The 30K-Foot View of Manufacturing Marketing in 2025

A Non-Technical Guide for Manufacturing CEOs and Sales and Marketing Leaders

Marketing has changed for manufacturers. Sales used to be done entirely through cold-calling, at trade shows, and on the golf course.

But now, more leads are being generated online through digital platforms like Google and LinkedIn. As one manufacturer told us, “The old ways aren’t working.”

A lot of manufacturers are confused by this trend. We wish we had a nickel for every manufacturing CEO and sales leader who has said, “I don’t understand all that digital marketing stuff.”

No one expects you to understand how to optimize a web page or run a Google ad. But you do need to understand your customers’ journey in the digital world, and what you can do to reach them.

That’s what this guide is all about. It not only gives you a 30,000-foot view of the basics of digital marketing; it also shows you how to take the sales-driven methods that worked in the past and integrate them with an approach that gets you into the “Digital Territory.”

This will take just 10-15 minutes of your time. The guide has this intro and 11 sections, each about a one-minute read.

When you’re done, digital marketing will no longer be a mystery, and you’ll see how it can work for a sales-led manufacturing company.

Ok, let’s get started!

1. Your customers want you to transition to digital marketing

Think about how you shop for, well, anything. You go online.

Now, you might not complete the entire purchase online, but at some point, you’re either reading reviews, looking at company websites, or just reading general informational articles related to the product or service.

This is how people buy, both in the consumer world and the business world. And manufacturing, with all its complex products and long sales cycles, is not immune to this trend.

Now consider the one stat that sums it up:

Up to 58% of the customer journey is completed without a meaningful interaction with a salesperson.

That number is based on the book The Challenger Sale, which is one of the best books ever written on complex B2B sales. That 58% probably increases every day, and we don’t expect it to go anywhere but up in the future.

This poses a real problem for manufacturers, as the industry has traditionally relied on sales to drive an organization’s business development.

People don’t want a salesperson to lead them through the process anymore. They want to do as much of it on their own as possible.

This trend has opened up a new sales territory for manufacturers. We call it the Digital Territory.

It’s not geography-based; it’s technology-based, accessible through all our digital devices. And only digital marketing can take you there.

But not having a digital marketing presence is only part of the problem.

2. Why most digital marketing programs fail for manufacturers

The world of marketing loves its buzzwords, particularly when it comes to strategies and approaches. You may have heard of some of these marketing programs:

Content (inbound) marketing
Account-based marketing (ABM)
Demand generation
Lead generation

There are strategies galore, but choosing one that works isn’t easy. In fact, according to the 2025 report by the Content Marketing Institute, 67% of manufacturing marketers rate their content strategy as only “moderately effective.”

Why aren’t marketers happy with their strategy? According to the CMI report:

We believe both of these problems can be directly tied to a lack of alignment between sales and marketing.

No one is better at prompting action than a salesperson, and no one knows the customer journey better than the sales team. That’s why marketers who don’t work closely with their sales team do it at their own risk:

Research shows that companies that have good sales and marketing alignment can experience a 20% increase in revenue. But those without alignment can experience a 4% decrease in revenue.

Want a manufacturing marketing strategy that is far more than “moderately effective?” Start with one that aligns with and integrates your sales team into the process.

3. A simple way to align sales and marketing in your approach

In manufacturing, when a machine or manufacturing process is recreated digitally, it’s called a “Digital Twin.” This Digital Twin is used for rapid prototyping, experimenting with different materials, and a variety of other simulated manufacturing processes.

When we first heard of this concept, we thought it could be applied to manufacturing sales and marketing:

With so much of the customer journey taking place online, manufacturers need to use online content to make a Digital Twin of your sales team.

That statement formed the basis for our Digital Twin Sales and Marketing Framework.

With this approach, we’re not creating some AI-driven Digital Twin that replaces your sales team. That can’t be done effectively in a complex sale — a salesperson will always remain a critical part of the customer journey.

But for the parts of the journey that prospects complete on their own, your online content — blog posts, videos, social media messages, websites — will perform like a salesperson, leading customers down the sales funnel.

The Digital Twin Sales and Marketing Framework not only creates a presence for you in the Digital Territory, but it also solves our problem of sales and marketing alignment.

Because your online content must function like a salesperson, the marketing team must rely on the sales team for input and strategies on how to make it effective. In return, sales can learn from marketing if that approach is resonating with customers.

This naturally aligns previously siloed sales and marketing departments.

Ok, so now that we’ve identified a strategic approach tailored for manufacturers, let’s look at how you roll it out.

