5 Powerful Manufacturing Marketing Trends for 2022

Companies in the manufacturing industry understand the necessity of digital marketing strategies to reach and retain customers and contribute to the success of their businesses. The problem is that with a strong marketing team, it can be easier to successfully find the time or resources necessary to use marketing for manufacturing.

Sparks and a drill bit

One issue for industrial companies is keeping up with marketing trends in an ever-changing landscape. Here are five manufacturing marketing trends to consider in your b2b marketing efforts to reach current customers, potential customers, and prospective buyers.

Content Marketing

One of the biggest online marketing trends is using content marketing strategies - a type of inbound marketing - creating and distributing relevant content to inform, educate, and engage – not necessarily selling to potential clients.

Content marketing is a significant part of every company's marketing strategy today. From blogs to social media posts, content marketing helps businesses build brand awareness, increase sales and boost customer loyalty.

Content marketing is creating and distributing relevant, valuable, consistent, and authentic information to attract, acquire, engage, and convert target audiences through multiple channels.

Companies use content marketing to create a positive image and provide helpful information to potential customers. They also use content marketing to generate leads, promote sales, and improve customer service.

You can build trust and credibility through content marketing by creating valuable and helpful content for your target audience or customer.

How effective is b2b content marketing?

According to, content marketing "costs 62% less than other marketing and generates about three times as many leads per dollar spent." Demand Metric

While content marketing is beneficial, its adoption has been slower in the industrial and manufacturing sector.

According to the (CMI), content marketing has some adoption hurdles in the manufacturing and industrial markets. When manufacturing organizations were asked about challenges in getting their organization to understand content marketing, they identified many, including Content Marketing Institute

• 51% - Creating valuable content instead of sales-oriented content

• 51% - Overcoming traditional marketing and sales mindset

• 50% - Accessing subject matter experts to create content

• 41% - Creating content that appeals to multi-level roles within the target audience

Still, in the larger b2b marketing space, content marketing is recognized as a powerful digital marketing tool. According to Marketing Charts, "52% of buyers say they are more likely to buy from a vendor after reading its content." Your customers want content, and they want it from you.

What types of content work well in content marketing for manufacturers?

• Blogs

• White papers

• Success Stories

• Case Studies

• Infographics

• Webinars

• Videos

• Social Media Content

Of these, video is considered the top-performing content for b2b content marketing, followed by blogs, success stories, and case studies.

(from Semrush)

How do manufacturing companies use content marketing?

Manufacturing businesses can use various types of content to build a content strategy to boost organic traffic and attract prospective clients. You'll locate your target market and assign buyer personas when developing your industrial marketing strategy. When doing that, you'll identify where in the purchase process your ideal customer is, and you can create content that meets them at their specific point in the marketing funnel - awareness, consideration, conversion, or customer retention.

What are some content marketing ideas for manufacturing companies? Educational content is a great place to start, such as industry topics on blogs, plant issues in case studies, and employee highlights on social media - make sure your digital marketing efforts using content align with the overall business goals and SEO efforts.

Also, according to CMI, who asked manufacturing business professionals about content marketing success, "88% say they used content marketing successfully to create brand awareness, only 67% use it to build credibility/trust, and 63% to educate the audience."

Check out the entire Content Marketing Institute report," for even more insight into how content marketing can benefit manufacturing companies. Manufacturing Content Marketing: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends

Social Media Marketing

By now, you are likely well acquainted with social media marketing. You, and your ideal customer, might even use it every day. Manufacturing and Industrial companies use social media marketing to build brand awareness, drive traffic to their website, and increase consideration among their target market. In addition, it can also be a robust customer support method.

In my experience, smaller manufacturing companies were hesitant to start using social media marketing to reach customers. However, once they did, they understood the value it can create and the support it can lend to customer relationships and the sales cycle.

How effective is b2b social media marketing?

According to Entrepreneur.com, "as of 2018, nearly 97 percent of all Fortune 500 enterprises use at least one social media platform to promote their initiatives and foster positive communication with stakeholders."

Knowing that as of 2021, According to Pew Research, 72% of Americans use social media, it makes you wonder about the 3% of companies not using it to reach their customers. 72% of Americans

Conversational Marketing

B2B companies can use conversational marketing as a dialogue-focused way to address your customer's immediate needs on their schedule. It's one-on-one, personalized, and compelling and enhances the customer experience by engaging your prospective buyers in real time.

HubSpot says, "Modern consumers want easy-to-navigate, truthful information. They want to engage with your business on their terms. They want their problems to be solved quickly and completely." This is where conversational marketing can be a game-changer.

According to, "Conversational Marketing is a method of engaging with website visitors and converting leads via dialogue-driven activities. This inbound marketing style focuses on consumer interactions, not simply one-way transmission by the brand." Whisbi.

Some examples of conversational marketing chatbots on your website or live chat, shopping through Instagram DM, and automated messages on social media. Manufacturers can use conversational marketing to engage new leads, support products or services, and increase customer satisfaction.

Marketing Automation

Today's manufacturing companies are leaner and faster and need to count every second. Industrial marketers who Automate some of their marketing tasks go a long way in helping them meet their goals.

What is marketing automation?

"Marketing automation is a technology that automatically manages marketing processes and multifunctional campaigns across multiple channels." - Salesforce.

What marketing tasks can manufacturing companies automate?

• Email Marketing Campaigns

• Lead Generation & Management

• Social Media Management & Engagement

• Analytics

Video Marketing

This trend overlaps with a few we've already mentioned – content marketing, social media marketing, and even automation. Video marketing has become a powerhouse for manufacturing marketers and can be a significant driver of engagement and growth for manufacturing marketing.

How powerful of a tool is video for marketing? According to, "86% of businesses use video as a marketing tool, 94% of marketers say video has helped them increase understanding of a product or service, and 86% of marketers say video has helped them generate leads." - Wyzowl.

In my experience, some manufacturing companies have felt that their video material could be more exciting and engaging for social media or other marketing. However, I explained that their content is ideal for their ideal customer, who would be both interested and engaged with videos explaining capabilities, processes, and more. Think of it this way - people from the manufacturing sector want to see videos from the manufacturing industry.

Are you using any of the trends mentioned to stay ahead? What has your experience been?

Get more insight into how digital marketing can help your business by following Dash + James on Instagram & Facebook.