How can digital marketing help an industrial business?

• Digital marketing can help an industrial business in a number of ways, from attracting new customers to grow your business to providing a better customer experience and improved customer loyalty. 

What are the advantages of an industrial marketing agency?

• Experience, knowledge, understanding the language, the processes and the technical side to ensure that the information is pitched at the right level.
• They should hit the ground running, with minimal input or onboarding and will be able to bring strategies to the table that are already proven in the sector.
• Choose a well-established, straight-talking agency that will de-mystify the industrial marketing process.  Better still choose an award-winning Industrial Marketing Agency.

What is the difference between industrial marketing agency and a regular marketing agency?

• A regular marketing agency will likely be functionally led. They will likely have a strong graphics team that have worked on B2C and e-commerce websites and retail campaigns. They will likely be good at Facebook social media marketing. 
• An industrial marketing agency will have a different approach that is functionally agnostic. It will establish the gap between the situation now and the growth goals. It will then develop the proposition, establish the target job roles, then the messaging and finally the methods of delivering those messages. They are likely to be good at integrating industrial content creation, LinkedIn, telemarketing, email marketing, direct response sales copy writing, CRM systems, marketing automation and targeted mail.
• An industrial marketing agency will understand the supply chain, the industrial job roles, the R&D and purchasing processes, the sampling and quality control considerations and the right tone of voice when information is pitched to engineers and managers with budgetary responsibility as well as Board-Level Directors. 
• A generic marketing agency will not have this deep understanding of routes to market, the importance of smooth material flows, programme management and packages of work, contract manufacture, procurement best practices and tiered supply chains, let alone the risks involved in scope creep in the construction, energy and aerospace sectors.
• A good industrial marketing agency will have technical copy writing skills, a B2B culture and experience in the industrial sector.  They will have visited many processing plants, manufacturing facilities, and construction sites. 
• An industrial marketing agency will pick things up quickly, will already have sector specific insights into the buyer’s journey and will understand the language. They will know their ISOs from their IATF, the role of trade bodies, the macro environment, the pros and cons of off shoring and re-shoring. The difference between a tool and tooling, plasma and laser, a plc and PLCs, LEAN and KAIZEN, a process and production engineer.  Or at least they should!

How much does an industrial marketing agency cost?

• The cost typically depends on the size of industrial agency, the size of the company and the scope of work.  
• The average marketing budget for an established business in the UK is around 6%-12% of annual revenue.  For start-up companies it is between 12% and 20% Source: Experian
• Large industrial conglomerates will have marketing budgets running into many millions of pounds and will happily spend 6 to 7 figures with a multitude of specialist agencies including PR agencies, branding agencies, SEO agencies, web development companies, printing companies, design houses, exhibition companies, email marketing agencies. 
• The average cost per hour for a UK marketing agency is between £85 and £100/hour and is generally higher in the southeast and London. You will find agencies charging between £850 and £1000 for 10 hours of work.  Whilst agency teams aren’t lowest cost, they are efficient and are usually highly skilled at their specialisms and will always out-perform a low cost in-house hire with a few years’ experience. 
• Smaller agencies working with established SMEs, may work on a project-by-project basis or on a monthly fee basis. 
  • A price for a standard 10-page website project will usually fall between £2000 to £4000. 
  • PR campaigns are usually charged on a monthly fee basis typically between £1000 and £3000 a month.  
  • Most decent SEO campaigns will typically cost anything from £1000/month to £3000/month depending on the number of keywords, the amount of content to be created and whether off-site SEO is included in the plan.
  • Telemarketing campaigns will cost between £1000 and £5000 a month.
  • Email marketing campaigns will typically be charged at £1000 to £3000/month.

• Smaller agencies are likely to charge less but will not possess the wide range of skills required to offer a full service at a high level.
• Some agencies, like Stratique, offer grow together packages which essentially gives you both outbound and digital support on the basis that the plan moves upwards, the more customers are won.  Stratique has plans from £595/month to £3995/month and everything in-between.
  • A basic LinkedIn lead generation service starts at £595/m.  
  • An effective telemarketing campaign will typically start between £1495 and £1995/month
  • SEO packages will typically range between £795/m and £1495/month

• Some industrial agencies will also offer a good discount in exchange for a commission on sales, typically, between 5% and 15% of recurring sales revenues generated, depending on the sales value, volumes and margins involved.

Will the industrial marketing agency help me grow my brand?

• It depends on who you choose and what they strategy they propose.  This is one of the biggest problems when selecting an industrial marketing agency as you never really know what you will get until you commit.  Ask to see case studies and their methodology.  

• The other question to ask is do I really want brand awareness, or do I want every decision maker with budgetary control to know you, like you and trust you.  It’s a far different proposition than having an extra 1000 followers on LinkedIn.

• At Stratique we break the process into 5 main activities: Finding > Attracting > Educating > Nurturing  > Converting people with the budget, authority and a need.  

• We then develop a multi touchpoint campaign to deliver 5-star enquiries starting at the top of the sales funnel, educating and nurturing them in the middle of the funnel before rhythmic follow-up at the bottom of the pipeline to convert enquiries into sales.

Check out the graphic below: