7 secrets to internet marketing for industry

ENGNET'S DEDICATED INDUSTRY ONLINE MARKETING TEAM

7 SECRETS TO INTERNET MARKETING FOR INDUSTRY // 2

Work with the industry marketing professionals. EngNet provides a complete online marketing service for industry companies.

● Get Found: Prospects find you online● Showcase: Show off your company, generate leads and drive

conversions● Connect: Meet your new customers

We would love to spend 15 to 30 minutes with you to answer any questions you have about online marketing and brainstorm strategies for your company.

REQUEST A CONSULTATION

Industry Advertising

Email Marketing

Website Design

Search Engine Optimization

Pay-Per-Click Campaigns

Social Media for Industry

Industry News and PR

https://www.facebook.com/EngineeringNetwork

https://twitter.com/engnet

http://www.linkedin.com/company/engnet

http://marketing.engnetglobal.com/request-a-consultation/


http://www.engineeringnetwork.com/

7 SECRETS TO INTERNET MARKETING FOR INDUSTRY


By Michael Cooney

Michael Cooney, the founder of EngNet, worked as a project

engineer for many years sourcing equipment. His experience

in the industry led to creating EngNet to connect engineers

and industry suppliers. You can reach him on @engnet or on

LinkedIn.




https://twitter.com/EngNet

http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=9434086

http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=9434086


TABLE OF CONTENTS

TARGETING, TIMING AND TIMING // 5

CTR IS THE NEW KING // 7

NOBODY CLICKS BORING // 9

MULTIPLE WEBSITES FOR 1 COMPANY // 11

LONG TAIL KEYWORDS // 13

DOMINATING THE CONVERSION // 15

DON'T HURT YOURSELF // 18

SUMMARY // 21


#1 Targeting, Timing and Tracking.Engineering and marketing is not a natural fit. It's a bit like oil and water or a fish out of water. Engineering demands logic, facts and proven principles. In the past, advertising and marketing have been a smoke and mirrors industry full of hype, jargon and a lot of hot air. Many times the math just doesn't add up.

Why is online marketing dominating where traditional media has failed?

We call it the Triple T effect: Timing, Targeting and Tracking. With online marketing you can now target potential buyers (targeting), when they want to buy a product (timing) and track every step of the way (tracking) from ad, keywords, pages viewed, links clicked to final purchase.

What we have in online marketing is the perfect fit for the engineering and manufacturing industry. An advertising method that is logical, based on facts and proven principles. This is the juncture of marketing and engineering where the results and the figures make sense to both sides.






#1 Targeting, Timing and Tracking.Example:

An electrical engineer is sitting at his desk and needs to integrate a magnetic speed sensor into a motor. He’s not sure where to find a supplier, so he heads over to his computer and searches for ‘Magnetic Speed Sensor’. He visits a couple of websites, finds the right product and orders it.

● Targeting: Magnetic Sensor website targeted the buyer of magnetic sensors● Timing: Engineer needs quickly and orders now.● Tracking: Buyer was tracked from the source. e.g. Google Organic Results.

Now, compare this method with traditional printed media advertising. You advertise your products, hope an engineer will see your ad, and then hope they remember your contact information at a future date when they need your products.

Targeting, Timing and Tracking allows you to target your ideal buyers at the exact time they need your product. The tracking allows you to improve or spend more where you get the best results.

The Triple T effect is really powerful if you grasp it.






#2 CTR is the New King.For the first decade of Google’s existence “Content was king!”. Even today, if you talk to many SEO sales people and companies, they'll practically shout that you need content. Google loves content. Google can’t get enough content. It was true, until the infamous Google updates called Panda and Penguin obliterated websites that had built their foundation on creating lots of content.

To be fair, the websites that genuinely had great content thrived. However, it was not due to Google seeing they had content, as was the case previously. Google has tweaked the algorithm to look for the signs of good content.

Now Google is tracking websites by the users behavior. For example, if the user searches for a ‘magnetic sensor’ and clicks through to a website, that click is tracked. If the user searches the same thing after clicking to the website and then quickly leaves, Google tracks that action too. If the user then finds another company for "magnetic sensor’ and ends up staying there, Google perceives they found what the ‘magnetic sensor.’ That’s a good signal to Google. They delivered a visitor to a destination and they stayed, meaning the website is a good match for ‘magnetic sensor.’

