The Importance of Digital Marketing for Engineering Firms

Digital marketing for engineering firms sounds straightforward, but doesn’t your engineering venture face unique challenges that other industries don’t seem to have? Maybe it’s the endless technical lingo that gets lost in translation or the niche you’re serving that’s hard to dumb down. Is your engineering firm’s marketing approach clearly and concisely:

• Communicating your brand’s purpose in a language your target audience understands?
• Hitting all the right keywords for your niche?
• Successfully ranking in search engine results?

If not, you need some help. How do you strike the perfect balance between covering industry-specific topics and using language your customers can connect with? Contractor marketing services like those at Bear North Digital might be able to help you with this delicate balancing act. 

This post deconstructs some common pain points for engineering firms like yours alongside essential marketing solutions to address them. 

Some Common Digital Marketing Challenges Growing Engineering Firms Will Face

Your firm can thrive in the virtual environment, satisfy algorithms, and reach people. All you need to do is overcome a few challenges in your digital marketing approach. A team like Bear North Digital can demystify digital marketing for engineering firms of all sizes, as well as tailor everything to your skills, objectives, and more.

The engineering industry is complex, and its marketing is no different. Whether you streamline architectural designs or transform raw materials into well-developed products, how can you find ways to make related topics sound interesting? If you want to present your services or products as the solution your customers need, getting this right is crucial. 

Let’s use an imaginary corrugated cardboard manufacturer called Quality Corrugation to exemplify these challenges. Some of them may apply to your engineering brand. 

You Have Complicated Products and Services

Per its company name, Quality Corrugation develops chemical solutions that make cardboard boxes last longer and contain heavier loads. They want to reach a new audience, but the untapped customer base thinks a cardboard box is just a cardboard box. 

Similarly, someone who is unfamiliar with your engineering brand might:

• Fail to see your problem-solving capabilities
• Not understand why the technical aspects of your product surpass competitors
• Get confused with the terminology people use to discuss your firm’s solutions

Like Quality Corrugation, you might not know where to start to translate your vast knowledge about the subject into bite-sized snippets your customers understand. 

Your Potential Customers Have Low Awareness

Quality Corrugation notices that it suffers from low brand visibility despite its best efforts to maintain its website and keep social media profiles active. Cardboard corrugation rarely comes up in casual conversation, and there aren’t referrals for companies specializing in quality cardboard. 

Like this fictional company, yours likely caters to a highly specialized niche. While you don’t need your brand to become a household name, leveraging great marketing for engineering firms means that applicable parties recognize you as prominent—a brand that sets the industry standard. 

Your Industry Niche Has Arduous Sales Cycles

When Quality Corrugation attracts new buyers, it must cover the same basic topics over and over again. The average person doesn’t understand what corrugation means. It’s an extensive sales cycle that often wastes time and money. 

Cultivating personal relationships with your clients is fantastic, but worthwhile marketing materials explain the basics for you. If your marketing eliminates some extra steps, your engineering sales reps can focus their skills on people who are actually interested in buying something. 

Your Marketing Experience Is Limited

Like other engineering firms, Quality Corrugation’s marketing strategies must comply with governmental and industry regulations. They don’t have unlimited resources, so all marketing efforts must improve their visibility and lead generation to be worth exploring. 

You need to know that where you place your money will achieve desirable results. For that, you need to know how various marketing tactics work for engineering firms like yours.

How B2B Marketing Fits Into the Solution For Engineering Firms

Digital marketing’s main perks include a lot more tools and advertising avenues than traditional marketing. You have potential marketing real estate on:

• Your website
• Your business listings
• Social media platforms
• Video hosting sites
• Various types of digital ad space

However, the sheer number of possibilities can also overwhelm you or waste resources. 

In our example, Quality Corrugation’s challenges could dissipate with an agency that specializes in digital marketing for engineering firms like Bear North Digital. With this kind of support, the firm could successfully leverage the opportunities it has online. Here’s why the collaboration works:

Most Marketing Efforts Begin in the Search Engine

Like Quality Corrugation, you may know your products and their value but find it challenging to express these things in layman’s terms. If so, you’re probably not getting the high rankings your firm needs on search engines. That’s why any comprehensive digital marketing strategy starts at square one: search engine optimization. 

SEO aims to elevate a website in relevant queries. For example, a potential customer searching for “quality corrugated cardboard products” should discover Quality Corrugation on the first search results page. Tweaking and site improvements may help your website rank within the first three to five organic results so that searchers don’t have to scroll before they see you.

