FuzeHub Publications

These are effective types of content to add to your ideal content blend. But they aren’t manufacturing-specific and they certainly won’t catch potential buyers’ eyes.

Try these types of content instead:

• AR and VR training and demos
• 3D CAD models
• 2D drawings
• Live Q&As

Think about the tools and processes your customers use on a daily basis. Then see if you can use more useful and innovative technologies to help your customers more effectively do something at their job.

Track Your Content Marketing Maturity

Like a human growing from child to teenager to adult, your content marketing strategy has levels of maturation.

A more mature content marketing program will be more successful and be scalable across the organization. A younger program is still answering the questions above. There are many steps in the middle.

Here is an overview of the stages of content marketing maturity:

• First steps – creating content but without a process in place
• Young – experiencing growing pains, as there are still issues with strategy and measurement
• Adolescent – developed a business strategy and is now measuring and scaling
• Mature – marketing program is successful but lacking in integration with the rest of the organization
• Sophisticated – business value is proven with accurate measurements and efforts integrating across the organization

To grow your organization’s marketing maturity, you must continue to improve your measurement, strategy, and scaling.

Make Ideas Go Further

When you have a marketing idea, sit down and break it into valuable little pieces. A good idea can be broken down into so many different content forms.

Start with smaller forms of content, like individual social media posts with data visualizations. Then translate that same idea into a short-form blog post. As you distribute this content, determine if these smaller pieces of content are well-received by your audience.

If so, make the ideas even larger. Create long-form blog posts, maybe even VR or AR tutorials. Create templates, case studies, and white papers.

If you already have big content, you can reverse engineer it to be smaller content. Break that massive white paper into tiny social media posts and shorter blog posts. Use one idea to make 5 or more pieces of content.

Every manufacturer is using content marketing today, which means that it’s more challenging than ever to stand out. Try applying these tactics to your own content marketing practices and see if your content has a bigger impact as a result.

3. Generate awareness through industry trade publications

Your clients are reading publications specific to their industry to gain insights into how to become more competitive and grow. If you can successfully land a story in one of these publications, you’ll reach people within your target audience.

4. Advocate for manufacturers through op-eds and opinion writing

Writing opinion pieces can position you as an expert in the field. Help your community understand the issues the industry faces, and explain how certain solutions can generate a positive impact. In business-focused publications, your op-ed could explain how to solve trending challenges or capitalize on emerging opportunities.

5. Create and distribute media kits to grab attention

Media kits put engaging, compelling materials in front of reporters and editors to facilitate introductions to your organization and experts. In our media kits, we typically include a fact sheet, spokesperson sheet, a narrative about the organization, pertinent news releases, localized data, and high-res imagery.

6. Share the experiences of manufacturers to connect with readers

To reinforce the message, we emphasized that each MEP center’s best stories live within the clients it helps strengthen and grow. When timely and compelling, client successes can lead to valuable coverage. However, one significant challenge is that many manufacturers get nervous about speaking to the press because they fear they might share proprietary information. The solution is to get manufacturers comfortable; try conducting pre-interviews, which will help you gather pertinent info for your pitches or your own website content, plus, it will give them a practice run.

7. Create a steady drumbeat by keeping the media updated on your work

Beyond the big successes with notable clients, MEP centers are doing important work every day to strengthen the manufacturing industry. Let the media know about it. Keep a pulse on activities happening throughout your organization and create a habit of regularly sharing updates—through news releases or media pitches—with key journalists. And, focus on building relationships with those key journalists.

8. Become your own reporter

Unfortunately, newsrooms across the country continue to face a shortage of resources, especially outside of major markets. Capture video and photos. Gather learnings from events and from local manufacturers, and write them up into digestible content. Constantly consider opportunities to share your content and maximize its reach—through social media, blogs, email newsletters, and other tactics.

The takeaway

While the information we shared during the webinar was tailored to the needs of MEP Centers, these tips can help any service-oriented organization or company. Strategic public relations can be an effective tool to connect with your target audiences and encourage them to take action.

For example, the self-driving floor scrubbers must be driven manually until they “learn”  the store’s layout. When the aisles are reconfigured, as is common during store remodels and holiday displays, the cobots need to learn the new pattern. By contrast, the industrial robots that are used in most factories are already programmed to perform specific tasks. These machines can’t work side-by-side with employees, but some Walmart workers wouldn’t want them to anyway.

For manufacturers who want to learn from Walmart’s experience, it’s important to separate the cobots’ limitations from their implementation. The frequent breakdowns of the machines may be frustrating, but it was an executive team that decided which technologies to buy and which tasks to automate. Worker expectations may have a role to play, too. If managers promoted cobots as a way to reduce drudgery, the human employees who still perform most of the physical work may wonder why their backs are still sore.

Finally, there’s room for improvement in human factors research.   Bossa Nova Robotics, the company which makes Walmart’s inventory-scanning robots, spent years teaching its machines to be as human-friendly as possible. Yet there isn’t any etiquette for human-cobot interactions. Cobots that remain silent can seem creepy, but machines that beep can be annoying. Plus, making cobots more like cars won’t necessarily help since shoppers don’t expect to see turn signals in the snack foods aisle.

Most manufacturing workers haven’t seen a cobot before, but an army of these machines could arrive at their favorite big box store sometime soon. Will their experience as shoppers affect how they perceive future cobots on the factory floor? They probably won’t punch or kick the machines (as some Walmart shoppers do), but don’t assume a warm welcome. That’s why it’s important to prepare for a discussion that covers technology, implementation, expectations, and human-machine interaction.