Manufacturing marketing budgets are on the rise. Yet far too many manufacturers are flushing money down the proverbial toilet on ineffectual strategies. It’s not necessarily the amount of money spent that’s the issue; it’s the placement of those funds, and the decision makers behind them.
The Average Manufacturer
The typical UK manufacturing company spends anywhere between £50,000 to £200,000 annually on marketing. Sounds great. However, when companies realize a fraction of that spending into sales through questionable results, it’s easy to see how money can be wasted quickly. Trade shows that yield three lukewarm leads. LinkedIn ads that attract job seekers instead of buyers. Website revamps that are aesthetically pleasing but convert no one. It’s easy to see how budgets are out of control.
The Generic Agency Approach
So where does this money go to waste? It usually happens like this. A manufacturer knows it needs better marketing. Someone on the executive team has a marketing agency in mind because they crushed it for their friend’s retail store or restaurant. The agency comes on board and creates an aesthetically pleasing campaign and absolutely nothing happens.
Agencies aren’t bad at what they do; they’re just in the wrong industry. Consumer marketing and manufacturing marketing operate under completely different premises. A £2 million investment takes 12 to 18 months to purchase and involves six to eight decision-makers, not something a person does because there’s an Instagram story about it or a social media influencer it.
And this becomes immediately expensive. Agencies craft campaigns and website copy and target keywords that sound amazing for job titles, but not for the procurement process; they measure vanity metrics but no qualified leads come through the funnel. A manufacturing marketing agency understands these differences from day one, and that’s why industry specialization is greater than having a ton of good reviews from unrelated industry clients.
They Misunderstand the Buyer Journey
Manufacturers are also guilty of mirroring consumer marketing timelines, and this is where budgets bleed massively. Someone sees an ad for new running shoes, clicks through and makes a purchase in a matter of minutes. Someone investigating CNC machines or other industrial filtration systems is going through a lengthy process of technical evaluation, budget approval, and stakeholder agreement.
What works for consumer decision-making fails miserably in the industrial realm; that engineering manager who’s looking at your website at 2 am searching for solutions is not ready to book a demo and start their free trial. They’re downloading technical spec sheets, weighing data sheets against competitors and compiling recommendations for their purchasing committee.
Where do marketing budgets go to die trying to rush this process? Through retargeting campaigns that frustrate instead of inform. Email sequences designed for SaaS startups masquerading as custom manufacturing solutions. Chat bots asking “How may we help you today?” when in reality, they need three months to figure out if they even have a question.
Content Depth
Manufacturing companies either create content too shallow or too technical, with little in between. The shallow content sounds as if it comes from someone who Googled the industry for 20 minutes; it features nice keywords but lacks any semblance of awareness about real-world applications, challenges faced, or technical requirements.
The overly technical content goes too far in the opposite direction, white papers from engineers published for engineers that include specifications but lack any relevance for ROI implications. This information is valuable but too late into the game; before someone cares about thermal tolerances, they need to understand if this solution meets their need first.
Yet this middle ground should dominate where most marketing budgets go, and yet they do not. Middle ground that indicates true knowledge of industry intricacies but is accessible enough for multiple stakeholders to perceive value, technical enough for engineers to take it seriously, straightforward enough for finance to understand and practical enough for operations to see implementation pathways.
Throwing Money at Wrong Channels
Trade shows consume extensive amounts of manufacturing marketing dollars with questionable return on investment (ROI), yet where has anyone ever received an RFP via trade show? Does investing £30,000 on a booth yield 40 badge scans from people genuinely interested in solutions or just people collecting pens because they’ve been trained how to avoid sales pitches?
The same thing happens with digital advertising that casts too broad of a net, Google Ads applications attempting to seize upon expensive keywords boast landing pages converting at .5% because they’re attempting immediate action instead of long-term relationship development. LinkedIn campaigns reaching thousands with the right job titles but wrong buying power or timelines.
Email blasts become another black hole when companies buy lists and cast generic information that go nowhere, open rates of 2%, click rates of .1%, and no qualified conversations made; money is spent, metrics are reported, and nothing moves forward.
The DIY Trap
Some companies try to avoid spending money on agencies by going DIY, this seems financially responsible until you add up the true cost of expense. The operations manager who “knows computers” now manages the website; the sales director adds in sporadic blog posts; someone’s nephew does the social media.
Sure, this approach costs less in direct spend, but the opportunity cost fails to justify effectiveness. The operations manager spends time outside their expertise running back and forth from their desk wasting valuable production time; blogs go up sporadically without direction; social media remains a barren graveyard unless it’s remade as a brand identity without any postings.
Meanwhile, competitors using specialized partners are generating substantive leads, establishing technical credibility, and showing up where buyers seek solutions. The DIY approach saves money in all the wrong ways and loses revenue-generating opportunities eclipsing any savings by looking frugal on the surface.
What Actually Works
Manufacturing marketing that works involves long-term strategies, educational content that helps buyers understand their situation before it’s time to talk with sales, technical resources that showcase credibility without request for immediate confirmation, digital presence that emerges when buyers are deep in research.
It’s important to recognize that buyers in the manufacturing space are different, they need detailed data, not emotional appeals; they want proof of capabilities, not aesthetically pleasing ideas; they’re comparing specifications, feasibility of implementation and long-term operability.
Smart manufacturing companies acknowledge this reality when spending their marketing budgets, the small percentage devoted become amalgamations of heavy industry knowledge for content generation and channels wherein educated buyers actually assess possible solutions; success is measured by conversion in an active pipeline not overall metrics tied into website traffic or social media following.
The difference is then reflected in conversion rates, length of sales cycles and quality of deals struck. Instead of spending £100,000 for 300 unqualified leads, they spend £100,000 for 30 qualified opportunities with actual intent to buy and timelines to do so.
Manufacturing marketing budgets get wasted when companies treat industrial marketing like consumer-based efforts, hire generalists for special work or try to rush inherently lengthy processes. The answer isn’t less spending, it’s better spending for strategies that align with how the manufacturing buyer makes decisions.
