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SLDMarketing

Marketing for manufacturing and engineering

Marketing that makes technical businesses easy to buy from

Manufacturers rarely have a quality problem. They have a visibility problem, and a translation problem. I fix both, without turning your product into marketing fluff.

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If your buyer cannot tell what you make, price becomes the only conversation.

Sarah Ward, Chartered Marketer, explaining a marketing plan to a manufacturing client

Why manufacturing marketing goes wrong

Technical businesses are usually excellent at explaining themselves to each other and poor at explaining themselves to a buyer. The website lists capabilities rather than answering the question the buyer came with, and the specification that took years to perfect is described in four words on a page nobody reaches.

The second problem is patience. Industrial sales cycles are long, relationship led and often run through distributors or specifiers. Marketing gets judged on a monthly enquiry count it was never going to move, so it gets cut, and the pipeline thins out eighteen months later.

I work on the parts that compound. Clear positioning against the firms you lose tenders to, content that answers real technical questions, and search visibility so you are found at the point somebody is specifying. Then a measurement setup honest enough to survive a long cycle.

From £950

A marketing audit is the usual starting point. Strategy and planning work starts at £1,250, and ongoing senior support is charged by the day.

See how I price everything

Where I focus with manufacturers

  • Positioning against the firms you lose to

    What you do that they do not, said in a way a procurement lead can repeat internally.

  • Technical content that a buyer can use

    Specification guides, application notes, comparison pages and case studies that do the qualifying for you.

  • Search visibility for what you actually make

    Product, capability and application pages built around the terms specifiers and buyers really search.

  • Distributor and specifier marketing

    Two audiences, two messages. Making you easy to sell, and making the end user ask for you by name.

  • Sales and marketing that agree

    Shared definitions of a good lead, and material the sales team will genuinely use in a tender.

  • Measurement that suits a long cycle

    Tracking enquiry quality and pipeline influence, not just monthly form fills.

  • Exhibitions and print that earn their cost

    Stand messaging, follow up and the brochures and case study material that carry the weight afterwards.

  • LinkedIn where your buyers actually are

    A steady, credible presence rather than factory photos with no message attached.

★★★★★

Thanks for designing the SMP Annual. Whenever we present this to a new client, they always tell us how impressive it is. Clients absolutely love it.
SMP Group

You might also want

SMP Group case study annual

Print work for a large format manufacturer, used in pitches, tenders and at exhibitions.

How to market an engineering company

The full process: translating capability into buyer language and being found by specifiers.

A marketing strategy for manufacturers

How to build a plan that survives a long sales cycle and a busy quarter.

Common questions

Making something good that nobody can find?

Tell me what you manufacture and who specifies it, and I will tell you where the quickest gains are likely to be.

Book a discovery call