In a recent article from Industrial Distribution, the term “omnichannel” and what it means for distributors was discussed. Omnichannel means the connection of all systems, platforms, departments and sales channels. With omnichannel capabilities, distributors can provide customers with a consistent experience across all touch points.
Why are omnichannels important to B2B customers?
Omnichannels allow users to have a fluid shopping experience and give them options when they shop. Over time the number of channels that customers can engage with has grown and will continue to grow. In a study from McKinsey & Company, they found that modern B2B buyers want to engage with distributors across 10 or more channels and move between channels seamlessly.
With more channels for buyers to access this leads to more sales.
What Is Omnichannel?
An omnichannel model gives you a holistic view of the customer experience and buying journey. When you understand your buyers’ buying patterns then you will know what products they are in the market for and how to better your business.
By having multiple channels, it allows users more opportunities for buying and makes it easier to buy from you.
How many channels do you offer your customers today? If it’s anything less than 10, it’s possible you’re not reaching all your potential customers.
Over the past decade, we’ve watched LinkedIn go from a job recruiting site to now being a true networking ecosystem. Join Matt Sonnhalter for a Marketing Minute to learn more about the exciting potential of using LinkedIn for your company.
If you’re a manufacturer that markets products and services to the construction, industrial, or manufacturing markets, you must know how much your marketing efforts are paying off. That being said, measuring the return on investment (ROI) for each individual effort can be difficult. However, with the right approach, it’s possible. In this article, we’ll discuss how to measure the ROI of your manufacturing marketing efforts to help you make better decisions about your marketing spending and strategies. More accurately, we’ll cover creative ways to measure different types of engagement. This will help you ensure that every penny counts towards achieving the best outcomes possible.
1 Understand the Basics of Return on Investment (ROI)
A return on investment is anything that brings you a return after an initial investment. More often than not, this is a monetary return, but not always. That being said, one of the most important things for any business is figuring out the ROI. If you know what you are investing into and why, you can maximize efficiency and bottom line. When it comes to manufacturing marketing efforts, as with all marketing efforts, your goal should be to maximize returns while minimizing expenditures. Using metrics like time spent or money saved will help you gauge whether you are on the right track to success or failure. As a result, you’ll be able to make decisions quickly and efficiently.
2 Identify Your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Identifying key performance indicators is essential to measure the ROI of your manufacturing marketing efforts accurately. Your KPIs can help you set goals and measure progress. They can also help you prioritize tasks, increase productivity, and improve customer satisfaction. It can be challenging to figure out which KPIs are relevant for your type of business. This can be especially difficult for manufacturing marketing efforts since it requires specific marketing. However, no matter the type of business, the same principles hold. You need to establish processes that incorporate feedback systems when meeting particular objectives. This will ensure that you accomplish all your tasks thoroughly and efficiently. Additionally, with the data you gather, you will have all the information necessary to make informed decisions that yield results.
3 Analyze the ROI of Different Types of Manufacturing Marketing Efforts
When it comes to marketing efforts in the manufacturing industry, many different options are available. It can be challenging to determine which ones will yield the best ROI. This is where analyzing different types of ROI becomes essential. Understanding how each strategy affects your bottom line lets you decide which methods make sense for you. This is the best course of action if you wish to figure out how to allocate resources accordingly. Doing this is going to allow you to get a complete understanding of the efficacy of your marketing initiatives.
4 Make Use of Software Solutions to Track Your Campaigns
Automation and software solutions make the process of tracking campaigns easier and faster. Not only that, but they free up valuable time to focus on other business processes. By taking advantage of automation, companies in the construction, industrial, and manufacturing markets can get real-time information to track the effectiveness of their campaigns. This data help with making more informed decisions on optimizing their efforts to maximize ROI. Additionally, automation can help identify growth opportunities.
Furthermore, it can show areas where campaigns need tweaking or improvement. Keeping an eye on the performance of your campaigns using software will even give you a competitive edge in your market. That being said, CRM is the best software to use for this purpose. If you can make the most of your CRM, you won’t have issues staying on top of your ROIs.
5 Utilize Data Analytics to Identify Areas for Improvement
By utilizing data analytics, manufacturers can gain greater insight into their customers. Furthermore, they can identify areas in need of improvement. Data analytics allow a manufacturer to compare customer feedback over time. This, in turn, makes it possible for them to detect any changes that may warrant attention. Combing data analysis with target research will also help you recognize customer trends. This is important because staying on top of the changes in your industry will help you adapt quickly and accurately. This assessment of customer preferences allows companies to remain agile and respond to customer demand in a timely manner. As a result, this is going to increase customer satisfaction.
Additionally, harnessing the power of data-driven decision-making can significantly improve multiple aspects of the business. For instance, by leveraging advanced analytics tools and techniques, you can better understand your whole operation and figure out how to improve them.