If your website does not get as many clicks as surrounding websites in the search results, your web page slowly starts to slip down the search results page. If surrounding websites in the search results receive more clicks than your website, your website will continue to slide down in results until you settle with websites of equivalent metrics.






#2 CTR is the New King.If you use PPC advertising the same process applies. Google is looking to deliver ads that get the most clicks. More clicks to Google means more relevant (and more money for Google). You can increase your chances of getting clicked by making sure your message matches the search term. With your PPC ads you need to ensure that your search term matches your ad Copy, and then the ad copy matches the wording on the landing page.

The higher the Click-Through Rate (CTR) you can achieve with your ads, the higher your ads will be positioned. You ad can even be above those ads who pay more per click.

Pay attention to what users are doing on your website. If they are leaving too quickly, fix it!






#3 Nobody Clicks on Boring."Engineers don't read ads, marketing people do!" This was the lament of a marketing veteran at a large engineering firm I worked at 20 years ago. It's an opinion that has stuck with me, and I often consider it. Is it true?

If engineers don't read your ads, do they read your product announcements? I wanted answers to these questions, not more opinions. To resolve some of our questions we resorted to cold hard data and testing.

We ran multiple simple tests over several months to identify what content engineers would take time to read and click on to read more. It was quite evident that engineers want to read interesting industry news rather than straight product announcements. The next time you need to send out product news and want to increase your results, find an interesting industry news of application you can link with your product. If you take the time to relate your products to interesting news or application, you'll be rewarded with 5 to 10 times more people reading it and sharing with colleagues.

There are additional benefits to creating interesting content. Social networks make it super easy to share content. Millions of people are sharing interesting pictures and information everyday. If you put the interesting information in front of your audience, it will get shared. Sharing is good and is another signal that Google and Facebook watch to determine what content gets the most action.






#3 Nobody Clicks on Boring.Examples:

Boring Product: Terminal BlocksInteresting Article: Engineering Challenges of the Tower of Terror ride at DisneyAligning Your Product: Within the article discuss the engineering required to make the ‘Tower of Terror’ ride safe and the need for high vibration terminals for safe operation of the high torque motors. Failure could mean catastrophe.

Boring Product: Desalination FiltersInteresting Article: Siemens saves 50% on desalination costs with new technology.Aligning Your Product: Discuss improved desalination costs and what that means for the deserts surrounded by oceans. Introduce the new efficient filters enabling efficiency.

Don't be boring! Get interesting and reap the benefits.






#4 Multiple Websites for 1 Company.We have always championed the benefits of running one strong website. A central website where you put all your efforts into making it the best. It alone will generate the best ranking and get people coming back.

After working with companies that love to push the boundaries to increase sales, we created and search engine optimized multiple websites for a company. The test was to determine if we could achieve search engine rankings for multiple websites from the same company. Effectively, we set out to see if we could get two or three positions for the same company on the first page of Google for targeted search terms.

Surprisingly, the strategy proved extremely effective. With some search terms we were able to secure three to five out of the top 10 first page search results. We have since repeated this strategy with several companies. Each time we have been surprised with the search engine positions we've been able to secure.

Search engine positions are great, but were we able to increase actual sales? Yes, by taking more positions we effectively prevented competitors from quoting or selling to buyers.






#4 Multiple Websites for 1 Company.For this strategy to be effective you need to utilize long tail keywords. See secret #5 for long tail keywords.

Pros:

1. Secure multiple positions and increase sales.2. Eliminate competitors from results and increase sales.3. Target high converting keywords. Better conversion from visitor to sale.4. Reduce risk of losing search engine referrals.

Cons:

1. More time and expense maintaining multiple websites.2. Link dilution. Ranking strength is shared between multiple websites.3. Not as effective for highly competitive keywords.

Recommended for aggressive marketers with proven ROI on search engine referrals.






