Should engineers use inbound marketing?
It’s hard to ignore the hype around the inbound marketing phenomenon and the benefits it can bring for businesses in a world where providing valuable online information is a must to secure customers. Customers nowadays expect to easily access product and service info on company websites and social channels, enabling them to research and compare before they make a purchase. So what exactly is inbound marketing and is it the right choice for the engineering industry?
What is inbound marketing?
Inbound marketing is focused on creating valuable content that will appeal to your potential customers to draw them to your company. By providing the answers to their problems and queries, you can establish your business as an industry expert to gain their trust early on in the buyer’s journey. Traditional marketing efforts in which marketers disrupted customers in order to get their message across has become outdated, with consumers becoming numb to such types of advertising.
By aligning your content to your customer’s journey, you can answer their questions successfully and quite often even before they ask! The tailored content you share will drive prospects back to your website through the use of specific keywords.
When considering if inbound marketing is right for your engineering company, here’s some questions to ask yourself:
- Are your customers online?
- Do they ask a lot of questions?
- Are your traditional marketing methods failing to generate business the way they used to?
- Would you like to establish yourself as an engineering expert?
If you answered yes to most of these questions inbound marketing could be the right route for your engineering business.
Let’s look a little deeper into just how similar the engineering and inbound world are; There’s no denying the strategic and systematic nature of both - engineering firms and inbound marketing are remarkably similar.
▸ Strategy
Engineers don’t tend to be creative in nature but instead engage in a highly organised and specific planning processes. This same approach is required by inbound marketers. To run an efficient inbound marketing campaign, thoughtful integration and preparation are key to ensure all aspects of the strategy are connected, including blogs, social posts, CTA’s, keywords, landing pages and email campaigns.
▸ Linear thinking
Engineers tend to have a sequential thought process, much like what is required for the inbound methodology. They recognise the importance of following step by step processes so as jobs can be replicated and improved over time, ensuring mistakes aren’t repeated and standards are high.
▸ Data-driven
The left brain analogy fits well with the inbound marketing and the engineering world – decision making based on logical, data driven facts. By analysing figures and campaign performance weekly and monthly, inbound marketers can make well-informed decisions for future changes and approaches, rather than going on gut instinct and guesses.
The inbound marketing concept might at first sound like a complex term that engineering firms believe won’t ever apply to them. Upon a deeper understanding of what it is, along with it’s relevance to today’s engineering customers and the similarity shared with engineering methodology, the suitability becomes apparent. Inbound marketing is, in fact, the perfect opportunity for engineering firms to expand their online visibility and attract new potential customers to their business.
Still not convinced? Read our blog on 6 ways inbound marketing benefits engineers to learn more.
