You’ve decided you want to take some action, create some content, update your website and get on board with Content Marketing, at least at some level. Great, now what? So many SME businesses get overwhelmed after taking this first step. In some cases, too many ideas and tactics flood your senses, in others you draw a complete blank. We’re here to help. We’ve compiled a list of content ideas, along with some solid advice to get you going with some serious momentum...

If you’ve read any of our previous articles on Marketing your business with Content, you’ll know there’s a lot of value in maintaining momentum. Achieving this momentum is all about having ideas waiting to be turned into awesome content. Other articles will talk about a content strategy, a content plan and schedule along with ongoing keyword research and buyer personas. This is sound advice, but most of it is aimed at large businesses, with teams dedicated to the cause.

The most important thing to remember is that all of these tactics and strategies are aimed at building momentum. Therefore when starting out, after understanding what your customers want in terms of content, keeping the ideas flowing is paramount.

A quick note about what your customers want. They want your knowledge. Unlike online businesses, as an offline business you have more direct contact with your customers. As a result you know what questions customers have as they progress from being a sales lead through to returning customer. You’ve probably answered the questions a million times over! Your content should seek to answer the questions your customers have about your capabilities, your business and your products.

With that in mind, here are some awesome content ideas to get the ball rolling. Hopefully they will inspire you to think about other questions your customers have and how you can use your knowledge to answer them.

Let’s dive right in...

Content Ideas for your SME Manufacturing Business

1. An A-Z guide to terminology used in your manufacturing process

This one is an almost endless source of high value content. Think about it, you talk using terminology unique to your processes, your product and your business day-in-day-out. By simply documenting this terminology you provide your customers with a reference they can use again-and-again.

If this type of content doesn’t drive traffic, I really don’t know what will!

Don’t underestimate your customers ignorance. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking your customer understands your terminology. The truth is, they may have become familiar with the word through hearing it used. It doesn’t mean they understand it! Seek to explain in plain english and they’ll thank you for it with respect and acceptance that you’re the expert.

You could structure the content as an index of key terms, or simply create a page on your website listing each term with an explanation beneath it. Not only is this sought after content, it’s also easy to create. Even if you don’t have the power to add pages to your website yourself, you can easily send your written content to your web developer for upload onto the site.

BONUS TIP:

Google and other search engines absolutely love “Click-Through’s”. That’s a term you may or may not understand… maybe we should write an article like this! Click-Through’s are basically when a visitor to your website arrives at a web page and clicks to access a further page. Simple, and it makes sense. Why is this relevant? Well, if you create one page with all the terms on, then a further page for the explanation, the visitor is made to click from your “index” or “list” page through to the page containing the detailed explanation. Click-Through achieved.

A word of warning about this one though. If you use this method to drive click-throughs your explanation needs to be detailed. In the region of 300-500 words and well written. If the explanation is 300 words or less, you’re at risk of search engines thinking you’re tricking them. They’re too clever for this. They call this “Thin Content” and you should avoid it.

2. Design guide to your processes

Customers will never know your process as well as you do. That doesn’t mean you can’t help them avoid costly design features. There’s lots of generic guidance designers and engineers can pick up from text books, but it’s just that, generic. You can provide real information, real limitations and real capabilities that you can and have achieved on previous projects.

The first reaction many businesses have when they see this is one of fear. Fear that they’re giving away too much. But, if a designer or engineer is willing to take your information and use it in their design it displays a great deal of trust. The likelihood is that you’ll be the first business they contact for a quotation. Who doesn’t want that?

If you’re still worried, how about offering the design guide as a download or an email series. In which case, you give them the guide in return for their contact details. (See our article on email marketing for more detail on how you could do this). Contact details are valuable as demonstrated in each of the benefits of email marketing described in the aforementioned article.

Think about what features drive cost into and out of a design. Customers demand far more complexity than appears achievable when reading a generic design guide. Text books talk in ideals, you can demonstrate what’s achievable. You may even be able to provide cost impacts for certain features in terms of percentage or real costs. This is such valuable content that will be used as a reference by designers and engineers.

