February 2022

Brand image is the first impression that clients receive of your company and has a great deal of influence on your brand’s overall market perception.

Market perception is essentially the overall consumer attitude towards your brand, taking into consideration the products, service experience, and even how your company fares compared to your competitors.

Brand image and market perception work hand in hand with one another. Your brand image is not only the first impression of your company that the market receives, it also includes the lasting values and practices that support your overall brand. The market perception of your brand can make or break your business’s growth, and when utilized properly, it can attract both new and repeat customers.

Build Your Brand Image

Building your brand image requires a deep dive into exactly who your audience is, how you want them to perceive you, as well as how you plan to set your brand apart from the rest of the industry. This can be done in a variety of ways, and one of the best steps to starting is by contacting a respected branding agency. From there, a branding agency can help you set a plan by asking the right questions during collaborative meetings. This will allow them to use their expertise to construct a branding strategy that will boost your business.

Tell Your Story

The first place to start when determining your brand image is the “buyer persona,” which is how you tailor your messaging and tone to appeal to your desired buyers. The buyer persona is not a fixed identity and will continuously evolve along with your company. The evolution of the buyer persona is driven by advancing technology and products available in modern day markets, and it pushes your company to stay ahead of the competition. Along with this, you will need to determine your brand “voice,” which is essentially the overall tone or attitude of your company. There are a few key details of your brand voice that can make or break its effectiveness, including how consistently it is used across your writing and how distinct it is to your brand compared to industry competitors. When used correctly, your brand voice makes your brand instantly distinguishable from others by being unique and exclusive to you.

Aside from the buyer persona and the brand voice you use to interact with your audience directly, building your brand story ties the details of your brand image into a nice, presentable package for consumers. Your brand story can range in anything from the origin story of your business to the day-to-day business operations, but one of the most impactful forms of brand storytelling is customer experience storytelling. Customer experience storytelling can boost your brand, because it provides reassurance and supporting evidence to potential clients who are determining whether your brand is right for them. It is one thing to assure potential and even returning customers that your business is the leader in the industry, but it’s another thing to have your satisfied customers reassure them of this. When you support your brand story with customer stories, the trust levels with your audience rise exponentially. Hearing exactly how your brand has helped other customers with similar issues to their own helps potential customers determine whether or not you are right for them. There is an inherit level of trust among consumers, so having that support boosts the overall trust in your brand.

Get Your Brand Noticed

If these components to building your brand image are not enough, you must also establish an overall brand awareness strategy in order to effectively remain relevant to your market. This is essentially your strategy on how you are going to make sure that your target audience stays aware of your brand and its services. Depending on your company, and your goals, this can be done via organic channels which include:

Social media posts
Content marketing
Display advertising
SEO
Email marketing

Organic channels of brand awareness are more information based, often including promotions or prompts to learn more, and generally pass on a bit more information with your audience than a simple advertisement. An alternative method to creating brand awareness is through paid channels which involve paid ads on display platforms – like Google, Facebook, Pinterest, etc. The purpose of these methods is to intermittently remind your audience of your brand’s presence, and in order for them to be successful, your brand must also understand how to effectively collect the data it receives from these strategies and then use that data to inform brand image improvements.

Although this is a form of audience engagement, it should not be the only type of brand exposure your audience receives. Using brand awareness tactics may draw consumers in, but the key to getting their business and retaining it is through consistent engagement. Any company can run ads and schedule social media posts, but not everyone can maintain clear and open communication pathways with their customers. Connecting with your audience in real time can boost their perception of your brand and will make them feel comfortable knowing that your company is open and approachable, and also receptive to customer comments and feedback. This can be done in a myriad of ways such as:

Responding to social media comments
Responding to reviews – good and bad
Offering real-time messaging features for customer service

When you make the effort to continually engage customers, they are more likely to not only do business with you in the first place, but are also more likely to return with additional business and refer others. By regularly engaging your customers through consistent responses and communication, you are also able to gather constructive feedback on your brand and where customers feel you do well and where they feel you could improve.

By establishing your brand image through careful internal reflection and consumer criticism, with help from an experienced branding agency, your brand will have a stable foundation under it to support growth. The brand image is so much more than just its outward appearance, it ultimately dictates how the market perceives your business.

