11 Pillars of Content Marketing Success for Packaging Equipment Companies

Statistics show that nine in 10 companies use content marketing as part of their packaging equipment company’s lead generation strategy. Defined as the act of creating, sharing and promoting high-quality content for a specific industrial audience such as food, beverage and pharmaceutical, it's become a cornerstone tactic used by packaging equipment companies to attract leads. Whether you're looking to start a content marketing strategy or improve your packaging equipment company's existing content marketing strategy, though, there are a few things you should know.

#1) Create Buyer Personas

Before you can create high-quality content for a specific industrial audience, you need to create buyer personas. Buyer personas are representations of your packaging equipment company's ideal customers. If you sell packaging equipment to a food company, for example, you may have several buyer personas, including plant manager and operations manager. By identifying these buyer personas, you can create custom content for the plant manager and operations manager, allowing you to generate a stronger response from your packaging equipment’s content marketing efforts.

#2) Start a Blog

Assuming your packaging equipment company doesn't already have one, you should start a blog. According to a report published by HubSpot,

of industrial marketers rate blogging as the most effective content marketing tool. HubSpot also found that industrial companies which published 11 or more blog posts per month attracted 300% more traffic than their counterparts which published zero to one blog post per month.

#3) Share Visuals

Content marketing requires more than just writing articles or blog posts; it requires the use of visuals. Research shows that the human brain processes visuals 60,000 times faster than written words. This doesn't mean you should exclude text from your packaging equipment company's content marketing strategy. Rather, include visual content like images, videos and infographics to further convey your message.

#4) Promote Content to the  Right Industrial Prospects

Creating high-quality content for your packaging equipment company's audience is only one step in the content marketing process. Another step is promoting that content to the right industrial prospects. After publishing a new piece of content, reach out to prospects to whom it may be relevant. Whether you use email, social media or even call them, let prospects know that your packaging equipment company recently published a new piece of content that may prove useful to their operation.

#5) Explore User-Generated Content

User-generated content has become a hot topic among packaging equipment companies in recent years. As the name suggests, it consists of content created by other users, such as food, pharmaceutical, manufacturing customers, instead of your own packaging equipment company. Including plant manager or operations manager’s generated content in your packaging company’s content marketing strategy can help you reach more potential customers with your messages. For example, you can ask customers to send your packaging equipment company a video of them using your product, which can then share on your website, blog or social media accounts. P.S. you can also go out on site and take the video too in their office, or if you’re fortunate, out on the plant floor.

#6) Project Authority

Content marketing is the perfect opportunity to project your packaging equipment company's authority -- but you'll need to focus on creating top-quality content to take advantage of this. Don't just create dozens or hundreds of pieces of low- or medium-quality content. Instead, create high-quality content that's thorough, detailed and valuable to your packaging company's a audience.

#7) Mention Your Packaging Equipment Company's Name... Several Times

When creating content, mention your packaging equipment company’s name several times. Even if a piece of content doesn't directly drive a sale, it can increase your packaging equipment company's brand recognition. In at least two places of your content -- ideally in the middle and end -- mention your packaging equipment company's name. When prospects read or view your content, they'll see your packaging company's name, thus increasing the chance of a future sale.

#8) Don't Forget the CTA

Whether it's a blog post, article, infographic, video, etc., always include a call to action (CTA) in your packaging equipment company's content. This is the element that tells prospects what to do next, such as calling your packaging equipment company's sales team, emailing them, signing up for your packaging equipment company's newsletter or more. It's recommended that you experiment with several different CTAs to see what works best for your company's content marketing strategy. Regardless, though, don't forget to include a CTA that would be of interest to a plant manager or operations manager.

#9) Make Selling a Secondary Goal

The content you create and share doesn't have to necessarily sell your packaging equipment company's products. In most cases, it's best to focus on creating helpful, valuable content while making selling a secondary goal. If you create content that's valuable and useful to an operations manager or the plant manager, they'll contact your packaging equipment company for more information.

#10) Publish at the Right Time

You'll experience different results from your content marketing efforts depending on the time of day when you create and publish content. According to one report, 9.00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. is the best time to share B2B content on Facebook. For Twitter, on the other hand, the best time is after 11:00 a.m.

#11) Send Quality Content in a Personalized eMail from High Quality Leads or Project Reports

Getting high quality leads or identified projects with verified contact names, email addresses and phone numbers is a great way to begin educating your prospects. SalesLeads uses researchers to find current projects of companies that are expanding, renovating and building a new facility. You get this great information primed for you to call. As you begin your conversations, it’s also a good idea to reinforce what you just explained on the phone. Use your high quality content to stay in front of your new prospect to keep them abreast of your packaging equipment company’s products, maintenance and installation services.