Think about what features you can build into a design that have manufacturing, quality control, further processing and assembly benefits. Your component will likely be part of a larger assembly or fabrication, can you build in features that allow this to be done with more ease, consistency or control?

Design guides can contain anything that would be useful to a designer when engineering their designs. Complete and comprehensive design guides are awesome, but they also take time. There’s no harm in creating “A guide to features that drive cost in X process”. This is a much smaller, but still highly valuable piece of content.

Design guides also work particularly well with images. They don’t need to be complicated. Just basic line sketches created in powerpoint to demonstrate your point can be highly effective. A picture can speak a thousand words, so don’t forget them.

3. Material selection guide for your processes

This could arguably fall under the design guide heading, as can a number of these content ideas. There is however something distinct about material selection guidance which justifies it’s own category. That’s it’s ability to be turned into an almost entirely visual piece of content.

We’re all familiar with tables and charts. They’re a pretty staple part of the designer and engineers diet. Workplaces are however more and more visual places and you have an opportunity to take advantage of this. Infographics and information posters are high effective forms of online content, outperforming the written article in almost every industry sector. The best bit is, once you create the content you can get a graphic designer to make it look sexy for a pretty affordable price. Just head on over to PeoplePerHour.com and you’ll know what I mean.

Materials that you use, their properties, design limitations, relative price and typical applications are key pieces of information that enable engineers to select the right materials. You can guide them in the right direction with your knowledge and expertise without spending all your time educating. Create the content once, let it educate the customer at their pace. They consume the information if and when they’re ready.

If you haven’t already got a chart or list of materials you can quickly put one together. The information already exists, you’re adding value to the customer by pulling it into one easy to understand resource.

Think about the pro’s and con’s of using a material. Think about applications where materials can and cannot be used. Think about the impact the material choice has on design limitations like wall thickness or section thickness and compare the materials you offer. Compare key material properties like yield strength, fatigue strength, corrosion resistance, chemical resistance etc.

Most importantly think about what your customers have asked your advice on. If they’re asking you, this is a sure fire guarantee that the information isn’t as easy for them to locate as it should be. Make their lives easier, they’ll reward you.

4. A YouTube video of your processes / machinery in operation

Now there are a lot of articles and blogs out there giving some serious credibility to video marketing, but don’t read too much into them. Video can be highly effective especially when trying to give an overview of your business in a short space of time. It can also be a tad pricey. What we’re talking about here is a video you can shoot, produce and publish without the aid of a professional producer.

A corporate video is snazzy, but they can also be a bit overboard for what you need. A video of your machinery in action serves an entirely different purpose to a “corporate video”. Instead of explaining your business, your mission and your values these videos inform your leads and customers about your capabilities. As a designer or engineer it’s like getting a factory tour an understanding how your machines work and how their components will be handled.

So the aim of the video is to satisfy intrigue, for those who may not have seen the machinery you have in action. A further aim of the video is to get an insight of how you run your business. A filthy machine with components piled up everywhere, leaking coolant and not visible controls won’t send the right message. This is your chance to demonstrate your credibility, reassuring customers that you’ll take care of their product.

With the capabilities of modern Smart Phones shooting a video and uploading it to social media sites such as Facebook and Youtube couldn’t be easier. If you want to go the extra mile you can always use some video editing software to trim the video and put an intro and outro at the beginning and end of the video. Believe it or not you probably already have this software. Windows Movie Maker comes with older operating systems, but if you have a more recent one you can always download an App for free.

5. Case studies of previous work

Case studies are the number one form of content as far as we’re concerned. They are real life applications, real life problems with real life solutions. This type of content is a lot easier for customers to understand. Case studies build credibility, they educate and inform and they satisfy intrigue. They tick a lot of boxes.

Simply looking at past projects you can identify problems you’ve solved for customers and the solutions and capabilities you used. There’s lot’s of different structures you can use for case studies but remember to focus on your capabilities and the product. Potential customers and leads will be looking at case studies which have similarities to their own products and problems.