Website Visits Are a Handshake

This step is like making eye contact upon first meeting someone new—clicking the link to your website is akin to a handshake and a formal introduction. After that and upon visiting your website, you want the potential client to learn:

• Your brand name
• Your company’s location
• Your product or service offering

Quality Corrugation’s website might succinctly introduce its products as “dependable, durable, and damage-resistant.” If visitors feel compelled to stay and explore, further scrolling must differentiate the company from its competitors by defining corrugation and its role in quality cardboard products. Of course, the website copy should also satisfy the algorithm using industry-specific keywords in page URLs, product descriptions, and page headings for easy indexing (and higher rankings).

SEO is only the first step to streamlining your online presence. While searchers are more likely to visit your website when your company appears within the first few organic search results, there’s no guarantee they’ll click through. If they do, will they find something worth sticking around for?

Continued Customer Relationships Carry Over Into Social Media

If your engineering website converts new visitors into customers, the relationship might continue on your social media platforms. When it comes to effective marketing for engineering firms, the following platforms offer a well-rounded social media strategy:

• LinkedIn: This platform is optimal for allowing businesses to connect. Its professional environment enables you to publish fresh, relevant content for your followers to read. 
• Facebook: Meta’s Facebook serves as a catch-all for various digital interactions. Like LinkedIn, it supplies ample space for informative posts and discussions.
• YouTube: Sometimes, you must show your audience what your products do rather than tell them. Why not create and post explainers and other informative engineering videos?

What do these platforms have in common? Each is an integral asset to an overall content marketing strategy. If you want to communicate clearly with your followers, you need plenty of copy space. 

Remember, since most engineering solutions are complex, you might require long-form posts or blogs for thorough product explanations. Platforms like X, TikTok, or Pinterest limit your subject matter.

Finally, Your Engineering Firm Can Earn Customer Loyalty

The marketing methods used by engineering or manufacturing firms differ from more commonly discussed products and services. However, they come from the same place: a desire to connect with and communicate with customers. 

Marketing humanizes a brand by helping it meet with its target audience on their level. When potential clients understand your engineering solution and how it betters them or their business, they will continue the relationship with your trusted brand. 

Other Elements of Marketing for Engineering Firms

While a comprehensive marketing strategy reaches the above goals, it should also contribute to other achievements. How could your engineering brand harness the following elements to improve its search ranking and keep attracting new customers for sustained growth?

Engineering Firm Competitor Analysis

Like Quality Corrugation, you might be far from the only company developing and selling cutting-edge cardboard products or something else. In engineering, numerous other companies do the same thing. You have to set yourself apart.

Study a competitor’s tactics, identify their mistakes, and use their triumphs to strengthen your own brand visibility. You could start by answering the following questions about how your competitors position themselves in digital spaces:

• Under which keyword searches do they show up?
• What social media platforms do they use?
• What language do they use to inform readers about pertinent topics?
• Which topics do they touch on throughout their websites and social media posts?
• Do they pay for advertising space?

User Experience for Clients and Visitors

Does your customer base clearly know the next step to take throughout the purchasing journey? 

• It all starts with a website that flows and loads quickly with each click. 
• A clear call to action, like “order now” or “add to cart,” helps, too.
• All links should work flawlessly, helping them to navigate toward the next logical step.

An intuitive template with minimal add-ons and widgets ensures site speed, fluidity, and user-friendliness. 

Engineering Brand Development and Communication

Lastly, a time-tested formula for social media posts and website pages involves the following:

• Introducing a problem or pain point: Quality Corrugation’s target audience struggles to procure cardboard products that don’t disintegrate when wet. This problem leads to wasted or damaged shipments. 
• Expounding upon why that pain point exists: While many moisture-resistant products exist, they cannot withstand becoming soaked in water. 
• Introducing the solution: Quality Corrugation developed water-repellent cardboard products that dry faster when soaked. 
• Discussing why the solution works: A special coating seals the cardboard exterior from excess moisture. The cardboard itself consists of a formula that doesn’t readily retain water to ensure it dries quickly.  
• Directing the reader to solve the problem: Shippers can avoid spoilage and messes by shipping their goods with Quality Corrugation’s fast-drying cardboard products. 

This story-telling approach allows you to identify something that upsets your target audience and position your engineering brand as the ultimate problem solver. Isn’t that what engineers do best?

Streamline Your Engineering Firm’s Journey With Bear North Digital

Bear North Digital knows where digital marketing for engineering firms can take your brand. If you’d like to connect, let us assist your engineering company with organic growth, ad targeting, and search engine optimization. For a comprehensive strategy from a team that helps you reach your goals, schedule an introductory call today!