How can engineers get more ROI for their marketing efforts?

Are you finding it hard to generate new clients or projects for your engineering firm? Are you spending a significant amount of your budget on marketing but not seeing an acceptable ROI? Engineering firms are facing a unique challenge that many industries conquered years ago: the online marketing revolution. Now, more than ever, revolutionizing marketing efforts in engineering firms protects them from falling further behind the competition.

Leave Traditional B2B Marketing in the Past

According to HubSpot’s Ultimate List of Marketing Statistics for 2020, 63% of businesses view lead generation as their top marketing challenge, with 40% finding it difficult to find a comfortable ROI.

Engineering firms put lots of money into traditional B2B marketing objectives even though we are in the digital age. Traditional B2B marketing makes it hard for the RIO to be seen and even reached. Some forms of traditional marketing include:

• print
• broadcast
• direct mail
• phone calls
• billboards

For example, executives at engineering firms have no problem investing their marketing budget into print ads (magazines) but fail to see the importance of investing in website development. Print ads run once or twice, to a limited number of viewers (subscribers of the magazine), and have no details on exactly what new business comes from it (ROI).

In contrast, a well-developed, high-performance website is accessible by anyone (and everyone is on the internet now, hence the digital revolution) at any time. There are various techniques to track the activity or performance of the website and monitor the site’s exact point of ROI.

Let’s be honest. Most people’s magazines eventually end up in the trash, while a website provides a platform to keep your brand relevant forever!

 

Top Three Essential Strategies for Marketers in Engineering

Here are three strategies for all engineers emerging into digital marketing or looking to expand on their strategies to see a difference in their marketing ROI.

1. Know your target audience and voice

Define your target clients – the ones you are looking to turn into leads. In the marketing industry, we call this target audience, and it can be defined by breakdown of industry, geographical location, position within company, company size, etc.

The main objective in knowing your target audience is identifying their specific problems and needs. When you position yourself as the solution, that’s how you gain them as a client! You know who is the best fit to work with you, so it’s best to attract those customers by using specific language instead of worrying about appealing to everyone.

Also, depending on the service you provide, you may have more than one target audience. You would approach each marketing efforts differently.

2. Establish firm as a Thought Leader

This a way to set yourself apart from your competitors. All potential clients are asking themselves, why pick you over the competition?

Position your brand as an authority and your team as experts to gain trust, capability, and transparency with your potential clients. This can be done in multiple ways, however, three simple ways to begin this process can be done on the website.

A firm’s website is its brand, and it should highlight your awards and accomplishments in the engineering space. Also, you want to “humanize” your business, so the inclusion of a company blog and/or podcast is a wonderful way to do this.

You must make sure that the information you are sharing resonates with the audience. Let your knowledge speak for your brand. Here are some type of blogs that work well for engineers:

• project updates
• team news
• industry news
• solutions to customer challenges

3. Use social media efficiently

Social media plays a vital role in marketing today and in the engineering industry, it can provide your firm with an advantage. Fortunately for you, not many firms use social media effectively or at all. It is an opportunity to expand your visibility and meet your potential clients where they are at. Do not underestimate the presence of your target audience sites: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

Before adopting social media into your strategy – the biggest mistake businesses make is creating an account and leaving it stagnant or abandoned. This can be detrimental to your firm’s brand because it signals that you’re not up-to-date with things.

Our recommendation is that you find the social sites that best fit your company’s brand, plus where your target audience is. For engineering firms, the best social sites are LinkedIn and Facebook. Why? They both are geared towards an older audience who are typically the decision-makers. They are also sites where people are already primed to do business and are accessed via their desktop during working hours. If you do decide to spend money on ads, their reach will go further on these platforms. Explore the best way to use social media for marketing.

All of these strategies help boost your firm’s brand and presence in the digital arena. Updating your strategy to include these things will propel growth and allow for trackable changes to monitor ROI, which in the long run saves your firm money. Marketing works! It’s just a tool that needs to be used for very specific purposes.

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If you need assistance in implementing any of these strategies mentioned or are looking for digital marketing, reach out to us at SNR Creative. We specialize in helping businesses achieve their fullest potential in the digital arena.