This is a common mindset in the manufacturing industry, and it’s largely borne out of the fact that when people say online marketing, they mean “ranking well in the major search engines”. The issue with this, the major search engines suck - there I said it, they suck big time when it comes to trying to market specific services within an industry.

The system works like this

then you rinse and repeat…

Now if you have a marketing team (the word team implying “more than 1 person”) and a decent budget, you may be able to run the race. I’m not saying you’ll win the race, I’m not even saying you’ll do well! I’m saying you’ll be in the race…

What Race?

The search engine optimisation and keyword chasing race - that’s right you have to sum up your complex blend of capabilities, experience and knowhow into “keywords”. Ultimately keywords are a big guess at what it is your potential customers will be searching for - not easy!

So you’re all fighting over keywords, trying to clamber over each other for a better rating - meanwhile the customer is clueless - they search for something specific and get rubbish results, they search for something general and they get more results than they have the energy to read…

This system of trying to sum up complex capability profiles into “keywords”, optimising and driving links and likes is complete madness. As a system for finding businesses with specific capabilities, or capability profiles it is found wanting.

Is it Small business vs Big business?

It’s easy to make the argument that we’re talking about the battle between small business and big businesses - and that’s because budgets play such an important role in conventional online marketing. You may not be able to directly pay for a high google ranking, but you can certainly indirectly pay for one through tools, techniques, experts, content and online promotion.

So unfortunately, not only is the keyword battle an inadequate way of classifying capability, it’s also heavily weighted in the direction of big businesses, with big budgets.

However...and this is a big one

No matter how much we think the system is crazy, you cannot deny the power of 24/7 access, on mobile phone, tablet and desktop computer to a world of information. Online marketing is still as big as it is, despite the drawbacks and systematic issues mentioned. John Jantsch, niche business marketing expert and Author of the Duct Tape Marketing Blog and the Book of the same name expresses the importance of the online environment to all businesses by saying;

"The Web and digital interactivity now represent the center of the marketing universe..."

John Jantsch - Duct Tape Marketing

Where do people go when they are looking for a new manufacturing supplier? Or even find out information on an existing supplier? Buyers and Engineers are searching, all day every day, the system of keywords and search engine optimisation is broken, but the community is very much actively seeking a solution.

So is what you offer too “specialist” for online marketing to work?

If you’re talking about search engine optimisation and chasing google rankings - we agree, you’re on to something….but, and it’s a big but! Being online is extremely powerful for businesses, and the impact of online is getting bigger every day.

We say “Change the game”

Specialist search engines can provide the answer for specialist businesses - if your capability is believed to be “too specialist” for the big search engines, find a search engine that’s designed around your capabilities.

Now that’s easy for us to say, where are you going to find a search engine that’s good enough to differentiate between specific manufacturing capabilities and combinations of manufacturing capabilities effectively?

The good news for UK Manufacturers - Manufacturing Network is a specialist search engine designed specifically around UK Manufacturing capability. It overcomes the problems with conventional online marketing, cutting through the “Keyword Race” and the “Backlink Battle” - it’s no longer one big popularity contest.

Manufacturing Network helps buyers find you, quickly, easily and more effectively using a manufacturing capability focused search engine.

We can make the world of online work for you, no matter how specialist you believe your manufacturing capabilities to be.

To find out more about joining Manufacturing Network take a look at our features and benefits page - then sign up for a 30 day free trial, take us for a spin!