SEO Lead Generation for Manufacturers: Ignite the Sales Funnel & Drive Conversions

When executed effectively, manufacturers should employ a marketing system that not only generates and nurtures leads and clients, but also transforms them into enthusiastic advocates of their products, services, and brand.

In this article, we’re going to focus on the Lead Generation part of that system. So let’s dive right in, shall we?

Types of Lead Generation

Lead generation is the strategic process of attracting, engaging, and converting potential customers into qualified leads to drive growth and expand their industrial client base. This approach has nuances from industry to industry, but for the most part, manufacturers should be no different.

Common lead-generation tactics include:

• SEO lead generation
• Social Media
• Paid Advertising
• Paid Social Media
• Email marketing

I’ve extensively covered these topics before. This article will delve into the subtle nuances that elevate those lead generation approaches to the next level.

I often say this to my clients: “What if you win? What if I could flip a switch and transform your visibility overnight? When visitors reach your website or view your marketing materials, what will they see?” If you don’t have the elements discussed below organized, your potential clients might visit your website and bounce, leaving you with no chance for a second opportunity.

Let me cut to the chase. Don’t screw this up.

Mastering the Art of Preparing for SEO Lead Generation Success

Set up Goals and KPIs

Goals are defined objectives to guide efforts, while Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are metrics used to measure the effectiveness of actions taken to achieve those goals; the difference lies in goals outlining desired outcomes and KPIs evaluating the success of strategies employed.

You have to know your goals inside and out, and you have to review them often. Even better, have a set of rewards when you reach your goals and consequences when you miss. These don’t have to be as extreme as winning the company car for success or cutting off your pinky for failure. However, come up with tangible and realistic ways to motivate your organization to be goal-centric.

Increase brand awareness

So how do you do that? Well, the first thing you need to do is get very familiar with your brand’s story. Every company has a story, and every product and service has a story as well.

If you don’t have one, there’s a good chance you’ll end up being just like everyone else. And companies that are just like everyone else are commonly invisible.

We help our clients walk through a strategy called Building a Story Brand, which gained fame through a book by Donald Miller.

Next, we advise that you work with a branding agency (I might know one; they sound like Farotech) to go through a branding strategy. This process guides your organization through a variety of exercises that flesh out your messaging, tone, target audience, and how to deliver the right message to the right potential client at the right time.

Improve lead quality:

Wait, what? How can I improve lead quality if I haven’t even started any lead generation yet?

Well, the #1 way to increase quality is to get crystal clear on your ideal client.

If you lack precise knowledge of your target market and your ideal buyer personas, you may attract clients who merely pay the bills but won’t contribute to the growth of your expertise and thought leadership.

When you offer the right services to the right clients, it’s always a win-win situation.

Knowing exactly who you want as a client is the first step in finding them. I’ve worked with numerous companies that overlooked this step, including our agency. And when we realize we are off track, we take a step back and we constantly challenge ourselves to evaluate and re-evaluate to get this aspect right.

Enhance customer engagement:

Marketing and SEO lead generation revolves around engagement, attracting potential clients to your products and services, and measuring their level of interaction. It’s crucial to gauge their frequency of return, resonance with your message, and, ultimately, their conversion rate (and the holy grail: referrals). While it may not be rocket science, lacking an understanding of how engagement works can lead to significant trouble.

That’s why it’s essential to implement marketing automation tools like HubSpot. With HubSpot, you can develop a lead-scoring strategy that tracks and monitors every interaction with your marketing.

Not all engagement holds the same value, so incorporating a rubric into your lead-scoring strategy is important. For instance, visiting the product page may earn 20 points, watching a video may yield +30 points, and navigating to the pricing or contact us page could add 50 points. Providing this lead intelligence to your sales team is invaluable.

Optimize Conversion Rates:

One of the biggest challenges we see when working with clients is RAM – Random Acts of Marketing. Organizations that come to us, struggling to get results, and they feel like they are stuck. But they aren’t stuck, they just have a bad habit of creating new and exciting marketing initiative. But one day you wake up and realize your hard work never compounded. It sucks. And it happens all the time.

Here’s the thing: If you’re not optimizing for conversion rates, you’re probably not on the right track. It probably means you are doing RAM. You see, RAM makes it impossible to measure marketing results in an apples-to-apples kind of way. It’s like comparing apples to oranges.

But if you can break free from RAM and develop a comprehensive digital marketing strategy with consistent, trackable deliverables, you’ll start to discover trends and patterns through analytics.

Once you understand these metrics consistently, you can make tweaks through A/B testing or multivariate testing. And guess what? A 5 to 10% improvement in different campaign areas adds up to big results.

So, ditch the RAM, and focus on building a system that generates, nurtures, and converts leads, and watch your marketing efforts soar.

Taking the First Step

I once had an employee who stopped working for us and started his own wellness and personal training business. One day, I asked him what diet works best. He said that, for the most part, all diets work, but people don’t stick to them. It’s not the diet that is broken; it’s the dieter.

The same principle applies to generating leads. There are numerous effective lead generation services and strategies, but most manufacturing companies fail to prepare effectively for lead generation. When it doesn’t work, they often blame the strategy or the agency that developed it. However, if they take a step back, eliminate random acts of marketing, and focus on the preparation steps mentioned in this article, I promise they will achieve far better results.

If your organization feels stuck and you’ve tried everything in terms of SEO lead generation, and you just feel like you can’t get to the next level, please reach out to us. We’d love to help you work through this and learn how to generate leads. Here’s a link to the calendar that you can use to speak to one of our partner growth specialists.