a 4th generation manufacturing owner reinventing a 100-year old manufacturing company to keep its doors open, or a manufacturer who started a high school apprenticeship program for underprivileged kids and establishing paid internships.

Conclusion

We hope our tips help you have a clearer understanding of what makes content newsworthy. By pitching your story to an industry publication (and getting it published), your manufacturing company has the potential to reach 100s of thousands of readers. Do you need help with content development and media relations strategy? At Felber PR & Marketing, We Get Manufacturing. We understand how editors and reporters think. Relationships with media need to be fostered, just like relationships with your best customers. Need help?

Oftentimes, we are asked why we are a HubSpot Partner Agency and if HubSpot really makes a difference in a successful inbound marketing strategy. In this blog we’ll take a deep dive into why manufacturers who have invested in HubSpot to automate their sales and marketing processes report better lead generation, sales efficiencies, and campaign reporting. (read what our clients are saying)

 

1) What gets measured gets done!

Better tracking of marketing campaigns & contact engagement 

How are you currently tracking the effectiveness of your blogs, landing pages, web pages, forms, emails, social media posts, and advertising? Phew, that’s a lot to track, right? Can you easily track individual tools and tie it all back to a campaign in order to measure return-on-investment?

The campaigns tool in HubSpot empowers manufacturers to easily determine how landing pages are performing individually and as a campaign. Is one page outperforming another by visits, conversions, and new leads?. Your marketing team can now make informed decisions and adjust campaigns for ultimate success. 

Additionally, HubSpot is an incredible resource to tie your entire team together. Your marketing, sales and customer service team needs accurate information, and they need it now. With HubSpot, everyone has access to the same, central database. No need to wade through multiple platforms on different servers. If you are using the FREE HubSpot CRM, all data from both sales and marketing efforts syncs seamlessly into one easy-to-use system. 

2) “Dear Bob, do you want to know how engineers are reducing failures in product design.”

Personalizing your prospect’s experience with your brand 

Marketing to your ideal buyers, or in marketing terms ‘buyer personas’, comes down to building trust in order to turn strangers into visitors on your website, and visitors into qualified leads, (and ultimately, customers).

You have been in business for decades. Your reputation as a manufacturer is known. Your website may very well be generating new visitors and consistent traffic but what comes next? Are you actually seeing leads converting into real names and companies? Leads that you can see in your CRM. How do you bring back visitors time and time again to your website? The answer lies in continuously providing prospects with valuable content related to their unique goals and challenges. To capture this valuable marketing data, utilize HubSpot tracking forms. And, with automated email workflows, you can better assess who the prospect is (and what buyer persona category they fit into), their current challenges, and where they are in their decision process (Read our blog on the buyer’s journey).

This may sound great to you, but how does it really work? Let’s use email for an example. If a contact reads a blog post or downloads your technical paper, you can automatically send them a personalized follow up email, thanking them, and additionally, guiding them to even more valuable resources (i.e. your product catalog, a customer case study in their industry, or.your inventory webpage). By immediately following up with a personalized message, you are increasing the likelihood of your emails now and in the future being read and action to be taken. Now, when you call this prospect, you know what they have read, allowing you to start a conversation based on their interests. 

 

3) Social likes, clicks and comments turn into leads

Determine if your social media strategy is really generating leads and customers

Social media can be a time-consuming process. Marketers schedule posts multiple times a week, reply to comments, and follow prospects and customers. Oftentimes, we are asked by manufacturers if it really makes a difference. HubSpot streamlines social media efforts by allowing you to schedule and manage posts, set up keywords to follow and track activity, and most importantly, track the traffic to your website, leads gained, and customers acquired from your social media efforts. Regular, timely, and intuitive social content generates new leads.

4) Call just when they’re ready to buy – and not before

Sales Only Receives Leads That are Deemed ‘Sales Qualified’

Long gone are the days of sales calling every contact that fills out a form on your website. By utilizing HubSpot, you can set qualifications to define what a sales qualified lead looks like at your company. Then, HubSpot has the capability to track what Lifecycle Stage a contact fits into (e.g. subscriber, lead, marketing qualified lead, sales qualified lead, opportunity, or evangelist.)  

After a lead is labeled as a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) for example, your sales team will be notified to follow up with that lead. Since HubSpot tracks all contact interactions back to their first visit to your website, all of the contact’s website page views, content read or downloaded, and email read is shared with sales as well. With HubSpot, manufacturers can set up triggers to automatically label contacts as SQLs based upon various criteria, such as filling out a form to download a sell sheet or product catalog, or answering ‘yes’ to the form question, e.g. “Would you like to speak to a [ABC Manufacturing Company] sales representative?”  

