B2B customers expect omnichannel in 2022.
They regularly use 10 or more channels with dealing, interacting and buying from B2B businesses.
And the manufacturing industry is catching on.
87% of B2B suppliers consider omnichannel marketing to be a top priority when dealing with their customers.
That’s because most of them (94%) have experienced the strategy to be a lot more efficient than any other strategies they’ve used pre-pandemic.
It’s the new normal, and the new way of meeting the customer in the channel of their choice: Online, offline or digital self-service.
Omnichannel marketing is fast becoming the norm for many industries like retail and life sciences. Which is not a surprise, considering the strategy is exceptional when it comes to boosting purchase frequency (250% higher).
Omnichannel customers buy more, too.
While omnichannel customers represent only 7% of all customers, they generate 27% of all sales!
These kinds of numbers are hard to ignore.
Now is the time for manufacturers to go omnichannel!
In this article, we’re discussing why the manufacturing industry should implement an omnichannel marketing strategy, and how DAM can help you succeed.
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TABLE OF CONTENS
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How consumers are driving omnichannel demand
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3 marketing challenges facing manufacturers today
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3 reasons why manufacturers need omnichannel marketing
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1. Keep up with customers and attract new business
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2. Help clear up complex product portfolios
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3. Ensure brand consistency across the various routes to market
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Conclusion
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3 marketing challenges facing the manufacturing industry
Manufacturers typically deal with different types of challenges when it comes to marketing, such as:
> No or little understanding of customer data, or their purchasing cues,
> Content is lacking in quality,
> Marketing teams don’t have the updated tools and technology to thrive in the digital landscape.
Today, more than half of B2B customers are looking up information themselves online before making a purchasing decision.
And when you look at that digital buyer journey as a whole, 70% of it has mostly been completed before they get in contact with someone in sales.
So that means that manufacturer marketing executives who still hold on to more traditional attempts at marketing (i.e. in-person trade shows) only have 30% of the buying process to make an impression.
At that stage, it might be too late.
You need to be visible and communicate with buyers long before they contact a supplier.
That’s where a Digital Asset Management platform can help you.
Digital Asset Management (DAM) helps companies deliver controlled assets seamlessly and efficiently across multiple channels – the core of omnichannel marketing.
Let’s take a closer look at each challenge and how DAM can solve it.
3 reasons why manufacturers should go omnichannel
1. Keep up with customers and attract new business
All customers nowadays, no matter the industry, are digital.
But the manufacturing industry is lagging behind when it comes to marketing.
To grow their business, manufacturers count on referrals, partnership deals or pure loyalty for more sales, but today – they need to connect with customers through new types of marketing (after all, when people make business purchases, 90% use online search).
Omnichannel strategies can tie both physical experiences (in the manufacturing industry this will typically involve trade shows, advertising campaigns in more controlled publications, or offices) and digital experiences together.
This results in more customers getting a seamless (and improved) brand and product experience.
How does DAM help?
In order to go omnichannel and communicate efficiently with the typical digital customer, you need to provide consistent, personalized and customized experiences.
A DAM will help you produce, control, and distribute all the digital content you need for virtual product demonstrations and your omnichannel strategy.
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How?
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It brings all your digital content together in one place – such as product images, packaging material and brochures – minimizing the risk of losing them or not finding them in time (because they’re located on different computers or drives).
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It improves version control as it is a valuable archive by having all the right, updated product information you need for your omnichannel strategy.
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It’s fundamental that manufacturers are able to deliver customized and personalized experiences in order to differentiate themselves from the competition, and be relevant to their customers.
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A DAM facilitates more efficient:
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Content personalization and creation (through content analytics & insights – see what performs the best content-wise)
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Content management (same approved access for all users of the DAM)
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Device and channel-agnostic content distribution (DAM ensures the right content hits the right digital channel simultaneously).
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DAM helps deliver information and content to every customer in their preferred language, formatting, and in ways that meet their unique needs.
The result?
You end up with a consistent experience of your content that meets the customer where they’re at – instead of scrambling to make an impression at the very end of their buyer journey.
2. Help clear up complex product portfolios
Enterprise manufacturing companies have complex product portfolios, as well as many different routes-to-market. If you’re a global leader, you will also have a dispersed geographic presence, including many offices and customer endpoints or channels.
