“The aim of marketing is to reduce the need for selling.” – Phillip Kotler
Just like every industry out there, there’s always a need to market an innovative product or service. For engineering companies, however, it’s a more complex matter.
Relatively, with a more segmented and narrow target audience, engineering companies don’t find profitability by putting up billboards or running radio advertisements like common branded products.
Communication gap remains, one of the biggest challenges engineering company faces while promoting their products and services. Due to scientific or technical terminology, the majority of people are unable to comprehend and articulate the context of the offer and this is why it’s important for engineering companies to find the right and correct way to market their product.
The purpose is not to promote ‘selling’, instead the aim of marketing is to build trust and brand awareness in the right market so they’re persuaded to purchase the offer at their own will.
Understanding the core elements of effective marketing will help engineering companies understand and communicate HOW their product and services will fit and meet the needs and wanted of their customer.
When done right, your customers won’t need to be persuaded. Selling made easy.
So how do you hit the bull’s eyes with marketing, especially in the engineering industry?
Within this niche, you’ll be talking to innovative, leading experts, specialists, engineers, and professionals. Communicate in their language and take into account the high degree of expertise your audience have when executing content marketing and lead generation strategies.
There are multiple ways to apply effective modern marketing strategies which will help engineering companies build and bridge a stronger trust with existing or potential clients.
- Target Audience
Developing a ‘buyer persona’ is key. Identifying WHAT you’re offering, WHO you’re targeting, HOW they work, WHY they need you, and WHEN they’ll need you will build a clear demographic on WHERE you can find your audience and HOW you’ll be able to catch their attention.
This is guaranteed to save your time in market analysis and increases your probability of reaching an audience that has more interest in your offer.
Different engineering fields have different audiences. Base your research only on subfields that are relevant and directly correlated to your service or product.
- Identify your customers’ pain points.
Industry 4.0 plays a strong role in the industry. For an organization to stay on top of the market demand, they’ll have to adapt their services and products to the fourth industrial revolution.
Identify and point out your customer’s pain points. Whatever your offer may be, visualize and present where you stand in the industry and follow through with your potential customer’s journey. Where do THEY stand, and when will YOU come in place to help them?
- Build trust with the brand – increase retention.
We only feed our eyes and mind with information that benefits us. Boring information doesn’t deserve our time.
Based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, there are 5 stages in the theory of motivation that directly dictates an individual’s behavior.
Always focus your marketing Unique Selling Proposition based on one of the five stages of motivation. Do not mix or complicate your message.
What are you offering? Is it something that complements a system? Is it an innovative product that helps reduce cost? Or does it increase the reputation and esteem of their brand? Do they NEED or WANT your product/service?
A business is a human-made system, and you need to trigger the humans to take action. Incorporate your engineering expertise with common sense and behavioral analysis.
Unfortunately, most engineers focus too much on building their products, they forgot that relationships need to be built along the way for success.
Here are some cost-efficient marketing channels that will help your engineering company increase its online presence, build trust, and create effective marketing that REDUCES the need for selling.
- A Clean Website – aesthetic, clean, and to the point.
- Blogging – An SEO (search engine optimized) blog is a great way to market your product while covering topics that point out the pain point of your targeted audience.
- Social Media Content – According to Smartinsights, more than half of the world’s population (4.62 billion people worldwide) uses social media with 424 million new users in the last 12 months. On average, each of us spends 2h 27m on social media DAILY!
- Demonstrate Expertise – DO NOT be afraid to showcase your knowledge, know-how, and skills. Create events on-site and online to expose yourself and bring your business to the surface in the right community. This is how you show off your brand and demonstrate the impact you aim to have in the industry.
- Video or podcast – STOP looking for customers and spend more time building a legacy. Be genuine and consistent and the right audience will find you.
If you’re ready to create a marketing plan for your engineering company so you don’t have to ‘force’ people to be your customer, start with a social media profile setup, and start listing down the answer to the pointers above!
If a person sees your content at least 1 minute a day, every day about your company, you’ll surely get increased retention AND recognition!
If You Don’t Have The Time To Market Your Business…
Don’t be stubborn, every business needs a marketer. When you stop showing, you stop growing! Step out of your comfort zone and hire your very own marketer or work with an agency.
It’s important to find the right people or team to work with when it comes to marketing, as they’re not only talking about your brand, but they’re speaking on the BEHALF of your brand. Work with a marketing specialist that also focuses on PR (Public Relation) and Media. That way you are not only making the best use of digital marketing, but you’ll be ready when facing public events.
As an engineer, your service is of high value and often you have different pricing systems whether in singular or bulk offers. A big investment requires trust, so always focus on building your clientele’s and prospects’ trust through quality.
Sponsorship & partnership is also a great way to gain and build trust. Work with another reliable company that may have been established longer than you in the industry to represent a good reputation for your company. Do not engage in risky collaboration without the right technology certification that will mislead or damage your company’s reputation.
Last but not least, Customer support. This is an essential part of any marketing strategy. Customers’ feedback helps you fix the issues and ensure constant improvement in all aspects and departments of the company. With constant changes and updates, having a strong relationship with your client database will also allow more opportunities and space for market analysis and surveys. Personal opinions, feedback, needs, and preferences will be the strongest asset in future R&D (Research & Development) to develop a better product or service.
A good way to maintain reputable customer support is by using a compatible and suitable CRM (Customer Relationship Management) to denote strategies and optimize customers’ journeys. As well as built-in chatbots on websites and social media. This can help your company communicate big data results and increase customer responsiveness. Recently with the AI interface, chatbots are built very realistically to have high-level knowledge for engineers to communicate with.
Here in AR & Associates, we focus on helping engineers spend less time in marketing, and more time serving their customers. Leave the matter to the respective experts. As engineers ourselves, we understand the core values and importance of marketing through trust and reliability.
We provide a full tailor-made solution that helps you build your engineering company to the next level through digital and on-site marketing. With expertise in organic and paid content marketing channels and on-site event or workshop planning, we offer a full turn-key marketing solution that gives you time, space, and freedom to focus on what you do best, which is to run your business.
Email us here or call us today at (+61) 449 892 122 to get more information or to book a complimentary marketing consultation or strategy session.
Article inspired by Smartinsight, jumpfactor, roclogic, redfern, and AR.
