As an engineering firm, perhaps you’re looking for ways to bolster your online marketing strategy because you’re finding your tactics ineffective towards connecting with your audience and generating consistent results. You’re struggling in capturing quality leads from your campaigns, engagement with your social followers and list, and not showing up in the search engines.
It’s possible that as an engineer, you’re making significant marketing blunders that’s preventing you from achieving goals from your online efforts. The good news is we’ve outlined these common mistakes and also shared ways on how to avoid and correct the error.
See if any of the following mistakes resonate with your tactics…then take the necessary action to get on track in your inbound marketing strategy:
#1 Unclear Value Proposition
With only 8 seconds to capture people’s attention, it’s vital that your website clearly states how you can help your audience and what makes you different than your competitors. What gives you that slight edge? What value do you bring that separates you from other engineering firms? Most websites do not convey this information and leave visitors searching throughout their website to get an overall glimpse of what your brand is about.
How to Avoid:
The best practice for your value proposition is to quickly and effectively communicate why website visitors should choose you. Readers should be able to see your value proposition above the fold on your home page to avoid having to scroll or click around.
#2 Minimal Usage of Landing Pages
Landing pages are a critical element to your online marketing strategy. It’s what captures your visitors contact details to build your email list. Your subscriber list is the lifeline to your business. The more quality leads you generate, the more (and better) opportunities for closing deals.
The mishap occurs when you’re promoting a link that leads to your homepage versus a landing page. You see, landing pages are specific, have clear call-to-actions, and get visitors to take action…which is the ultimate goal. It has a unique goal of capturing leads, whereas your homepage simply informs. If you want grow your subscribers, leverage landing pages.
How to Avoid:
Create useful content offers (more on this later) that entices visitors to opt-in when clicking on your landing page. Be sure that this page promotes one offer to keep it focused. You can have as many specific landing pages as needed for your different campaigns.
#3 Not Leveraging a Blogging Platform
The benefits to having a business blog are highly compelling when you consider the exposure, leads, and sales generated from a strong blogging strategy. In fact, companies who blog receive 97% more links to their website (Source: Hubspot). They also get 126% more lead growth than small businesses that choose not to blog and are 13 times morelikely to drive positive ROI.
Unfortunately, most engineering firms neglect implementing a consistent blogging schedule where they’re continually sharing their expertise and offering solutions to their market.
How to Avoid:
Blog, blog, and blog some more. Blogging is an ideal platform to showcasing your brand’s personality, connecting with your audience, and ranking organically in the search engines to be found on Google. Perform a keyword search for long-tail phrases that your audience is actively using and build blog topics around that. Long-form content works great in the search engines so strive to publish articles that delve deep into the subject matter for in-depth understanding and to improve SEO ranking. Finally, leverage images to enrich website experience and to keep readers engaged in your content.
#4 Ineffective Content Marketing Strategy
Research from Engineering.com reveals that engineers are twice as likely to refer to a digital publication or website to gather information versus a print publication. However,many engineering websites do not provide educational content (i.e. whitepapers, eGuides, eBooks, how-to videos, webinars) that appeals to their audience who are researching to glean key information and insight into certain projects.
Rather, there are visuals that illustrate examples of their work (i.e. abridge, road, or a building) along with the project name. This content provides little value as it does not answer common questions prospects tend to have, give in-depth details about the project, nor show measurements of success.
How to Avoid:
In addition to creating content such as public relations information like news and press releases, publish different types of content that addresses frequent inquiries, provides thorough details, and offers solutions to problems. The more content your publish like this, the more you will position your brand as a thought leader in your industry.
#5 Websites Are Not Mobile Friendly
Did you know that Google penalizes websites in mobile search who are not mobile-friendly…and favor those who are (Source: The Wall Street Journal)? With more peopleusing their mobile device over desktops, not having a mobile-ready website will hurt your website presence and exposure. If you desire to rank well in Google, Bing, and Yahoo, having a mobile responsive website is a must!
How to Avoid:
Take the steps necessary to ensure your website is mobile ready to maximize on mobile and to not miss your place in the search engines.
#6 Improper Use of Social Media
Consumers are looking to engage with their favorite brands on social media. They want to connect while staying plugged into industry related news. Many engineering social media campaigns are self-promotional, neglecting to draw their audiences in with compelling,social content that fosters engagement (i.e. comments, likes, and shares). The problem with solely utilizing social media platforms for adverting is that followers will become numb to this content, eventually ignoring it altogether or simply choosing to unfollow…making these campaigns ineffective.
Additionally, although LinkedIn is the preferred social network for engineers (as it’s a great channel for B2B brands), there are many ways to leverage the other platforms to build relationships with prospective buyers.
How to Avoid:
The good news is that regardless of how your social presence has been in the past, there are ways to better and bolster your strategy to build responsiveness with your content. Here are a few strong tips to getting it done:
- Have a clear understanding of your target audience; this way all of your social content from sharing videos, blog posts, and curated content align with their interests
- Use a variety of content like live-social videos, infographics, quality images, and even surveys to boost engagement
- Personally inbox followers to initiate conversation; discover what their most pressing questions are and how you can show that you’re the brand for their upcoming projects
- Curating content is a winning tactic to feed your audience relevant news while being looked at as the “go to source” in your niche
#7 Lack of Marketing and Sales Automation
One of the common reasons why various engineering firms do not elicit any type of marketing and sales automation is due to “sticking to the way it’s always been done.” The challenge with this philosophy is that we’re in an ever-changing technological era where digital life takes precedence over old-antiquated marketing ploys.
Engineering.com revealed that engineers do not want to speak to sales and marketing representatives until midway or later in their buying journey. Having marketing and sales automation processes in place is vital to marketing and selling effectively in today’s market.
How to Avoid:
Explore proven marketing automation tools like Hubspot, Marketo, or Pardot to discover which platform works best for your brand and accomplishing chief objectives.
Conclusion
The first step towards change is awareness. By being clear of the mistakes you’re making inyour marketing strategy, now you can move forward in making the required adjustments towards improvement and growth. Implement the tactics outlined in this guide and you’ll experience a difference in your follower engagement, website exposure in search ranking, and an increase in leads to build your sales funnel.
To learn more about how to avoid these common marketing mistakes and get your inbound strategy on the right track, give us a call or send us a note today at Small Dog Creative 661-702-1310!
{{cta(‘6760fdfd-f622-4d1f-9004-b3aa7acfa355’)}}