6 Develop Strategies to Maximize Your ROI
Maximizing your company’s ROI is the key to sustainable growth and profitability. However, you need to understand how to structure your investments across different advertising platforms to achieve this. And, for this to work, you need to create a strategy. When creating a strategy, you must be careful because what’s on paper may not be so cut and dry when you put it into practice. For this reason, you must regularly monitor metrics such as sales volume and cost efficiency to ensure they work in practice. If you don’t do this, there is no way to ensure success.
Conclusion
In order to effectively measure the ROI of your manufacturing marketing efforts, first and foremost, it’s important to understand your ROI. In addition, identifying KPIs can help to ensure accuracy when it comes to the data you collect. Furthermore, software solutions like CRM can help streamline the process. So, following these steps will increase the likelihood that you will hit the right targets with your next marketing effort. Not only that, but you will also be able to accurately measure the ROI and make any improvements if at all necessary.
About the Author
Michael James is a seasoned marketing professional with years of experience in the manufacturing industry. He has developed a deep understanding of the unique challenges and opportunities of marketing products. In his free time, Michael loves spending time hiking and surfing.
Let’s face it, third-party cookies and Ad IDs have been a crutch for advertisers over the past decade.
Well now as data restrictions tighten and tech companies (i.e., Google and Apple) make it harder for advertisers to track users, everyone is scrambling to find alternatives to using cookies.
One alternative is using your first-party data which is the data you collect on your audience based on their activity within your website, app, email services or social media.
A new study from LiveIntent and Advertiser Perceptions lists the top ways advertisers plan to grow or enhance first-party data, with the Top 3 areas being:
1) Growing email lists via newsletters
Nine in 10 advertisers see newsletters as valuable in understanding your audience. The use of growing your email list will help businesses to activate their data and fully understand their audience. Newsletters will also allow businesses to personalize their communication efforts and see who they should be targeting. Lastly, they will also help to provide first-party data and show you relevant content that businesses can use to build a connection with consumers.
2) Site/app visitation behavior
Website and app visitation can provide important behavior that can be used to track their data. When users connect to your website, the website can collect your audience details. From websites or apps, you can gain users email address, name, mobile number, location based on shipping information and behavioral data. With all this data you can easily see what audience persona or following you have and market directly towards them.
3) Social media
Social media is a vital tool in collecting your audience’s data. Your audience will most likely be using social media way more than just typical Google. Especially in this day and age, people are constantly on a social media platform throughout the day. With social media, you can directly see who your audience is and can even focus on paid media to target and get more insights. With knowing your audience, you can also look for ways to improve on social media to try and expand your first-party data.
Data is very important in knowing who your audience is and seeing who you should be marketing towards.
What’s your company doing to increase their first-party data?
Following is a guest post from our friends over at Long & Short of It, masters of ideation, customer insights and market research. They like to say they “dig and find lots of data and then turn it into actionable insights.” Following is their guest post.
Sure, some people are lucky enough to work with a product or service that they consume or want to consume, but most of us spend our days working on products or services where we are not part of the target audience. And, that’s okay. You don’t have to be the target audience to be able to market to them. However, you do have to recognize who they are and keep them top of mind when making marketing and product decisions.
It seems so obvious, but it’s not. For example, a team member may know that their target audience is a 45-64-year-old woman, yet they choose to put a 20-something model in their print ad. Sure, she looks good, but that isn’t the right choice to resonate with the target audience, and in fact, may actually turn off that audience. That is a simple example, but you get the idea. If those marketers were thinking about their target audience, the young model wouldn’t have been a consideration.
Getting into the minds of your audience may take some time and extra thought, but it’s worth it. You need to know them and also know what they say about your brand or product. If your audience says a product is practical, it’s practical. It doesn’t matter that you want it to be chic.
THERE ARE A NUMBER OF WAYS TO GET TO KNOW YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE.
See them in action. I spent a large portion of my career in marketing research, so I’ve had the pleasure of watching consumers interact with a variety of products from greeting cards to bank teller lines to welding equipment. There is no replacement for seeing them in action. Get out of your office. Trust me, you will learn something every single time. You can watch them and just observe, or better yet, ask them some questions. Why did you choose that? How did you decide to pick that up first? Was this something on your list or an impulse purchase today? Then listen to what they say and ask follow-up questions. People are more than willing to share their experiences. One thing to remember is that you’re only talking to a small number of folks. Yes, it’s helpful, but don’t make decisions based on what we like to say is “a focus group of one.” Combine this with other learnings.
Conduct primary research with them. There are many methodologies out there from quantitative to qualitative. Match the method to the objective. You’ll want quantitative (e.g., survey) if you want to measure something. An example here is finding the preferred marketing message. To choose a winner, a large sample size is needed which means quantitative. Qualitative (e.g., focus group) is used when you want to explore something. The example here is understanding what the target audience likes and dislikes about a selection of marketing messages.
Dig into secondary research. There is data available on many target audiences – especially if your audience is a common one (e.g., Moms 25 – 54). Understand that this information won’t be specific to your brand or product, but you can still learn a lot about various audiences this way. Try to look at secondary research first, because it can help inform what you want to know from your specific audience.
Knowing your audience is a key step in presenting your brand or product in a way that resonates with them. Take that step – it’s worth it.
