From a review of Google Search Console reports for multiple machinery and equipment manufacturers, it seems the industrial purchasing prospects who search and click may not always behave in the way some of the SEO companies hope.
When customers and prospects agree to receive emails from your company, it means you’ve established a certain level of trust and respect. It’s not easy to create so much interest in a product or service that people willingly provide their real contact information and risk being spammed with emails to delete every day. But trust is a two-way street. There’s an expectation that the company sending the emails will exercise some restraint and respect for the recipients – a show of some gratitude in exchange for subscribing. Here’s how you can tell if you’re demonstrating respect for the people on your list.
ChatGPT is now showing up in Google Analytics as a source of Website traffic. From a review of Website traffic reports for multiple manufacturers, it’s clear that industrial product buyers are asking ChatGPT the same questions they’ve been asking Google for years. ChatGPT recently began citing sources used to generate its responses and recommending additional sources it considers credible for further reading. And it’s linking out to those Websites.
Is ChatGPT recommending your Website content or your competitors’ content?
It’s easy for anyone to react and offer opinions based on his or her own perspective and life experience. “I’d be offended, better not.” Or, “That seems too expensive to me.” But experienced marketing professionals know better. Skilled, experienced marketing professionals know how to step into the shoes of their target audience to offer insights, guidance, and recommendations based on the perspective and life experience of the people expected to buy the product or service.
Anyone experienced in industrial sales knows a click isn’t necessarily a lead and a lead isn’t a sale. Look at these two emails or Website form submissions and think about which one you would rather get if you had to close the sale or else.
PPC pay-per-click digital advertising with Google Ads, Bing Ads, and other platforms captures leads and counts the number of clicks. This provides great comfort to marketing managers under pressure to defend investments in advertising and document results. Print, outdoor, and other advertising platforms confound those of us looking for hard data documenting results, even when the results may be quite obvious to the happy sales team. And when the PPC ad program is structured well, it can be very effective. That’s why it’s so tempting for B2B marketing managers to throw money at Google Ads and call it a day. But what makes someone click on your ad?
In email marketing, clicks tend to dominate the reporting and analysis. It’s easy to compare the click rate from one email blast to another and use the data to make decisions about content, distribution frequency, list segmenting, and other issues. But can relying on click data instead of the most important metric lead to bad decision-making?
Deciding whether to exhibit at your key trade shows, scale back, or ditch in-person events entirely? Ask these 10 questions to help decide whether exhibiting at trade shows makes sense.
We now have to consider delivering stellar service a selling point that has become just as important as the benefits of buying the latest machine or new technology – especially as people seem grateful for barely adequate customer service.
Clearly, most manufacturers understand the importance of a first impression to begin the sales process. Yet what happens after the sale when it’s time to run the new machine and the new customer opens the operating manual?
