Industrial and Manufacturing Marketing Blog

3 Business Blogs with Proven ROI from Industrial Companies

A business blog is an important and integral component of inbound marketing. While there are plenty of business blogs from B2B marketing consultants (including this one), industry portals and vertical search engines, there aren’t too many from manufacturers and industrial companies.

Manufacturing marketers do understand the value of a business blog for thought leadership, search engine optimization (SEO), lead generation and community building but proving its ROI has been a challenge. As a result, many of them either ignore blogging as a marketing strategy or wait until their competition launches one.

It is easy for us marketing consultants to extol the virtues of a business blog but clients want to see actual examples before accepting our recommendations on blind faith. They need to see verifiable results and not just screen shots in our online portfolios.

I found three industrial blogs that have produced measurable ROI in terms of lead generation and sales – key performance metrics that resonate with the C-suite.

Here’s proof that business blogging is an effective inbound marketing strategy for manufacturers, engineering and industrial companies.

Exhibit #1: Emerson Process Management Experts

Emerson Process ExpertsA niche business blog run by Jim Cahill that targets process manufacturing engineers and professionals.

I had the privilege of listening to Jim and Deborah Franke talk about their fascinating journey from blog awareness (2004) to launch (2006) and how they persevered despite resistance and lack of support from upper management.

  • Objective: Connect process manufacturing professionals with experts at Emerson Process Management who have valuable industry, application and technology expertise
  • Tactics: Write blog posts on topics like “Accessible Wireless Vibration Monitoring” that are of interest to engineers who design and run process control systems; adapted an investigative reporter style for digging up customer-centric stories and writing them from the perspective of the expert who solved the problem; added inline contact information of individual bloggers for instant and more personal connection (lead generation) between an expert and a blog reader; and every blog post is also available as a Podcast, MP3 or iTunes download providing 24/7 access to content whenever, wherever and in whatever format desired (social media and viral marketing)
  • Results: About 2,000 daily visitors; 15 to 20 email messages per day, including an invitation to bid on a large, new plant that could total hundreds of millions of dollars; top rankings for Emerson in Google for terms such as “process controls,” “process management” and “compressor surge control” and the winner of Best Corporate Blog by BtoB magazine in 2010.

Exhibit #2: Indium Corporation Blogs

Indium Corporation BlogsIndium Corporation is a developer, manufacturer, and supplier of specialty alloys, solder products and solder paste. Rick Short, Indium’s Marketing Communications Director and the chief corporate blogging strategist, manages 73 blogs written by 14 in-house bloggers, all engineers.

  • Objectives: To own the space as the thought leader, build familiarity and gain trust for a wide variety of topics and technologies that are of interest to specific audiences; generate contacts (customers) that lead to profitable sales; and deliver more sophisticated customers support
  • Tactics: 73 blogs that target niches of long-tail phrases; content generated by in-house experts and not written by outside vendors; detailed bio and contact information on each blogger; a big ass button for “Learn More – Email author;” good use of videos from YouTube embedded within the posts and the use of every imaginable social media option
  • Results: 25 percent reduction in marketing costs along with major account wins; number 1 ranking in Google for terms like “Dipping Flux,” “Pop Solder Paste” and “Tabbing Ribbon;” increased number of qualified leads and sales and won numerous industry awards

Exhibit #3: Kinaxis Supply Chain Expert Community

Kinaxis Supply Chain Experts CommunityKinaxis is a supply chain management solutions provider based in Ottawa. They have been blogging since 2005 and are now reaping phenomenal results. What Kirsten Watson, Director, Corporate Marketing and her team at Kinaxis have achieved is the quintessential success story of blogging and social marketing by an industrial company.

  • Objective: Identify where their target audience hangs out online and build a community around them to increase awareness of the company’s supply-chain management solutions
  • Tactics: Their mantra — Learn, Laugh, Share and Connect. Took a leap of faith by investing $70,000 in hiring Forrester to thoroughly research their target audience; implemented every single recommendation for building a community around the audience
  • Results: 2.7 times increase in website traffic; 3.2 times increase in conversion; 5.3 times increase in blog traffic; 6.0 times increase in registration of community members; double-digit growth in paid subscriptions for their SaaS product RapidResponse and a BtoB Social Media Awards 2010 winner

NOTE: Don’t miss their hilarious section called “Suitemates,” a satirical look at the practices of big enterprise software companies.

Here’s a one of their videos from YouTube.

[youtube width=”524″ height=”320″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwG94SUIIOI[/youtube]

I am sure there are many more out there that I didn’t find. Do you know of other business blogs from industrial companies? Feel free to add them here.

Achinta Mitra

Achinta Mitra calls himself a “marketing engineer” because he combines his engineering education and an MBA with 36 years of practical industrial marketing experience. You want an expert with an insider’s knowledge and an outsider’s objectivity who can point you in the right direction immediately. That's Achinta. He is the Founder of Tiecas, Inc., an industrial marketing consultancy in Houston, Texas. Read Achinta's story here.
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Comments:

  1. There are some of other blogs with proven roi. I hope these blogs much better than all other blogs. Good to know about industrial companies.

  2. We’ve been aggressively blogging for about a year now with a focus on trends in American made products. We know that consistent content does make a difference, but as state above, it is not an overnight process. While, I can’t directly relate our efforts to a specific sale, we did host a visit from President Obama in November. The benefit for industrial companies can be measured in other ways such as brand recognition, thought leadership etc.

    I always enjoy reading your posts Achinta. Keep up the insightful work in 2013 and Happy New Year.

    • Paula,
      Thanks for your kind words and Happy New Year to you too!
      You are spot on about the cumulative effect of blogging for industrial companies and it isn’t always easy to relate it directly to sales. I’ve always considered your “Cheaper Than China” strategy/focus to be a very powerful statement and a key differentiator.
      Congratulations on hosting President Obama. That is a huge achievement for everyone at The Rodon Group and a fitting testament to the company’s commitment to American Manufacturing.

  3. Thanks for this post about manufacturing/industrial blogs. I would not agree with the statement “there aren’t too many from manufacturers and industrial companies.” I work with 5 manufacturers that have active blogs running for 5 years or more, all in the greater Philadelphia area. Of course, we advised them to do these blogs too! All of them get a lot of good quality traffic and provide good measurable results.

    • @Larry,
      Thanks for sharing your insights and your comments here and on my blog.

      It would have been interesting to see your stats on how many other manufacturing and industrial clients that you advised starting a blog but they did not. As I wrote in another blog post, “…it is easy to present selective data to reflect and validate a particular point of view (“Lies, damned lies, and statistics”).

      I am a big proponent of blogging and in many of my posts; I talk about its benefits to industrial companies. (See Add a Blog to Jump Start Industrial Websites).

      I agree with you that it takes a lot of time and effort to maintain an active blog. You know as well I do that content marketing is a process that takes time to produce meaningful results. The challenge is in convincing decision makers to stay in it for the long haul instead of abandoning blogs when they don’t produce instant results.

  4. We have been running an active blog twice a week for the last year and have seen an increase in traffic, but little in the way of active discussion as a result of the blog.

    Every other blog is a tech Q & A relating to tech support emails, and the rest either review certain functions of our platform as it relates to real world usage or broad industry discussion about thin client management, virtualization, centralization, and industrial integration.

    Feel free to check it out:

    http://blogs.thinmanager.com/thinclients/

  5. I’m not sure if Kinaxis blog includes topic about crm software.

  6. Many industrial companies are trying to make blog to pitch products to customers in friendly way. Some of them are trying to do guest post to related blogs as well.

  7. Nice post .Thank’s for this post.

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