5) Measure twice, cut once

Improved tracking of ROI from your sales and marketing efforts

One of the biggest challenges manufacturers face is determining ROI from their various marketing tactics. It is important to take into account all the money you’ve spent on trade shows over the years. We see manufacturers spend thousands if not hundreds of thousands a year on trade shows simply because ‘my competitors are going and we HAVE to be there too.’ Can you currently answer how much of your marketing budget is allocated to trade shows, print advertising, pay-per-click, content development and other digital marketing efforts? 

Now, answer this: Do we know how many leads were acquired and customers were closed due to your various marketing tactics and dollars spent on each tactic?

By utilizing HubSpot, manufacturers can easily track marketing efforts and determine how many net new leads and customers were acquired from each tactic. Manufacturing leadership can then best determine which efforts and campaigns are performing well, and which ones are underperforming, and adjust their budgets and efforts to meet their goals. 

How are you connecting your sales and marketing teams together? 

Interested in learning more about how HubSpot can streamline your marketing and sales efforts? At Felber PR & Marketing, we are a HubSpot Partner Agency that works exclusively with business-to-business manufacturers. We help our clients drive quality leads, determine the best tactics for their unique goals, and integrate HubSpot with our manufacturing clients in order to track net new leads and customers acquired from your marketing and sales tactics. 

For manufacturing salespeople, it’s been challenging to navigate selling in our COVID-19 world. The tried and true sales tactics such as face-to-face meetings, trade shows, and conferences have been canceled for the foreseeable future. According to a study by McKinsey & Company, 90 percent of sales have moved to a video conferencing or phone sales model, and while some skepticism remains, more than half believe this is equally or more effective than sales models used before COVID-19. It is hard to know how our post-COVID world will look, but it is evident that the shift to implementing more digital sales efforts will remain.

 

Digital trends have been growing for many years now, with more and more manufacturers adopting inbound marketing and actively working to improve their digital footprint. Now, with people unable to travel and sell as they normally would, digital trends have accelerated. B2B sales operations are going to be drastically different from our pre-coronavirus world and it is important that manufacturers adjust their marketing and sales strategies to not only fit our world now but also how our business operations will look moving forward. 

Below, learn 3 considerations you should use when adapting your B2B sales strategies to fit our ‘New Normal’ Business World During COVID-19:   

Amp up your customer outreach

Sitting and waiting for leads to come to you and relying on your great industry reputation is simply not an option. Now, with face-to-face meetings, conferences, and trade shows canceled for the foreseeable future, it is time to develop a clear approach for prospect and customer outreach and lead generation from all possible channels: outbound lead generation (direct mail, cold calls, and emails) and inbound lead generation (search engine optimization, social media marketing, public relations, pay-per-click ads, and email automation.)

 

Meet with your sales and business development team to discuss what leads they are actively working on. Additionally, take inventory of what professional associations, personal networks, and LinkedIn groups each of your team members are involved in. I guarantee there are great prospects from your team members’ individual networks that are not in your CRM. Just as important, do you even have a coordinated, central, and easy to use CRM?  Now, as salespeople are confined in their homes or offices instead of on the road, take this opportunity to figure out where your prospects are and develop a strategy to reach them.

Review your sales process & develop a consistent, structured process

In busy times, it is easy to get complacent and go through the motions of your B2B manufacturing sales process. Complacency is not an option in our ‘new normal’ and every deal matters–more than ever. Making assumptions based on past data or interactions with customers is simply not an option. 

 

Adapting your approach to an inbound marketing and sales approach is an excellent way to personalize your prospect’s interactions with your brand. Inbound marketing allows you to track engagement all in one easy-to-utilize platform (web page views, document opens, email read, content downloaded, etc.) That way, your salespeople are informed about who that prospect is, how close they are to making a purchasing decision, what that prospect needs, so that your salespeople are better equipped to provide prospects with the solutions they need.  

Adapt to our digital-centric business world

In times like right now, the saying “the only constant is change” rings truer than ever before. It is important to understand that every customer you are selling to is doing business in uncharted territory. Prospects that have gone dark may get acquired by another company, giving you an excellent opportunity to re-engage. Companies are all evaluating their current suppliers, so it could be the perfect time to follow up with previously cold leads. While making the switch to a new vendor, product or solution may not have been in the cards pre-coronavirus, making the switch could seem more advantageous to your prospects now. Always come from the perspective of first helping your prospects and customers and second, improving how they do business. Run your typical sales pitch by your team and brainstorm how you all can adapt it to speak to the unique challenges and concerns your prospects and customers are facing right now. 