Why Market Perception is Important

As noted, market perception is how your audience or industry views your company both compared to the competition, and standing alone. This perception is ever evolving and relies heavily on how solid of a foundation your brand image provides. When you have a strong foundational brand, you are already presenting yourself as a cohesive, straight-forward business and are helping to take out the “guess work” clients must otherwise do to understand what your brand is all about. Market perception can have a major influence on your business, because it can influence potential customers’ opinions of your company before they even have a chance to experience your brand for themselves. If your brand has little to no recognition within your industry, chances are it is not going to be a frontrunner when it comes to decision making time for clients. However, if your brand has a known market presence, clients are more likely to be attracted and will be more inclined to, at the very least, inquire to know more.

Market perception can be gauged through a variety of ways, but some of the easiest methods to gather data about how the market perceives your business are the same methods used to establish your brand image. These two concepts go hand in hand across the board for any business, and when used correctly, can pose a great advantage to staying ahead of the competition when it comes to marketing your company.

The first step to determining how your brand is perceived by the market is by establishing brand awareness. As you know brand awareness is what drives and maintains customer interest and traffic. Understanding how effective your brand awareness strategies are is crucial to being able to productively alter and change them and foster positive market perceptions. If you have unsuccessful branding awareness campaigns, then there will be little to no market perception data available because your brand is not getting enough exposure to your audience. On the flip side of this, there is also a such thing as too much brand awareness which can result from having too broad of a target audience to the point where the market perception data is not accurate due to the saturation of audiences which are not close matches to your brand’s specific “buyer persona.”

When determining the “buyer persona” while establishing your brand image, you are also establishing the audience from which you will gather market perception feedback. Your audience is your market, and targeting the correct buyers is crucial to getting an accurate understanding of where you stand when it comes to the competition. If you are targeting your brand image towards the wrong audience, it is more likely to be perceived in a less favorable light than it would be when targeting a more accurate, specific set of buyers. If your audience is not interested in your industry in the first place, then they are unlikely to engage with any sort of branding efforts you are putting forth, thus producing a negative market perception.

What This Means for Businesses

Brand image and market perception co-exist in the business branding world, and both are used to inform one another and the overall brand as a whole. Without a clear, distinct brand image, there is no ability to gather market perception data. Without market perception data, there is no seamless way to inform branding image changes that have the goal of influencing the overall consumer market’s opinion towards your brand. Market perception will tell you how successful your branding image is and show you where improvements can be made to boost your business.

Regardless of where your business is when it comes to brand image, there is always something to be gained from staying up to date on the trends and changes going on within your industry. Every consumer is constantly looking for the highest quality service, product, and experience for the best price, which is why it is important to keep up when it comes to your brand. Being able to represent your brand in a cohesive, consistent manner makes your brand appear professional, polished, and successful to your consumers. Every business has a brand image, regardless of whether it was intentionally crafted or just the result of day-to-day operations and decisions. Along with a brand image, every brand also has a distinct market perception of their business. The two are interconnected, and if you want to improve your brand’s market perception, then you must first work on your overall brand image. Likewise, if you want to improve your brand’s image, you must first consult it’s overall market perception.

The best way to determine the right course of action for your business is to address both your brand image and how the market perceives it is by contacting an experienced branding agency. An expert such as those on the Millennium Agency team will be able to accurately determine what the overall perception of your brand is at that given time, and from there they can custom tailor a brand image strategy that will not only increase how well the market perceives you, but will also attract traffic and grow your business. Ignoring your brand’s market perception and neglecting your brand image can result in your business falling back into the shadows. The sooner you establish your brand image, the sooner your market perception becomes stable before improving exponentially.

About Millennium Agency      

Millennium Agency is a national, award-winning boutique branding, messaging and strategy marketing firm for the B2B technology and manufacturing sectors. A top-led women-owned business, we take your brand and vision seriously and build a strategy that helps drive brand success. Our expert team unites creative branding, storytelling and data analytics to accelerate your business growth. With offices in Boston and New Hampshire, and a worldwide presence, the professionals at Millennium Agency would like to learn more about your business. 

The manufacturing industry may seem straightforward and mundane, when in reality it is one of the most important industries in maintaining global and local economies and the overall socio-economic functions in every community. As a core sector of the economy, manufacturers are tasked with finding ways to adapt and improve their business without getting lost among the countless marketing and advertising methods being used. The key to a successful manufacturing marketing plan is hiring a branding agency that is experienced, knows the latest trends in manufacturing marketing, and understands the ins and outs of the manufacturing industry as a whole. An experienced marketing company has a detailed understanding of the niche audiences that manufacturing businesses entertain, which is crucial because every type of manufacturer has a different, yet specific audience which is not always easily identifiable.