The thing about case studies is that they have the ability to be a constant source of content. You will always be solving new problems and making new products. Each sale you make has the potential to be turned into a case study, meaning you have new case studies to write all the time. This could turn into your number one source of content in your content marketing efforts. It’s a good idea to mix things up, but case studies can form the back-bone of your content marketing.

Make sure you get the permission of your customers, after all it’s their product. It’s also essential to talk in terms of benefit to the customer. How did they benefit from you solving the problem? Quality output, Cost reduction, Delivery performance, Design improvement or a mixture of all four. Potential customers and leads will appreciate your focus on the customer and their benefits, so don’t forget to list some customer benefits.

6. Slideshare presentation on your business process and how you interact with your customers

You have a business management system. It may well be written down in some boring form of ISO compliant document, but how do you sell your process to a potential customer? Make it visual, make it flow and talk about them.

You could explain your process from quotation through to delivery or just part of the process in a little more detail. Make it clear to them how you work, what’s expected of the customer and how you engage them at every step of the way. Try and make it clear how you differ from your competitors. Are you quicker at quoting? Are you fast at delivering? Do you offer a design optimisation service? Whatever it is make it stand out, make it clear what’s going to happen once they engage with you and how long things may take.

Presentations are perfect for this type of content as they allow you to mix visual content with some detailed written text without overwhelming the reader. Allowing them to consume the information one-slide-at-a-time!

It just so happens there’s a presentation sharing site out there that loves this type of content. It’s called Slideshare. Once you upload your presentation you can share it on social media, embed it in a page on your website, you can even add it to your linkedin profile. This makes your presentation a highly versatile piece of content that can be easily accessed again and again.

You just create your presentation in powerpoint and upload. It’s almost too easy, so a word of warning. Make sure the presentation is great quality. This goes for any piece of content, but it’s particularly important here. Using a generic or blank presentation design template is pretty boring and unengaging, put a little effort in, get it right and you can very quickly look like an absolute pro.

7. A guide on how best to draw a component for manufacture by your process

This is a golden piece of content which can easily be created by your internal engineering or production team. Your team has requirements, they’ve seen some pretty appalling customer drawings! It benefits everyone when the drawing communicates exactly what the customer needs, clearly.

Have a brainstorm of some typical mistakes or problems you see on customer drawings and you’ll have no shortage of advice. You could take a number of approaches with the structure of this type of content. You could provide a list of things to avoid doing, maybe accompanied by a list of things the drawing should include. It’s always a good idea to show an example of a good drawing, and maybe some marked up drawings showing what not to do. (don’t use existing customer drawings, create some dummy one’s to prevent offending existing customers).

This type of content is probably best delivered as an “Article” or a page on your website, maybe as part of your business blog. However you deliver it, it will be an absolute hit. The art of creating engineering drawings has long been disappearing, you can breathe some life into the subject.

It’s easy to refer to an existing drawing standard, but there are some things that need explaining in the context of your business. Take the time to build up your list of do’s and don’ts and your customers will absolutely love you for it. It’s also likely to reduce the time taken going back and forth with the drawing in the final stages (when delays don’t mean a change of delivery date, they just mean you have less time!)

8. A guide to which design and manufacturing features impact tolerances, and what tolerances can be achieved normally

This has got to be one of the number 1 questions that customers ask both at the outset and when getting into the detail. It’s not always an easy one to answer, but you can always provide guidance. As with providing general design guidance, there will always be features and design choices that mean achievable tolerances change. So provide your customers with what those features might be, what level of impact they may have on the nominal tolerance achieved.

For each process the structure of this content will vary, but fundamentally you are trying to guide the designer in their choices. Giving them a tolerance chart with sizes, features and applicable tolerances is pretty standard. But how about giving them a real life example? Take an existing product, establish the tolerances achieved under normal conditions and bring the “Tolerance Chart” to life.