4. Don’t start with shiny objects: Why you must define marketing goals, strategies, and tactics first

There’s no shortage of digital marketing advice out there, and you’ve probably had everyone and their brother telling you:

You should be on social media.

You should be using SEO.

You should be making videos.

We call those marketing’s shiny objects, and, yes, they are all things you should do. But they’re not the place you start.

Like any facet of your organization, a marketing approach needs goals, strategies, and tactics. So let’s define what those look like:

Digital Marketing Goal: Start with the quantitative number you want to achieve with your marketing. This should be tied to your ultimate revenue goal. Keep it simple and straightforward: “5 Qualified Sales Leads Per Month.”

Digital Marketing Strategy: Next, you can apply the qualitative strategies you are going to use to achieve your goal. In this case, you will apply the Digital Twin framework: “Create content for each stage of the sales cycle, then distribute it through digital channels.”

Digital Marketing Tactics: Now determine what types of tactics will help you realize that strategy in the most cost-effective, efficient way. These tactics can include:

This is a simple approach: If you don’t meet those goals, you need to either change your tactics, or ultimately your strategy. Quantitative goals will drive your qualitative strategies and tactics.

5. Create an ideal customer profile and build an audience

The true power of digital marketing is its ability to get you in front of the exact people you want to reach. All of these platforms employ sophisticated algorithms and machine learning to indicate exactly what audiences want. For example:

Google allows you to target people based on certain words they are searching.

LinkedIn allows you to target companies by size, revenue, industry, geography, and more. You can also target individuals by job titles, roles, and seniority.

Meta, formerly known as Facebook, has sophisticated machine learning that allows you to target by a variety of audience interests.

But none of this matters unless you know who your customer is in the first place. That’s why you need to create an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).

To create the ICP, you have to analyze your current customers, and identify who the key stakeholder was who brought you into the organization.

We know that most manufacturing purchases involve multiple stakeholders, but we want our marketing to be razor-focused on the person who will introduce you to their organization and champion you through the process.

Look at the key attributes for that person, including:

Identify all those components, and then you’re ready to move to the next stage in the digital marketing process: creating content.

6. Content: Get prospects to Know You, Like You, and Trust You

For your content to sell, it must follow the one sales rule that has stood the test of time:

People will only do business with you if they Know You, Like You, and Trust You.

So how do we make content follow the same formula?

Know You content focuses on pain

The best way to get someone to know who you are is not to talk about yourself; it’s to talk about them. That’s why our Know You content should focus on the customer’s key pain point.

Like You content focuses on insights

The most effective method for complex sales is to challenge a company’s approach and share insights on how they can improve their business (as in The Challenger Sale). Show them a way to do it better, and they’ll like you.

Trust You content focuses on proof

Your insights look promising, but can you really deliver the goods? People want proof, so you need content like case studies and testimonials to show you have proven success.

Within these three areas, you can choose multiple types of digital content formats. They can include:

Which format you choose will depend not only on the resources you have to create it but also what works best in the method(s) of distribution you choose to get in front of prospects. Which leads us to our next section …

7. Distribution: Delivering your content through digital channels

You can create all the content you want, but unless you distribute it to your audience to read or watch, the tactic won’t work. So let’s talk about distribution.

This is where the marketing jargon gets thick, so let’s simplify what this stuff means.

Organic content distribution

Organic content distribution on digital platforms is free. The cost involved is the resources it takes to create the content:

Search engine optimization (SEO): Requires following guidelines to make your content easy for Google to find and feature on its results page in the form of a link.

Social media posts: Includes posting pictures and videos of your product and services on social media platforms.

Email: As long as you have a prospect’s email address, you just need to create the message.

Paid content distribution

Paid content distribution is essentially digital advertising. Instead of relying on organic content distribution, you are paying digital platforms to feature your content. You distribute paid content through:

Search engine ads: These ads appear as small blocks of copy or photos, almost like classified ads from newspapers.

Display and social media ads: These ads appear on the websites or social media platforms that prospects typically visit. These ads look like traditional magazine or newspaper ads.

There are infinite variations of these distribution channels, but that’s the big picture. You’ll find the one that’s right for you, and then we move on to measuring your efforts.

8. Measuring your results: Treat it like a sales effort

If you’re going to make your content a Digital Twin of your sales team, then you need to monitor its performance like you would a salesperson.

There are a dizzying number of metrics, but we like to focus on three key performance indicators (KPIs).