 

It’s hard to believe that we are months into the ‘new normal.”. B2B manufacturing sales need to shift to an inbound marketing and sales approach in order to stay competitive and relevant. While COVID-19 has presented many challenges for salespeople, it also provides great opportunities for salespeople to take inventory of their sales and marketing efforts, streamline the sales process with a systemized digital approach, and refine messaging to resonate with prospects and customers’ biggest challenges. 

Interested in revamping your sales strategy to a more digital approach? We can help. At Felber PR & Marketing, we work exclusively with business-to-business manufacturers and help them drive quality leads, determine the best tactics for their unique goals, and provide manufacturing salespeople with real-time data and insight into their prospects so they can sell smarter not harder. 

COVID-19 has impacted every aspect of manufacturing business operations and most significantly, how we sell. Manufacturing companies have long relied on word-of-mouth referrals or benefited from their years in business and strong industry reputation to sell. Business-to-business manufacturers have also utilized annual industrial trade shows and exhibitions as sales tools to network and build customer relations. 

 

Due to COVID-19 shutdowns and regulations, manufacturing salespeople now more than ever are having to change the way they sell. Barriers such as limited face-to-face business meetings and canceled events and conferences have left manufacturers with the challenge of planning how to sell without being able to rely on past practice and the traditional sales tactics they know and love.

 

The key to resilience in this challenging time is to develop a digital sales and marketing strategy to mitigate this loss. Alternatively, and not to sound too alarmist, it could be a significant factor in which manufacturing companies survive and which companies do not make it through COVID-19.

 

If you are a B2B manufacturer that has not considered inbound marketing, it’s time to go digital to meet the demands of selling in our COVID-19 “here to stay” world. 

 

Let’s face it, nobody has any idea how long this will last nor what long-term changes COVID-19 will bring to how we do business next year, next month or even next week. However, in the coming months, your prospects and customers are going to be hesitant to shake your hand or allow you into their facilities.

 

By adopting inbound marketing, you are creating an environment via web and social media where relationships can be built and introductions to prospects, and influencers can be fostered. This is very similar to the transition in the auto industry. Absolutely everyone goes online to look at cars before visiting a dealer (if they even go to the dealer anymore!)

 

Manufacturing salespeople who typically would be on the road visiting customers or exhibiting at trade shows are now confined to their homes or offices, making it the perfect time to work on an inbound marketing strategy. 

 

Steps to success with Inbound Marketing

First, take the time to research where your prospects and customers spend their time online, what they read, and where they get their advice. Second, review your front door image – your website. Has your old website not been generating leads for a long time? Or even worse, did you invest money into a pretty new website that has more bots and college students filling out your forms than prospects? Are you seeing traffic convert to qualified leads in your CRM?

 

Right now is an excellent opportunity to also take inventory of your website, social media, the content you are offering via blogs and the efficiency of your sales CRM. The great thing about adopting inbound marketing principles is that it doesn’t have to be a massive overhaul of your website. Your inbound marketing strategy could be as simple as updating your website copy to focus on your ideal buyers (or as we call it in marketing terms buyer personas).

 

Use this time to update forms so you are asking better qualifying questions. Better questions will keep your salespeople from wasting time talking to weak leads. Find good technical writers and develop content that your prospects find valuable. This helps to build stronger relationships with prospects and customers. 

 

Once you have your website up-to-date, Google Ads and LinkedIn Ads are great tactics to drive better leads to your brand. We have many clients right now who are utilizing digital advertising and have seen an influx of strong, qualified lead conversion through targeted ads offering a strong content offer such as a technical paper or eBook.

 

An inbound marketing approach isn’t about changing every aspect of how you sell. It’s about enhancing what you do well, creating a digital footprint so people can discover you. Developing content that drives sales, and giving your salespeople the knowledge to identify which prospects are good leads and which ones are not will help your team sell smarter, not harder. 

 

Interested in adopting an inbound marketing strategy? Unsure where to start? 

 

At Felber PR & Marketing, we work exclusively with business-to-business manufacturers and help them drive quality leads, determine the best tactics for their unique goals, and provide our manufacturing clients with optimal return-on-investment from their marketing efforts. 

 

Do you have 30 minutes to discuss your manufacturing company’s marketing strategy? No fee, no pressure. We’ll answer as many questions as we can in this half-hour.

 

Yes, I want to talk about my marketing. 

 

Selling is a social process – people do business with other people. And LinkedIn is one of the most valuable social tools in a sales professional’s toolkit. In this week’s Tactic’s Thursday video, learn 5 unique ways to prospect on LinkedIn. If you find the video valuable, I highly encourage you to check our brand new Leveraging LinkedIn for Manufacturers 2nd Edition eBook. In the eBook, you will learn: the essential elements of a LinkedIn profile, how to increase recommendations & endorsements, ways to growing your network, content marketing on LinkedIn 101, and how to sell better with LinkedIn!