This past year brought on many unforeseen challenges for the manufacturing sector. One thing for sure is that it has taught us all to prioritize planning including risk management, operational planning, CX and marketing strategies.

To help assist you in your 2022 industrial marketing strategy, I’ve written down four ideas for enhancing your marketing and CX to better drive awareness and provide meaningful experiences at your organization.

1. Better Transparency Between Marketing, R&D, and Supply Chain Teams

   The global pandemic rocked the global manufacturing sector, causing supply shortages, shipping delays, and rising material. Now, more than ever, is the importance for digital marketing to work alongside R&D and supply chain teams.
   
   If you ask why, think about the different objectives set by the separate groups: the KPIs for marketing and the cost-cutting initiatives for supply chain teams.
   
   Digital marketing teams focus on delivering attraction, awareness, and conversion of your product while supply chain teams actively look for ways to reduce production costs.
   
   The KPIs set in your marketing team may not follow logic of the supply chain’s function–and any move may drive costs up.
   
   As we learned, the supply chain is sensitive, and so should be your marketing planning and communication across teams. It’s now critical for both sides to be strategic and transparent.
   
   In fact, Kraft Heinz cut its SKU portfolio by more than 25% with the addition of a new operation center that placed its marketing, R&D, and supply chain teams under one roof.
   
   They were able to drive production, remain cost-effective, and control its inventory on shelves.
   
   That’s a win-win for its supply chain, margins, and zero-waste initiatives.
   
   More than ever digitalization will be more rampant and better provide transparency across marketing, research, and supply chain teams.
   
   

2. ESG Initiatives: Buyers Will Connect the Dots Between Profit, Social Awareness, and Sustainability

   The post-pandemic world has influenced buyers to be more astute to product sourcing and ESG initiatives.
   
   While customer experience majorly contributes to customer retention, the social factor, such as the emphasis on community engagement, workplace health and safety, board diversity and equity, will be a crucial centerpoint to brand loyalty in 2022 and beyond. 
   
   You can see these initiatives becoming even more so prevalent in popular B2C consumer brands such as Banana Republic, where they recently unveiled a sustainability component to their business model.
   
   As seen on their website, they’ve shaped a large portion of their items under “conscious luxury,” where they are sourcing their clothing with sustainable fabrics and reducing their plastic and water use.
   
   
   
   

   Banana Republic partnered with suppliers to source recycled and responsible wool from vendors that are compliant under the Responsible Wool Standards.
   
   In this capacity, it’s an effort to minimize waste, meet sustainability initiatives, and drive customer demand for conscious luxury.
   
   The social norms are transforming and shifting the way consumers and organizations are doing business together. 
   
   In fact, 67% of manufacturing executives in a recent Deloitte Survey expect more investment in this social area as part of sustainability priorities in 2022.

   Companies like Xampla, a UK-based product development startup that is developing natural alternatives to single-use plastic in product packaging, are at the forefront of advancing sustainability to reduce the amount of single-use plastic is used for consumers and manufacturers alike. 
   
   
   
   When asked about the ESG and sustainability priorities for the years ahead, Jeff Seabright, Chair of Xampla and former Chief Sustainability Officer of Unilever, stated that business can do more to address these initiatives as they have, “…the collective might, ingenuity, agility, resources and responsibility to be the drivers of change.”
   
   In essence, the transparency behind product, culture, and social initiatives is making its way into the minds of the rationale behind the buying stages of your campaigns.

   Regardless of your manufacturer’s end market, environmental accountability will become a center focus.

   With this in mind, 2022 will perhaps be the year of rigorously advancing sustainability and social initiatives.

   Operationalizing and addressing climate impact across your marketing, communication, and product design will become crucial. Is your team ready?

   Speak to a representative at Alpyne Strategy to solidify your industrial marketing strategy this year.
   
   

3. Shifting from a B2B to B2C Business Model

   As decision-making between millennials have grown, so has the number of buyers who want a seller-free experience. Less personal and self-service approaches to marketing will become more popular among B2B marketers.
   
   Most notably is the comfort B2B buyers are displaying to make large new purchases and reorders online, where 70 percent of B2B decision makers say they are open to making self-service or remote purchases in excess of $50,000.
   
   What does this mean for you and your organization?
   
   Well, digital selling is just as effective as in-person engagement. Indeed, in 2022, the power of digital may be just as effective in your current, traditional processes–or better.
   
   This doesn’t mean the sales role is completely obsolete. But, encouraging them to become more social media savvy and expanding their knowledge and applications of your product on social media will serve prospects well if the content is positioned correctly–and authentically.
   
   There are a few more things to consider. Self-service will be research heavy. Users are beyond used to being sold to and not to mention they want to be better off as a result of visiting your website and engaging with your brand.
   
   A good mix is to strongly hone in on your user experience across your website (e.g., quick page load speed, helpful resource center) and digital communication (e.g., automated, personalized email workflows upon submission, easy-to-understand copy write) to seamlessly fuse a solid experience.
   
   User experience and customer experience will enhance the self-service experience and contribute to a prospect coming back to move down their buying journey.
   
   Your mission now is to make B2B shopping just as seamless as B2C. HD Supply proactively reacted by taking a B2C model approach: enhancing its site search capabilities and user experience. By simply adding an Add to Cart functionality straight from the search bar they increased revenue by 16%.
   
   In essence, a seamless user experience is where authenticity, resourcefulness, and personalization work in sequence to drive self-service  and preference.

    

4. Digitalization Also Means Aligning Customer and Brand Experiences 

   Team alignment and training in customer experience will play a crucial role in your overall marketing and brand strategy. The messaging in your digital strategy needs to also be communicated and aligned with sales and customer support teams.
   
   A disjoint between them can affect the overall customer’s experience.
   
   That’s where sales enablement becomes important. Ensuring teams have a centralized place to quickly access customer-centric documents to help facilitate prospecting, upselling, or cross selling.
   
   All too often brands overlook the UX/CX experiences being delivered pre- and post-sale. How you treat prospects should also be in tune with your customers. Else, poor experiences can be escalated to social media and made publicly. Think wisely.
   
   All components should never alter course. Such factors will play much more importance in how buyers identify and rationalize their sales decision making process.
   
   Find the sweet spot for how your team can work to enhance the pre- and post-digital buying experience. A solid customer and brand experience can better drive customer engagement, demand, and profit over the long haul. Look out for this in 2022.

    

It will certainly be interesting how these factors will play out in 2022. The new year will be the year of digitalization, where purchasing decisions become more and more subjective, individualized, and difficult to quantify. Indeed, ensuring a consistent brand and customer experience may just put you ahead of mediocrity.

If you would like to download a copy of this blog to pass around with your team, feel free to download it here.