Explaining features in terms of real life components is the best way to get the message across, and leads to the best form of content. Images, charts and explanations all form part of the content naturally. No shoehorning images into articles where they don’t belong. Just great content.

This is where you can kick the ass of other generic content on offer. You have real life examples going through your business all the time, take advantage of this information. Take photos, document the achieved tolerances and the impact features, material choice and other design lead decisions make on them. Your customers will love you for this type of content. It takes a little effort, but it’s worth it.

9. A guide to processes which can be used in combination with yours to create end products

This is something that customers are typically quite clueless on, or can make some serious mistakes with. Some processes go hand in hand, others not so much. Explaining what the “pre-processing” and “post-processing” or finishing options available to your customer are overcomes a number of potential mis-specifications.

You may open your customer's eyes to what is possible in terms of finishing or pre-treating a component. You may also be able to help them avoid specifying a finish or treatment which isn’t ideally suited to a process. This is highly valuable information to engineers and designers when thinking about the complete manufacturing supply chain.

The content could be structured in any number of ways. You could write about a single process that can be used in combination with your main process, for example Anodising of Machined components. Why your customer may consider it, when it’s not a good idea, what’s it’s relative cost in comparison with other processes. You don’t need to go crazy, you could point them in the direction of a more detailed article on the process. The key thing here is that you’re helping customers identify processes they may choose.

If you wanted to be a little more extensive or comprehensive, you could provide a whole list of potential processes. Under each finishing process or pre-treatment provide a few pro’s and con’s, typical applications and relative cost (is it the cheapest, in the middle, or most expensive). Again, you could provide a link to more detailed articles related to the processes you are suggesting. This type of content can actually be really quick to pull together, and the great thing is most of the content you need is already out there. Wikipedia articles, engineering blogs and our very own Knowledge Base are all sources of articles written about Manufacturing Processes and their selection.

This one should make it into the early stages of your content plan, as it’s one you can continue to work on and build as you find more great resources.

10. Write about your team and their experiences

This isn’t content that’s going to pull people in who are looking for more broad information and answers. However this content is targeted very directly at potential customers who are interested in selecting you as a supplier. At the end of the day you’re not a faceless business, you’re real people, experiences and capability all rolled into one.

This type of content could be in the form of biographies, short CV’s, full personal profiles or just a few lines on each team member. It’s always useful to put a face to a name, so a photo wouldn’t go amiss. The key thing to remember here is the purpose of this type of content. You’re seeking to build credibility with personality. That’s exactly what a great team member profile should achieve.

You could create a single page on your website dedicated to these profiles, or you could provide a page for each team member for a more in depth biography. Talk about relevant experiences, strengths, how the customer will likely interact with them, if at all and maybe inject some personal interests. You’re seeking to build relationships with your customers, if they can find some common ground it provides everyone with a conversation starter.

Remember where this fits into the sales funnel when thinking about getting your content marketing off the ground. You need a good mixture of “top-of-funnel” and “bottom-of-funnel” content. This is typically the latter, serving existing customers and those who may already be requesting quotations.

11. Compare your process with alternative processes - benefits, design limitations, other processes that can be used

This may take a little more time, but it will be worth it. Customers and leads face decisions. When they’re online searching, they’re looking for information to help them make those decisions. By creating content that compares and contrasts your manufacturing processes with alternatives, you’re giving them exactly what they’re search for.

Similar to the design guide, by explaining what is possible it makes it clear when a manufacturing process is a candidate or not. Further to that, the applicability of processes in terms of costs, lead times and other benefits becomes clear.

You could provide a list of design limitations for your process like wall thickness, ability to achieve undercut, surface finish, tolerances, economical production volumes and a whole host of others. Then compare your processes with competing processes. For example, Sand Casting could be contrasted with Die Casting, or CNC Milling with Closed Die Forging, or Powder Coating with Wet Spray Painting. If there’s an alternative, you can contrast it.

