Digital Marketing For Engineering Companies
There are more opportunities than ever for engineering companies like yours to build brand awareness, drive leads, attract top talent, and showcase your work or achievements. Engineering firms that want to achieve sustained business growth should invest in effective marketing such as SEM, SEO, and email marketing.
Engineering Client Case Study: Full Funnel Tracking Elevates 3D ProScan
3D ProScan, a leading provider of 3D scanning and metrology solutions, sought to enhance its paid search program to increase market reach, drive quality leads, and outshine competitors. They partnered with DDM Generation, a boutique digital marketing agency, known for it's 1:1 innovative strategies and data-driven approach.
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Traditional Vs Digital Marketing For Engineering Companies
Despite the annual increase on ad spend budget with TV ad spend and digital advertising projected to grow, ad spend on print formats are expected to decline. This means engineering firms that continue to use print advertising as the primary method of promoting a business are wasting a lot of their ad spend budget. For example, a print ad for an engineering firm runs once or a few times and is subsequently seen by a limited number of people with no way for the advertiser to track how many people have actually seen it.
Comparatively, digital marketing is a term that refers to all marketing efforts on the internet. A good example of online marketing would be investing in a well designed optimized website as it offers much more flexibility and opportunity. The launching of the engineering website means that the page can be seen by an unlimited number of viewers. With the addition of other techniques to increase traffic and nurture prospects, you are generating high quality leads with the added advantage of being able to calculate your return on investment (ROI). With that said, there are many more potential benefits of digital marketing for engineering firms.
Benefits of Digital Marketing For Engineering Firms
If you are still on the fence, here are some ways digital marketing is the way to go for engineering firms:
Brand Exposure & Building Trust
Digital marketing helps announce your engineering company’s presence to the world, giving you better opportunities and a greater likelihood of reaching your target audience. For example, having a website allows you to demonstrate your firm’s culture, a significant factor when it comes to attracting top talent.
Additionally, digital marketing efforts such as those using social media helps you to maintain client relationships while increasing the odds to be found by new leads. You can also use your engineering firm’s social pages to engage with clients through ads, videos, updates, and comments. All these interactions can help build trust and reputation for your engineering business as you demonstrate your company values and expertise, allowing your potential customers to see you as being approachable.
Achieve Business Goals & Showcase Your Expertise
If your engineering firm has big goals, digital marketing is a great way to help you achieve them. A great example would be the use of social media platforms that help your firm connect with industry leaders, reach new clients or partners, and engage with referral sources. Digital marketing also helps to highlight your firm’s values, expertise, and experience in creative ways.
Your firm leaders can also do more by engaging with prospective clients and partners via their personal pages. All in all, digital marketing does more than just advertising, it is a way for your firm to remain connected with the target audience, allowing you to understand how best to support them in future endeavors.
Increasing Website Traffic & Lead Generation
Digital marketing efforts such as having an optimized website and paid search ads helps to bring in high quality leads and increase conversion rates. This is important as high quality leads are those from your target audience and consist of people who are ready to convert. Having great content also allows potential leads to engage with your content while social media accounts enable them to contact your engineering firm directly.
To make sure quality leads can get in touch with your team, provide up to date contact information, add direct links and a tempting call to action, and take advantage of lead generation forms. This allows your engineering firm to connect with these quality leads through efforts such as newsletters and email marketing.
Below is an example of an ad running on Google. A user is searching for "Find Commercial Contractors" and an add shows up offering commercial contracting. This is a way to bring in new leads to your business. To learn more about this visit paid search services.
Closing The Gap On Competition & Performance Tracking
The beauty of digital marketing in today’s world means that small engineering firms as well as the big ones can be on equal ground as it is very cost effective and creates a more level playing field. All that is needed is a great marketing team paired with strategized digital marketing strategies.
Another amazing benefit of digital marketing is the ability to track your marketing efforts with analytics. Certain tools enable you to see which fronts of your online marketing efforts are paying off and which are not, allowing you to reallocate ad spend on the methods that work best.
Best Digital Marketing Strategies For Engineering Firms
Digital marketing and engineering are not related, but an engineering student would beg to differ as there are several aspects that you will find in common: namely the research, experimentation, and innovation process. Like engineering, online marketing may seem simple on the surface. However, there are so many different subspecialities in the field, almost making each aspect a field of its own. With these traits in mind, here are some of the best digital marketing strategies you can adopt for your company:
Target Audience
Target Audience
Target Audience
Like any other industry, understanding your target audience is critical, even more so in the engineering industry as different types of engineers have different customers. For example, when comparing civil engineers and a geotechnical engineer, the services and goods are targeted to different customers such as construction company directors or site managers.