#5 Long Tail Keywords.Most companies want to be found for the main search terms that receive thousands of searches each month. Terms like ‘pumps, valves, heat exchangers, mixers, drives,...’ These terms receive a large quantity of searches, but they are also highly competitive terms.

Why climb to the top of the mountain to make sales, when you can easily pluck the low hanging fruit? Through targeting a large number of long tail keywords that receive a decent number of searches, collectively you will see more search engine referrals than focusing on a few broad highly competitive search terms.

Five Reasons You Don't Want to Target Broad Highly Competitive Terms

1. Low Conversion. When people search for broad terms they are in research mode. They want to see what is out there. They are in information gathering mode not in buying mode.

2. Low Targeting. Only a small percentage of those broad searches are your actual target market.

3. Not Buyers. These are researchers not buyers.4. Highly Competitive. Unless you are a dominant force in the space, you are fighting a

losing battle.5. Easier Methods. Why climb to the top of the mountain to make sales, when you can

easily pluck the low hanging fruit?






#5 Long Tail Keywords.We work with a company that sells Diesel Engine Parts. Within a 30 day period this company received 4,488 visitors (3,844 from search engines) to their company pages on EngNet.

How did they get so many targeted visitors? Long Tail Keywords.

Their broad highly competitive terms brought in less than 200 visitors out of 3,844 visitors, and they have 1st page positions for their broad terms like ‘diesel engine parts’. In comparison, there were a total of 3,159 long tail keywords used to find their website.

Broad Term Examples:

● Diesel engine parts● Diesel injectors● Pumps

Long Tail Terms:

● Cummins common rail injectors● Mitsubishi SD6● Rotary lobe pumps● Horizontal blower nd14

Secret #6 shows you how to easily target long tail keywords.

The conversion rate of the long tail keywords outperform the broad terms by a huge factor.






#6 Dominating the Conversion.Any company that has more than a couple hundred line items in their product catalog can use this strategy to bring high converting visitors to their website. This strategy takes advantage of long tail keywords that contain part numbers, model numbers or brand name products.

This is an easy way to target hundreds, thousands or even millions of products. This secret applies to companies that offer a large number of products. The secret also borrows from the long tail strategy #5.

There are 4 main items you need to implement this strategy

1. Build a Master Database/Spreadsheet

The most important information is an itemized list of the equipment, parts and accessories that your company supplies. If your company already has a product database, that is great. However, if you are starting from scratch, you will need to create a simple Excel spreadsheet with 4 columns being

● Manufacturer● Part/Model Number● Description● Image Filename






#6 Dominating the Conversion.2. Website Design and Website Structure

Now that you have a database of all your itemized products, you will need to have a good website structure. The navigation structure needs to be built so that users and search engine spiders can efficiently find their way around thousands of different pages. Develop a hierarchy of information like:

Home > Manufacturers> Series > Parts/Models

3. Landing Page Optimization

Optimizing the pages for when a visitor lands on your website is extremely important. When you have a visitor land on your website that is ready to buy, you can increase sales by as much as 75%. You can accomplish by utilizing a landing page that is optimized for your particular conversion method. Landing page optimization is a specialization in itself. You need to ensure that your information, navigation and contact information is clear.






#6 Dominating the Conversion.4. Promotion

Once you have your master database of equipment, website and landing pages setup you can take advantage of existing websites. Using existing websites, you can upload your database and start receiving targeted visitors within a very short space of time. Use your database and start utilizing this content to send targeted visitors to your company through multiple channels such as:

● PPC Campaigns - Start adding part number information to your keywords that you target

● Industry Websites - Many industry websites will allow you to upload your database to their websites. This is a great method for additional targeted traffic. For example, at EngNet - The Engineering Network, we have a Product Catalog built in. So, all you have to do is send us your database, and we import it for your company. Within a short space of time you will start getting inquiries for you products from our Engineering Network.

A must have for companies with a large number of products.






#7 Don't Hurt Yourself.We've seen companies make mistakes that we would like you to avoid. I highly recommend the above strategies for companies where it makes sense. However, please make sure you don't throw away the good stuff your company may already be doing. Below I mention a few pitfalls that we've witnessed and that you can easily avoid.