With this in mind, there are five hot trends in manufacturing marketing right now that have risen to popularity as a result of industry strains caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. These are the key sectors to keep a close eye on while marketing and advertising a manufacturing brand in order to maximize growth.

1. Product Experience Paired with Digital Components

As the pandemic has continued, companies across every industry have rushed to refine and perfect the digital components of their business to become more technologically advanced. With the inconsistencies in protocols for workplaces across the country, and even the globe, many manufacturers are having to think quickly and establish digital solutions to bridge the gaps caused by these discrepancies. When it comes to manufacturing marketing specifically, digitalization is key to maintaining and growing consumer communications. Technology lends the ability to establish a multitude of communication channels both internally and externally.

The possibilities of technology driven communication are endless:

Directly connect customers with team members who are knowledgeable and able to provide customer service in real-time.

Connect potential customers with clients who have been satisfied by the company’s service.
Communicate goals and expectations among clients with ease.
Communicate any protocols and updates which affect the customer, in real time.

Manufacturers that offer digital components to their products give the impression that their company is modernized and up to date with the latest technology, which is advantageous among consumers looking to buy the most advanced products on the market. Additionally, having a digital component allows for streamlined access to customer support and other resources, improving customer satisfaction by making the information they need readily accessible. Every manufacturing company will have varying goals and purposes for their digital components, which is why it is crucial to connect with a marketing and branding agency that is experienced in marketing for manufacturing companies specifically.

2. Personalize Your Manufacturing Brand

In the past few years, one of the values customers have continued to seek out in a manufacturing company is a meaningful connection, and that desire is only going to increase exponentially as 2022 continues. Although manufacturing operations are established with a specific product in mind, it is also important to make sure that your company is well versed in every aspect of production. Many consumers today are interested in more than just a product, they want a unique experience that leaves them feeling informed and involved in every step of the manufacturing process.

One of the core ways that a personal experience can be established through marketing for the manufacturing industry, is establishing a personalized platform that allows customers to relate to company representatives, as well as internal employee-to-employee communications. This strengthens pre-existing partnerships and attracts new clients.

According to Gartner, companies that opt for a “total experience [are expected] to outperform competitors across key satisfaction metrics over the next three years.” By fostering a “total experience” setting, customers feel supported along every step of the way. Manufacturing companies also benefit from these additional channels of communication which allows for faster problem-solving of obstacles along the way in order to achieve full customer satisfaction every time.

A few additional ways in which your manufacturing company can demonstrate their human side are:

Promoting and writing content focusing on specific team members – staff bios, employee spotlights, and Q&A forums.
Personalized email marketing communications that come from a human rather than a corporation.
“Exclusive” opportunities to connect and learn more from employees directly.

When choosing a manufacturing partner, consumers often take the company’s personal connection into consideration. When you show your audience that you are more than just your products and operations, customers feel more comfortable engaging in business with your firm.

Through the integration of strong customer-first marketing strategies, manufacturing can start to feel more approachable to those who may have little to no experience in the industry. In turn, this increases the marketability of the company because they are making themselves more available to a wider audience.

3. Taking up an Initiative

Going into 2022, activism is a topic of conversation in every single industry, which is why one of the core ways to stir up customer engagement is by establishing initiatives and partnerships that do good. It is a known fact that people like to feel that their choices have a positive impact, so aligning your company with a specific initiative widens your audience.

One of the best ways manufacturing companies can get involved is by working towards the sustainability initiative. According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (U.S. Department of Commerce), 17% of emissions are emitted by the manufacturing industry, and this rate is expected to increase by 26% by 2050.

Some methods to lower your firm’s environmental impact include but are not limited to:

Planet-friendly components and packaging that can be recycled after use.
Sustainable manufacturing practices that focus on reducing the number of single-use materials involved in production.
Reduction of manufacturing facility emissions and waste production by closely monitoring how much waste is generated, as well as how it is disposed of.

Once again, as many manufacturing companies are taking on this environmental sustainability identity, it is important to commission and collaborate with an experienced marketing agency that has the ability to set your company’s initiative apart from the rest and ensure that it stands out.