Once you understand who your target audience is, you have a better chance of reaching them. It is a blend of both demographics and psychology, taking into consideration factors such as industry, discipline, goals, and more. To understand your target audience further, your company can also conduct surveys to determine what your clients are looking for.
Optimizing Content
Optimizing Content
Optimizing Content
Optimizing your website content improves your rankings in SERPS. One of the best ways to do this is through content marketing or blogging as it helps to generate leads and boosts conversions. However, your content must be relevant and solve industry questions your target audience has. Having quality content can be difficult in the engineering industry due to the terminology and complexity of the industry.
This also means that having a good content strategy sets you apart from your competitors. Remember that the content on your site is a representation of your company where your prospects will judge your writing skills, expertise, and experience. Go for well-written and easy to understand content that highlights your company’s visions and missions.
Once you understand who your target audience is, you have a better chance of reaching them. It is a blend of both demographics and psychology, taking into consideration factors such as industry, discipline, goals, and more. To understand your target audience further, your company can also conduct surveys to determine what your clients are looking for.
Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization or SEO is an excellent way to improve an engineering company’s online presence. It is a collection of best practices that makes your website more visible in Google searches for certain keywords. To understand what type of content is required for your website, keyword research is essential.
SEO also involves making changes to your website to improve rankings and can include updating and optimizing content, adding keywords, improving site appearance and load time, and more. For those new to SEO, it can be challenging to learn but is considered essential in today’s digital marketing landscape. Note that SEO requires a significant amount of time and effort and can take months before results are seen.
Email Marketing
Email Marketing
Email Marketing
Although it may seem difficult to convince potential clients with email marketing, it is a cost effective way for you to increase engagement and add creative flair to your services. By helping your target audience understand you better, they are more likely to invest money in your engineering services. Like your website content, a successful engineering firm should have an email marketing plan as an engaging and thoughtful newsletter is less likely to end up in junk mail.
Instead of being a service commercial, newsletters should provide useful information so people read them voluntarily without getting turned off by hard sells. Use targeted content to gain authority in your engineering specialty. Besides offering unique and relevant content, keep in touch with your leads, and have a clear call to action.
SEO also involves making changes to your website to improve rankings and can include updating and optimizing content, adding keywords, improving site appearance and load time, and more. For those new to SEO, it can be challenging to learn but is considered essential in today’s digital marketing landscape. Note that SEO requires a significant amount of time and effort and can take months before results are seen.
Pay Per Click Advertising
Pay Per Click Advertising
Pay Per Click Advertising
If in doubt, pay per click or PPC advertising is the best way for your engineering firm to quickly boost traffic, generate leads, and increase revenue. It allows you to select phrases and keywords to trigger your advertisements. With PPC, it ensures that your ads are ranked above organic listings in search engine results pages (SERPs) such as in Google search.
Unlike SEO, PPC efforts bring in results as soon as your ads go live, sending targeted and relevant traffic to your website. Combined with an optimized website with good content, PPC campaigns such as Google Ads can help you achieve most of your digital marketing goals by driving website traffic, building brand awareness, target the relevant audience, and increasing ROI.
Instead of being a service commercial, newsletters should provide useful information so people read them voluntarily without getting turned off by hard sells. Use targeted content to gain authority in your engineering specialty. Besides offering unique and relevant content, keep in touch with your leads, and have a clear call to action.
SEO also involves making changes to your website to improve rankings and can include updating and optimizing content, adding keywords, improving site appearance and load time, and more. For those new to SEO, it can be challenging to learn but is considered essential in today’s digital marketing landscape. Note that SEO requires a significant amount of time and effort and can take months before results are seen.
Social Media
Social Media
Social Media
Engineering can be considered a pretty serious and more formal field. Since the industry might seem less “fun”, social media marketing provides a great opportunity to reveal your firm’s creativity and flair. Since most of the different types of engineering tend to be more visual, videos and images can help your prospective clients see what your services are all about.
As mentioned previously, social media also allows your target audience to discuss, comment, and better yet, share your posts. You can also use social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn to share your blog content, push industry insights, connect with industry peers, and more. Not only will this increase company interest, it also increases your engineering firm’s authority on social media.
Online Reviews
Online Reviews
Online Reviews
Online reviews are a good way for your clients to learn more about your company and to establish trust. Touted as the modern day equivalent of word of mouth, good online reviews attracts new business and highlights any existing issues that may be present in your engineering company.
In the case of negative testimonials, take the criticism constructively and try to improve on any services that are lacking. Motivate your clients to post reviews so they can explain why they had a good experience.
As mentioned previously, social media also allows your target audience to discuss, comment, and better yet, share your posts. You can also use social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn to share your blog content, push industry insights, connect with industry peers, and more. Not only will this increase company interest, it also increases your engineering firm’s authority on social media.