Danger 1 - If it’s not broken don't fix it

If you are already getting good results from search engines, then make sure you don’t mess that up. We've seen companies achieve success and then get greedy. They redesign their website or start using bad tactics and lose all the benefits.

An example of this is from one of our long term clients. They have been our client since 2003. We always got them great positions and results. However, results did start to plateau although they still have great positioning (when you're at the top of the first page of results where else can you go?). The economy decreased sales. Our client decided to keep us managing their website and to employ the services of an SEO expert to give them an additional boost. The new SEO expert managed to give them a boost or should I say boot! A week after they began their work Google removed the entire website from its results due to spam methods employed by the SEO expert. Google used to send them 4,000 non-paid visitors a month, now it was down to a couple hundred. We jumped in and removed the offending issues, then pleaded with Google for a re-inclusion.






#7 Don't Hurt Yourself.Danger 2 - Don't scrap and rebuild your website.

Enhance what you already have. New redesigns are not a problem, but please make sure you retain the benefit from previous rankings and follow the correct upgrade path. One of our clients was receiving good results for an average looking website that the company had initially put together themselves. They decided it was time to get professional and placed an order with a well-known firm to develop a new website for them. The new website firm does good looking work, but totally ignored the old website and discarded all the benefits from the previous website. This meant the website lost all previous ranking and had to start building search position all over again. We helped them reclaim their search engine positions, but they had lost 6 months of steady business from their main source of business.

Danger 3 - Don't underestimate the value of using professionals.

We have clients that like to manage their websites and marketing campaigns themselves. In most instances, they do an average job only realizing a small percentage of the total benefit they could be receiving. Our advice to one such client was, “Your time is worth more doing what you do best. If you let us handle the online marketing where we are best, you'll have more time. Plus, we'll get you a lot more results.” This particular client eventually came on board, and we now get him more results. He spends his time building a great business and dealing with new customers acquired from an effective online marketing strategy.






#7 Don't Hurt Yourself.Danger 4 - Selecting the wrong web development firm.

There is a multitude of website development firms out there, but not all know and understand industry users and their needs. Many website firms can create beautiful websites, but they are not effective for industry.

For example, in 2006 we submitted website proposals to two different industry companies with similar products. One company place the order with EngNet, and the other company placed an order with a website firm that emphasizes look over substance. The company that proceeded with EngNet ended up with a website that delivers 25,000 targeted visitors a month. The company that chose the other website company ended up with a trophy website that generates a modest 1,500 targeted visitors a month. Five years later the second company has now entrusted their website to EngNet. In one month we have doubled their website visitors, and we look forward to doubling it again. Five years of modest targeted visitors to your website can be a costly mistake.

Do your due diligence when selecting a website firm or making changes to a successful website.





SUMMARYThere are many ways to get targeted people to your website, especially when they are looking for your products when they need them. Search engine marketing is effective - you can leverage targeting and timing together. Buyers are coming to you at the exact time when they need your product. Powerful if you grasp it!

About EngNet

EngNet is the Engineering Network which was founded in 1998 with a focus on marketing companies within the industrial marketplace. EngNet operates and manages the www.engineeringnetwork.com website where we connect industry buyers and engineers to suppliers.

We also offer a full range of online marketing services geared to the engineering, manufacturing and industrial marketplace. The services we offer are website design, banner advertising, lead generation, search engine optimization, PPC campaigns and more.

With new customers we start by determining who your ideal customers are, and then we go to work to develop a campaign based on our years of experience to deliver those customers to you.



ENGNET'S DEDICATED INDUSTRY ONLINE MARKETING TEAM


Work with the industry marketing professionals. EngNet provides a complete online marketing service for industry companies.

● Get Found: Prospects find you online● Showcase: Show off your company, generate leads and drive

conversions● Connect: Meet your new customers

We would love to spend 15 to 30 minutes with you to answer any questions you have about online marketing and brainstorm strategies for your company.

REQUEST A CONSULTATION

Industry Advertising

Email Marketing

Website Design

Search Engine Optimization

Pay-Per-Click Campaigns

Social Media for Industry

Industry News and PR







7 secrets to internet marketing for industry

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