The level of detail is up to you. Charts, tables, bullet pointed lists, these are all valid ways of contrasting Manufacturing Processes in various ways. You could easily turn this type of content into a poster or infographic to contrast 2 processes. If you want to compare 3 or more we’d suggest using a table or chart. You could still use an infographic or poster format, just make it landscape.

Once again, if you’re thinking graphic design isn’t your thing, don’t panic. You can subcontract the graphic design part out REALLY easily. You just write the content, create the chart and let the graphic designer do the rest. Seriously, check out PeoplePerHour.com you’ll be amazed what you can get done for less than £50.

12. An overview of what testing methods can and can't be used with components made with your process

Applicable testing methods and standards show you know your stuff. Customers can have a highly variable level of knowledge when it comes to testing, whether that be destructive on non-destructive testing. This content serves a couple of purposes, which makes it really effective in comparison with the effort level required to create it. More bang for your buck.

The two purposes this content serves are Credibility building and Knowledge provision. You show knowledgeable customers you know what you’re talking about, it gives them that warm feeling inside. On the other hand, customers who don’t know Ultrasonic Testing from Dye Penetrant testing get to understand what they CAN specify.

To create this content think about test methods you have used, and those you haven’t. Customers will equally want to know which test methods aren’t applicable, and why they’re not applicable. You don’t have to go crazy explaining the testing processes, remember your customer is trying to make a decision. Why would you use this type of testing? What sort of defects will it pick up? What’s the cost of this sort of testing? Is it applicable to high volume production or one-off’s? When can’t this type of testing be used? Is there a permanent record of the test results?

Those are just a few questions you can answer for the customer, if you want to provide some more information find another article and provide a link. Create a link to the British, American or European standard document where they can find some more information. Maybe even provide an example of some good and bad test results. This is really useful for a customer when they’re thinking about the type of records they’ll be receiving.

This type of content is primed to become a resource your customers and website visitors return to again and again. A real traffic cow! It’s worth the effort, as it services leads at the top of the sales funnel, and existing customers at the very bottom.

13. A guide to what qualifications or legislation are applicable when using your process

So many designers and engineers are searching for information about topics they’ve never come across, as a result they can be a bit ignorant. Not necessarily realising what level of qualifications are required to deliver the services they require. As a result they can fall into the trap of selecting an under qualified supplier. This is wasteful for everyone, especially if it comes to light late in the day. Turn the light on for them earlier!

Outline when and why qualifications are required to deliver your manufacturing process and let your customer decide for themselves whether it applies in their situation. Engineers, designers but especially buyers may not initially realise the level of qualification required for their application. Think about the world of welding. Qualification in welding can mean any number of things, relating to the business, the individual welder the procedure and all the variables. But when is it applicable? Explain it like you would a complete novice and you’ll have the right level.

Think about the qualifications you hold, if any and think about the levels of that qualification. Describe what your qualifications can be used for, for example, do they allow you to CE mark? Or does your level prevent you from CE marking? To make the content really useful you could go one step further, in this example you could actually explain what CE marking means, or at least provide a link to a great resource!

This type of content can be presented in so many ways, depending on the application. A standard article or page on your website could do the job, on the other hand a slideshare presentation could be perfect.

This content may require you to do a bit of research, but hey, you’re getting some knowledge too. You may even find some new applications for your capabilities in the process!

Final Thoughts

And that’s it. We’re done. Just think, there are probably on average about 4-5 articles you could think of for each of the content types suggested. And that’s off the top of your head. If you wrote those articles at a pace of 1 per week, you would have enough content for the entire year!

Momentum and Sticking power are the key ingredients to successful ongoing content marketing when you’re dipping your toe in. Don’t get bogged down in content plans, strategies and calendars. We’ve even highlighted some key aspects of your buyer persona. The content ideas described in this list of 13 are all applicable to customers of SME Manufacturing businesses. That’s buyers, designers and engineers. They all need your services, but importantly they also need your expertise.

Keep this article close by when you’re thinking about ideas for new articles, we know it will serve you well in building momentum and keeping things fresh!

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