From a marketing standpoint, aligning your manufacturing company with an environmentally conscious initiative not only makes your company more marketable to a wider audience, but also paves the way for partnerships and jobs that you otherwise would not have been eligible for, such as clients who pride themselves on being “green,” or clients who are looking too support companies that have a cause. Every manufacturing company produces emissions, but not every company introduces measures to reduce them. By marketing your manufacturing firm as environmentally friendly, you will begin to see substantial growth within your brand.

4. Data Monetization

Aside from marketing strategies that target customer and audience engagement for 2022, the rush to become fully digitized will continue. With many day-to-day operations transitioning to digital platforms, manufacturing companies risk being overshadowed when it comes to audience reach. Data monetization is the process of obtaining data by using internal and indirect methods, and then using that data to increase financial profits, improve business performance, inform decisions, and improve overall company performance. This strategy is looking to be one of the most useful tools for monitoring trends in manufacturing marketing this year, and it can even be used to inform a multitude of decisions, such as company partnerships, products and services offered, and developing effective marketing strategies.

Some of the most common forms of data monetization include but are not limited to:

Data sharing with business partners in order to foster a mutually beneficial working relationship.
Data and information trading with other industries to foster cross-industry relationships.
The selling of collected data to other businesses.

One of the key details of data monetization is that the benefits go both ways. Not only can a manufacturer’s own gathered data serve as an asset for their company, but it can also be used to leverage new or supporting data from other manufacturers, and it can also stimulate company expansion. Data monetization can also be used to inform development of new services within the existing scope and can also be used as reference and support when expanding into newer manufacturing sectors. Data monetization will be an incredibly popular tactic to use within manufacturing marketing in 2022, because it is more important than ever to establish safety nets and alternative channels of operation in order to be proactive against external disruptions to the manufacturing process. Additionally, data monetization allows manufacturers to continuously supplement profits in the event of supply chain or resource shortages. Regardless of what form of data monetization you adopt, there are a multitude of ways in which your manufacturing company can benefit when trying to improve marketing efforts and stay on top of the latest trends in manufacturing marketing.

5. Simplification of Processes

The 2022 market will place a heavy emphasis on knowledge and transparency, with consumers who do not want any hidden factors present in their business. The manufacturing industry overall is very complex and daunting for outsiders. One of the key marketing tactics your firm can use to boost business is simplifying operations. This does not mean that you need to simplify the production process, but rather develop a new way to display and market operations which is understandable for all audiences. Although you are an expert in the field, many customers are not, and people are more likely to interact and bring business to your company when they feel informed and supported.

Some of the strategies you can use to simplify your brand for consumers include:

Providing a breakdown of where materials and labor are coming from so that clients are involved in every aspect of the process.
Highlighting a clear and direct supply chain so that clients fully understand the abilities and limitations of the overall experience.
Publishing materials that show the day-to-day operations of your facility such as informative videos introducing what your manufacturing plant does, visuals throughout content of actual employees doing the actual work they do, in an effort to increase transparency.

By simplifying the daily operations for consumers, and showcasing it in a way that clients of all backgrounds can easily understand, you are able to market your brand with ease while increasing traffic because people know what they are getting into. By sharing display material and labor breakdowns, supply chain information, and even inside looks into your facilities, you are painting your company in a transparent light. Consumers get to avoid the extra effort of looking into the logistics and specifics of your company, which also allows them to make an informed, confident decision when doing business with you. Being able to market your manufacturing company as simplistic and transparent will drive business and, in turn, elevate your company overall by helping you stand out from competition.

How This Translates

These are the top five upcoming trends in manufacturing marketing for 2022, but there is a wealth of strategies to choose from when it comes to marketing your manufacturing brand. When you hire a marketing agency, it is important that you feel confident in their services and what they can do for you, and by educating yourself on some of the practices and strategies they use, you are setting yourself up to be able to better present the current condition of your brand as well as the goals you would like to set. Regardless of the starting point of your manufacturing firm, a marketing agency has the knowledge and resources to identify pain-points and the goals that will remedy them. Although some marketing efforts can be made internally, connecting with an expert – such as the Millennium Agency team – allows your manufacturing firm to grow, but also stand out from the competition in the field.

