industrial marketing 2014: international survey of manufacturers

A CoreElement Special Report

Industrial Marketing 2014: International Survey of Manufacturers

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Survey Purpose: Answer This Question

How are Industrial Manufacturers Adapting to the New World?

For full survey results visit Core-el.com

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Respondents answered 40 questions on 7 subjects:

380 responses: The Questions

• Sales Techniques & Tactics

• Marketing Strategy & Intelligence

• Marketing Automation

• Website Design & Function

• Social Media Commitment

• Social Media Usage

• Optimization

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• Span 4 continents

• Have annual revenues ranging from less than $10 million to in excess of $500 million

• Employ from fewer than 25 employees to over 10,000

380 responses : Respondents

Sales managers, presidents, managing directors & CEOs from middle market industrial manufacturers that:

Most are private, family held businesses and two-thirds have international reach.

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Respondent Economic Outlooks: Company Confidence

are “confident” or “very confident” in the outlook for their company.

Nearly

74% How confident are you in the outlook for your company?

44%

30%

18%

7%

1%

We will have our share of problems

Worried

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Respondent Economic Outlooks: Economic Concerns

What are your current economic concerns?

Qestion: How do you believe your country’s economy has performed over the past year?

Manufacturers remain uneasy about the slow economic recovery in the U.S.

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Sales Techniques & Tactics: New Customer Sources

The chosen sales and marketing strategy of most industrial manufacturers remains predictably “old-school.”

Which of the following are sources of new customers for your company?

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Nearly a third of industrial manufacturers do not treat marketing as a budgeted item.

Marketing Strategy & Intelligence: Marketing as a Budgeted Activity

31%Is marketing a budgeted activity for your company?

43%

31%

23%

2% 1%

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of manufacturers are doing all marketing in-house.

Marketing departments may be undermanned and overworked.

Marketing Strategy & Intelligence: Marketing Management

84%

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A majority are unhappy with their lead conversion rate.

Yet...

Marketing Automation: Lead Conversion Satisfaction

60%

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Marketing Automation: Awareness

...45%are unaware of marketing automation.

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Roughly two-thirds use their website as lead generator or sales tool, yet many are outdated and lack mobile capability.

Website Design & Function: Opinion of Current Site

66%Which most closely matches your opinion of your company’s current website?

40%

26%

20%

10% 4%

Q: Biggest website frustration?“Too little actual lead generation.”

- T.S., USA

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Social Media Commitment: Staffing

30% reported making a real commitment to social media from a staffing perspective by using full-time staff, an external firm or a freelancer / subcontractor.

About

How is your company managing your social media program?

Committed to Social Media

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believe social media is either not for them (or for industrial companies).

The majority don’t have social media programs or aren’t tracking results.

Social Media Commitment: Attitude

23%What is your general attitude toward social media for industry?

37%

22%

15%

14%

9% 3%

Worth considering

Currently testing

Positive results

May work for some, not us

Not for industrial companies

Should have started sooner

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Social Media Usage in Industrial Marketing: Platform

46% nearly half, are sharing content via Twitter.

Which social media platforms are your company currently using?

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state search engine optimization (“SEO”) is critical to companies’ overall marketing strategies.

Search Engine Optimization: Analysis

62%We don't performanalysis

Good, it providesuseful information

Fair, it's interesting,but we're not surehow to use the data

Excellent, itcontributes to ourdecision process

Poor, the analysis isuseless

32%

31%

25%

6%6%

How would you grade the quality of your company’s SEO analysis?

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Key Findings

Industrial manufacturers are unaware of, or have not embraced, marketing automation, nor new strategies, including content marketing.

They remain rather “old-school” with their tactics, relying heavily on trade shows and cold-calling as new customer sources.

Industrial manufacturers are not dedicating the time, money or manpower necessary for finding marketing success, particularly in the area of social media.

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CoreElement creates and implements effective industrial marketing programs for manufacturers that leverage the power and intelligence of the internet.

Marketing Strategy & Planning

CRM Implementation & Administration

Marketing Automation

Lead Generation / In-bound Marketing

Content Creation

Social Media

Website Design

Search Optimization

Email Marketing Campaigns

Tracking: Statistics & Analysis

For full survey results visit Core-el.com

Call: 216-400-8201

Cleveland, OH USA 44119

sales@core-el.com

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