6 Takeaways from the Industrial Inbound Summit for Industrial Manufacturers

By: Meaghan Ziemba, Content Marketing Manager, AME

Industrial Inbound Summit 2018 LogoI recently attended the Industrial Inbound Summit at the Harley Davidson Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The marketing and sales conference featured an impressive lineup of speakers that provided tips and tools on how to position your manufacturing business for success in a hyper-competitive digital world.

I found a lot of the information extremely helpful and beneficial as the brand storyteller for Advanced Machine & Engineering (AME). Here are my top takeaways from each presentation:

  

Takeaway 1: Customer-First Culture for Metalworking Industry

Todd Hockenberry, author of Inbound Organization: How to Build and Strengthen Your Company’s Future Using Inbound PrinciplesOwner of Top Line Results and author of Inbound Organization: How to Build and Strengthen Your Company’s Future Using Inbound Principles, Todd Hockenberry, explained how everyone wants to grow, but no one wants to change.

This still rings true for certain industrial manufacturers who still practice traditional ways of manufacturing, including cold calls and promotional ads that focus on them and not their customers.

For manufacturers to grow and be successful in the age of buyer control and digital disruption, they need to switch their mindset to helping others first by solving their problems, not selling them.

Hockenberry provides a three-step process to help manufacturers ensure their customers are achieving their goals and receiving the value and ROI from their products:

  1. Mission Matters

  2. Culture is Destiny

  3. Strategy is Inbound

Read How to Make your Manufacturing Mission Statement Customer-Focused and Unique to learn more on how to implement this process.

 

Takeaway 2: Secret Formula for Sales Success in Industrial Manufacturing

Jeffrey Coon, Partner at Stream Creative helps businesses develop processes and programs that are focused on increasing visibility and sales.Stream Creative partner, Jeff Coon provided a sales formula that focuses on personalization, entertainment, credibility, and scarcity.

$ = (P+E/C) x S

The old formula of hiring a salesperson, going to the same trade shows, knocking on prospects doors, and cold calling no longer works to build a predictable revenue stream.

The way that buyers find their information, evaluate their options, consider who to buy from, and how they make decisions has drastically changed with the advancements of technology.

They crave a great customer experience that focuses on their goals and helps them become successful.

The secret to manufacturers’ success lies in the emotions of their buyer personas without all the fluff. Read how to leverage simple, yet powerful, influence techniques and technology to shorten the sales cycle and create a repeatable process for your industrial sales team by reading How to Shorten the Sales Cycle for Your Industrial Sales Team

 

Takeaway 3: Inbound Marketing for Industrial Marketing

Steve James, partner at Stream Creative, focuses on data-driven marketing, digital marketing strategy, branding, Facebook ad strategy, web design, speaking, paid media, and sales enablement.Inbound marketing is a great way for industrial manufacturers to build a successful and optimized marketing strategy to attract leads and potential customers.

Steve James, Stream Creative partner, discussed 5 steps that help industrial manufacturers build their inbound framework:

  1. Identify Your Goals and Objectives

  2. Audit and Research Your Content and Pages

  3. Buyer Personas and Journey Mapping

  4. Strategy and Tactics

  5. Campaign Execution

Integrating these steps into your marketing strategy will help you attract more of the right leads and customers for your products and services.

 

Takeaway 4: Growing Your Manufacturing Business on LinkedIn

Wayne Breitbarth is a nationally recognized LinkedIn consultant, speaker, and trainer.Wayne Breitbarth, LinkedIn Trainer and Consultant at Power Formula, LLC, presented the 5 C’s for industrial manufacturers to successfully grow their business on LinkedIn:

  1. Create a Customer Focused Profile

  2. Connect with Your Prospects

  3. Categorize Your Connections

  4. Communicate with Your Network

  5. Capitalize on Existing Relationships

Following these steps will help you find, connect, and communicate your manufacturing marketing message and generate a steady stream of leads.

 

Takeaway 5: Video Storytelling for Industrial Manufacturers

Tony Gnau, founder and chief storytelling officer at T60 Productions, helps businesses market themselves by telling their stories.Tony Gnau, Founder and Chief Storytelling Officer for T60 Productions provided tips and tools on how to use video storytelling to reel-in and guide customers and prospects.

He emphasized on how video needs to be about the emotion and not fact and figures for it to be successful. Manufacturers need to leave their audience with a “feeling” for them to remember the company’s brand story.

Read How Industrial Manufacturers Use Video to Guide Customers and Prospects to learn more about his tips and tools.

 

Takeaway 6: Build Your Manufacturing Brand with Content Marketing

Jim CarrJim Carr, Jason Zenger, and Nick Goellner from MakingChips discuss how they took their passion and expertise in metalworking to launch a podcast that equipped and inspired the metalworking leaders using a 6-step process that focused on their audience:

  1. What is Your Marketing Wheelhouse

  2. Do it Differently

  3. Focus on Your Content Foundation

  4. Nurture Your Nation

  5. Leverage Loyalty

  6. Scale Strategically

 

 

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