Impressions (Know You): Impressions measure the number of times your content is served to prospects. Think of a billboard on the side of a road — it’s there as you drive by and helps people at least know who you are.

Traffic (Like You): Our second KPI is traffic to your website. Think of it as someone coming to your plant or store. They like the know-you content in your ads or social media, and they go to your website to learn more.

Leads (Trust You): If the story you tell on your website and your business offer is compelling enough, people will take the next step and contact you. This is a sign that they trust you enough to provide their contact information.

The idea behind these three metrics is that we want to get to a point where we have a cascading effect and a formula:

# of Impressions…

…generates # of visitors to website…

…results in # of leads.

When this is established, we have a repeatable formula and can then scale your marketing.

9. Continuous improvement: Adopting the manufacturing mindset to marketing

You’ve built a successful manufacturing business by adopting, in one way or another, a continuous improvement mindset.

When you started, you didn’t just try to manufacture a product, and then quit if you didn’t get it right the first time. You tried again, making more prototypes, testing various components, and improving each version.

Henry Ford’s Model T got its name because it’s the 20th model the company produced, which corresponds to the 20th letter in the alphabet.

The simple truth is that you are very unlikely to get your marketing to work exactly like you want, right from the start. That’s why your program should be data-driven, and you should be able to see what’s working and what’s not.

Here are the questions we always ask and evaluate through testing:

-Are we reaching the right audience?

-Are we sharing the right message?

-Are we using the right channels?

-Are we delivering the right offer?

Your marketing approach and your analytics should be set up to continually answer these questions and help you improve your marketing in these areas.

10. Building your marketing effort: Outsource vs in-house vs hybrid

No matter what marketing approach you take, someone has got to go out and execute it.

Traditionally, there are three staffing and outsourcing options. We’ve included a breakdown here, along with some potential costs.

Option	Cost*
Build an in-house team: A complete team of strategists and digital marketing specialists. Lots of resources, but you also have the headaches of building and retaining staff in a transient field.	$73,737 a month, or $884,846 annually.
Pair a small staff with outsourced specialists: Hire a marketing director and a specialist, as well as a graphic designer / videographer, then outsource digital specialist jobs. Still requires building and retaining staff, but it’s not as big.	$24,193 a month, or $290,313 annually, plus the cost of outsourced specialists.
Pair a one-person marketing team with an agency: You hire one person to be the marketing liaison, and then you outsource to an agency for help on strategy and overall execution.	$12,224 a month, or $146,685 annually, plus the cost of the agency.

*Numbers based on sources that include the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and Robert Half’s Salary Guide. See our blog post for more details.

Your other choices?

Hire a lead generation company to help your sales team: Not advised because of your prospects’ changing buying habits.

Do nothing at all: Not an option, considering this isn’t currently working for you (otherwise, why would you be reading this?).

11. Conclusion: Now you’re ready to steer the team into the Digital Territory

We hope this 15-minute overview helped you understand how digital marketing can help align your sales and marketing teams to meet prospects in the Digital Territory. Some key takeaways include:

Start with a quantifiable sales and marketing goal, and then use qualitative strategies and tactics to achieve it.
Create digital content that will perform like a Digital Twin of your salespeople, getting people to Know You, Like You, and Trust You.
Distribute that content to prospects using a split between organic content distribution (SEO, social media) and paid content distribution (Google and social media ads).
Measure your Digital Twin’s success by using these KPIs: impressions (Know You); website traffic (Like You); leads (Trust You).
Analyze your approach to determine what’s working by asking:

If you like the overall Digital Twin Sales and Marketing Framework we’ve presented and you’d like to learn how it can work for you, please take a look at our Approach and Pricing, and then set up an introductory call with Greg Mischio.

About Winbound (and more resources)

Winbound is a digital sales and marketing agency that helps sales and marketing teams use content to create a “Digital Twin” of their sales team. The approach includes collaborating with clients to produce sales-driven content, then using marketing to distribute the content to prospects.

Winbound specializes in manufacturing and industrial clients, but our approach works for any B2B company with complex sales. Our clients have enjoyed double- and triple-digit increases in website traffic and qualified leads.

More resources:

Want to see how many other manufacturers are engaging in the Digital Territory? Download our Content Benchmark Report.

To receive ongoing tips on how to improve your manufacturing sales and marketing approach, check out our “Win Big” blog. You can sign up for our monthly eNewsletter on that page, which gives you access to all of Winbound’s downloadable resources.

If you are interested in a Winbound presentation for a conference or trade show, visit our Presentation page.