This leads to complexity (in terms of products and supply chains).
Omnichannel strategies can help clarify the complicated supply chains. This is because it makes the experience easier for the consumer, through more unification and consistency across all platforms and channels.
And simplicity in sales processes is key, as it’s shown to have a 20% increase on sales, especially for companies within the automotive industry.
How does DAM help?
A DAM will show you exactly which assets are used the most and which assets perform the best – helping you see what parts of your campaign resonates the most with your customer.
From these insights, you can much more easily make decisions about how to simplify the experience and the buying process for your customers.
In addition to simplifying the process, omnichannel is also all about the unification of the customer experience. If that’s your goal, DAM can help you streamline content and campaigns together.
It easily lets you automate the tagging of content with relevant metadata which enables fast search. In addition, it helps you automatically categorize the different assets you have and to which product group, campaign or channel they belong to.
By streamlining the workflows of how users in a company deploy content, it’s much easier to simplify the more complex supply chain processes.
This is partly due to more understanding about which assets (and which information) matter to your customers, and partly due to saving more time.
3. Ensure brand consistency across the various routes to market
Omnichannel marketing can also help boost brand consistency across all the routes manufacturers sell their products.
Think about all the routes to market involved in the manufacturing industry:
It requires uniformity in the experience to sales teams, e-commerce, digital marketing, distributor, wholesalers, marketplaces, dealer network, and retailers.
And, think of all the collaboration with retailers, buyers and distributors manufacturers deal with on a daily basis. It’s highly important that they get a consistent message in order to ensure they have the most up to date marketing content and product information.
Otherwise, you end up with an inconsistent brand identity and position across borders.
How does DAM help?
As DAM is a secure archive helping you manage digital assets and collateral, you’re sure that only the right product images, information and in general collateral is distributed. No more manual work process and recreating content that already exists.
By integrating PIM and DAM, manufacturers can categorize assets by:
> Product ID
> SKU’s
> Channel
…to name a few, which makes it highly efficient at not only strengthening a brand’s content operations and the distribution channels, but also enhancing the brand itself.
Combining DAM and PIM for omnichannel success
As a modern marketer, you need to both be able to create, generate and optimize great content, and then deliver it to your customers in an efficient and effective way. Whether it’s about attracting new customers, providing updated product information or best-in-class service and support, it’s all part of delivering great customer experiences.
Manufacturers operating across many different markets (like selling to both wholesalers or distributors) means multiple campaigns, and it’s crucial that the assets used in these campaigns are approved.
A single source means there’s only one truth of what brand assets matter, which helps manufacturers tell the right story whether it’s to distributors or end sellers.
Why Sennheiser chose Digizuite DAM
Sennheiser, the manufacturer of headphones, microphones, speakers and wireless transmission systems, implemented Digizuite DAM for better content coordination.
The key reason?
Keeping up with the demands and expectations of modern-day consumers.
“We want to harness the advantages of a modern and up-to-date tech stack so that we can not only improve the online customer experience, but also enable our subsidiaries and partners with the right content at their fingertips” Bastian Weiss, Digital Manager at Sennheiser said.
Another benefit in choosing Digizuite is the native-like integration with Optimizely.
They were able to boost their content production and distribution across multiple channels, by integrating with Optimizely:
“This is important for us as we aim to create automated and smooth content management processes with one source of truth and thereby eliminate inefficient and manual processes.”
Conclusion
Omnichannel marketing is here to stay – with good reason.
It’s exceptional at engaging customers across platforms and touchpoints, and it brings increased revenue to all kinds of B2B companies out there.
In particular, the manufacturing industry can greatly benefit from omnichannel as the strategy can help them:
> Always stay toe-to-toe with their customers and their needs
> Help clear up complex products and portfolios
> Ensure brand consistency across different routes to market
But what’s the easiest way to go omnichannel, without having to go through the difficult trenches of adopting the strategy?
Digital asset management tools can help industries like manufacturers to streamline the way they create and deliver their content. Efficient distribution of the right content is key when it comes to answering buyer’s questions and solving their needs.
Want to know how KeyShot can support your omnichannel strategy?
Book a call with one of our experts today.