About Millennium Agency    

Millennium Agency is a national, award-winning boutique branding, messaging, and strategy marketing firm for the B2B technology and manufacturing sectors. A top-led women-owned business, we take your brand and vision seriously and build a strategy that helps drive brand success. Our expert team unites creative branding, storytelling, and data analytics to accelerate your business growth. With offices in Boston and New Hampshire, and a worldwide presence, the professionals at Millennium Agency would like to learn more about your business and discuss how we can help exceed your goals.

Your website costs your manufacturing business money but is it making you sales? If you aren’t sure, you may want to consider digital advertising as a way to boost leads.

Why Does My Manufacturing Business Need Digital Advertising?

Your website is your digital storefront. For many potential clients, it’s the first impression they have of your business. What message do you want to convey?

You want business leaders to know, trust, and ultimately buy your product. Your website should give ample opportunity to contact you via phone, email, or a contact form.

How can you ensure that potential customers can find your website? You need to appear in organic search results, as well as in digital advertising using Google’s network.

All of this is the purview of digital advertising. If you are not getting all of this done, you are missing out on potential sales opportunities.

How Does the Buyer’s Journey Work?

Digital Buyer’s Journey works in the exact same way as advertising in any other medium. You want to nurture potential leads through the buying journey of engaging, educating, and motivating them to buy your products and services.

As with any marketing strategy, you are ultimately working leads through a buyer’s journey, also referred to as a funnel. The marketing funnel takes a prospect through the stages of learning about your product to the final point of a purchasing decision.

Top of Funnel – People at this point are not sure what they are looking for. They have a problem but do not know what solutions exist. This is a good group to target with blog content.
Middle of Funnel – This group of people probably know the industry that their solution is in. They may still need to be convinced that your products and services are the right solution for them. Target this group with eBooks, case studies, and white papers behind an email submission form.
Bottom of Funnel – The people at the bottom of the funnel know exactly what solution they need, your job at this point is to convince them that your brand is the ideal option. Target with service pages, case studies, and how you may be able to solve their problems.

How do SEO Strategies Work?

It is much easier to talk about SEO than it is to do it. Ultimately, you need strategies that help you find leads at certain stages in the buyer’s journey, while you are nurturing them along the process.

Search Engine Optimization

The purpose of search engine optimization (SEO) is to get as many of your pages as possible to show up in the top results of a search engine, organically.

The most basic approach to SEO is keyword research. Find a keyword research tool and try testing different terms that your customers are searching for. You will want a keyword that is high volume but low difficulty.

You may also be given related keywords by the keyword research tool. Search engines expect certain words to appear on certain topics. Make sure you have them.

Search the keyword to see what kind of content you should be writing. From here, you will want to write your content using the keywords you found.

How does Social Media Advertising Work?

Social Posts

Ranking in search engines is important, but it leaves a lot up to chance. To really build your audience, you’ll have to go out on the internet and find clients.

One way to help increase leads is to promote social posts. With a social media advertising strategy, you must construct a buyer persona that you want to target and boost posts and run paid ads to those target markets.

You will need to think about what motivates them, what interests them, and what worries them. Use this to tailor your audience when you promote your posts.

Display Advertising

Google display ads show up on sites outside of the standard timeline/newsfeed. Banner advertising uses simple messaging and compelling graphics to lead prospects to a particular page on your website.

Display ads typically have some sort of offer and are usually geared towards middle to bottom of the funnel leads. Because of this, you will want to have developed them early in the funnel. This is where retargeting comes in.

Retargeting is the process of installing a cookie into your prospect’s browser after they visit your website that then serves them ads based on the content that they interacted with. This tailored digital advertising strategy allows you to nurture leads along the buyer journey.

Hire an Agency to Handle Digital Advertising

To be executed successfully, digital advertising requires a team of writers, researchers, designers, and developers – outside the scope of manufacturing. Outsourcing to a digital marketing agency is the best way to get the most out of your website.

About Millennium Agency 

Millennium Agency is a national, award-winning boutique branding, messaging, and strategy marketing firm for the B2B technology and manufacturing sectors. A top-led women-owned business, we take your brand and vision seriously and build a strategy that helps drive brand success. Our expert team unites creative branding, storytelling, and data analytics to accelerate your business growth. With offices in Boston and New Hampshire, and a worldwide presence, the professionals at Millennium Agency would like to learn more about your business.