Best Digital Marketing Strategies For Engineering Firms
Below are some basics of digital marketing that you can benefit from and adopt for your engineering company:
Target Audience
Like any other industry, understanding your target audience is critical, even more so in the engineering industry as different types of engineers have different customers. For example, when comparing civil engineers and a geotechnical engineer, the services and goods are targeted to different customers such as construction company directors or site managers. Once you understand who your target audience is, you have a better chance of reaching them. It is a blend of both demographics and psychology, taking into consideration factors such as industry, discipline, goals, and more. To understand your target audience further, your company can also conduct surveys to determine what your clients are looking for.
Optimizing Content
Optimizing your website content improves your rankings in SERPS. One of the best ways to do this is through content marketing or blogging as it helps to generate leads and boosts conversions. However, your content must be relevant and solve industry questions your target audience has. Having quality content can be difficult in the engineering industry due to the terminology and complexity of the industry. This also means that having a good content strategy sets you apart from your competitors. Remember that the content on your site is a representation of your company where your prospects will judge your writing skills, expertise, and experience. Go for well-written and easy to understand content that highlights your company’s visions and missions.
Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization or SEO is an excellent way to improve an engineering company’s online presence. It is a collection of best practices that makes your website more visible in Google searches for certain keywords. To understand what type of content is required for your website, keyword research is essential. SEO also involves making changes to your website to improve rankings and can include updating and optimizing content, adding keywords, improving site appearance and load time, and more. For those new to SEO, it can be challenging to learn but is considered essential in today’s digital marketing landscape. Note that SEO requires a significant amount of time and effort and can take months before results are seen.
Email Marketing
Although it may seem difficult to convince potential clients with email marketing, it is a cost effective way for you to increase engagement and add creative flair to your services. By helping your target audience understand you better, they are more likely to invest money in your engineering services. Like your website content, a successful engineering firm should have an email marketing plan as an engaging and thoughtful newsletter is less likely to end up in junk mail. Instead of being a service commercial, newsletters should provide useful information so people read them voluntarily without getting turned off by hard sells. Use targeted content to gain authority in your engineering specialty. Besides offering unique and relevant content, keep in touch with your leads, and have a clear call to action.
Pay Per Click Advertising
If in doubt, pay per click or PPC advertising is the best way for your engineering firm to quickly boost traffic, generate leads, and increase revenue. It allows you to select phrases and keywords to trigger your advertisements. With PPC, it ensures that your ads are ranked above organic listings in search engine results pages (SERPs) such as in Google search. Unlike SEO, PPC efforts bring in results as soon as your ads go live, sending targeted and relevant traffic to your website. Combined with an optimized website with good content, PPC campaigns such as Google Ads can help you achieve most of your digital marketing goals by driving website traffic, building brand awareness, target the relevant audience, and increasing ROI. Learn more about DDM Generation's paid search services.
Social Media
Engineering can be considered a pretty serious and more formal field. Since the industry might seem less “fun”, social media marketing provides a great opportunity to reveal your firm’s creativity and flair. Since most of the different types of engineering tend to be more visual, videos and images can help your prospective clients see what your services are all about. As mentioned previously, social media also allows your target audience to discuss, comment, and better yet, share your posts. You can also use social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn to share your blog content, push industry insights, connect with industry peers, and more. Not only will this increase company interest, it also increases your engineering firm’s authority on social media.
Online Reviews
Online reviews are a good way for your clients to learn more about your company and to establish trust. Touted as the modern day equivalent of word of mouth, good online reviews attracts new business and highlights any existing issues that may be present in your engineering company. In the case of negative testimonials, take the criticism constructively and try to improve on any services that are lacking. Motivate your clients to post reviews so they can explain why they had a good experience.
Why Choose DDM Generation For Your Engineering Firm’s Digital Marketing Needs
Digital marketing is a great way for engineering firms to generate leads, drive traffic, improve brand awareness, and increase engagement with potential clients and top talent. Although online marketing may seem simple, it can take significant time, effort, and money to do it right. This is important as digital marketing done right ensures that its potential is maximized while keeping costs low. For this reason, many engineering firms prefer to turn to experienced digital marketing agencies for their marketing services.
At DDM Generation, our experienced team understands that digital marketing needs for the engineering industry are very different. This means we know the best marketing strategies to employ for your firm to ensure you reach your business goals. We do this by regularly monitoring and optimizing all your digital marketing efforts.
By analyzing your competition and helping you gain insight into your market, our personalized digital marketing plan for your company will reflect your business goals. With an expert team that consists of different specialists, we attract, engage, and convert your target audience. Combined with our in-depth knowledge of the industry and access to valuable marketing resources or tools, you are free to focus on making important business decisions and reaching your company’s key performance indicators (KPIs).