How to Market Machinery in the Digital Space: A Blueprint for Success
A Blueprint for Success
How to Market Machinery in the Digital Space: A Blueprint for Success
The machinery industry has always stayed on the cutting edge of innovation with product development. As R&D teams, �eld engineering, and technical departments take their slice of the budget, there’s often little left for marketers to work with .
Now more than ever, marketing is playing a critical role in helping machinery organizations maintain their competitive advantage, and the tides are shiftingmodern buyers want more than just a reliable product.
A recent machinery industry report by Bain & Company emphasized that it’s simply “no longer enough to have the best products and engineering teams.”
Successful companies are those that harness digital platforms to reach global audiences and showcase their products, yet challenges arise when behind-the-scenes budget constraints stand in the way of success
While “many machinery companies will know �rsthand how easy it is for sales teams to devote disproportionate time to their needs,” a saving grace of bigger budgets can’t be relied upon to alleviate the pressure on sales and marketing teams.
According to Forrester, only 35% of B2B marketing decision-makers expect a budget increase of more than 5% in 2025, meaning machinery businesses need to get creative with compelling digital experiences if they want to stand out from the crowd and reach the right audiences.
Only 35% of B2B marketing decision-makers expect a budget increase of more than 5% this year.
“The machinery industry is undergoing a signi�cant shift. Traditional methods of marketing are making way for more advanced, data-driven approaches that maximize reach, engagement, and conversion.”
– Martin Boyle, Director of Brand and Communications at Lead Forensics
How to Market Machinery in the Digital Space: A Blueprint for Success
A Future Straddling Digital and Physical Worlds
The road to applying the machinery industry’s innovative vision to marketing strategies has been rocky. Traditionally, machinery marketing relied heavily on physical presence and direct interaction. Trade shows, industry events, and factory visits set the stage for live demos and handshake deals. Print ads in trade publications and targeted direct mail campaigns were the primary channels for reaching potential customers, and all roads led to a face-to-face sales pitch.
In the words of BigCommerce publication, “historically, it was about who you knew and who would refer you to someone else.” On the surface, the steps required to sell machinery haven’t changed much—“[it] includes discovery and pricing comparisons, quotes, demos, and �nal purchase decisions.
You may have to prove your worth to more than one level of decision-makers; typically, the bigger the purchase is, the more levels you have to impress.” What has really changed is how you sell it .
Today’s decision-makers expect compelling digital experiences that highlight the value and capabilities of your machinery, and they want access to your business at their �ngerprints.
Machinery marketing needs a touch of digital magic, through which physical products can come to life for customers across digital touchpoints.
What if factory visits didn’t require a factory visit at all? What if you could showcase every inch of your product to a roomful of buyers without even using the physical piece of machinery or equipment?
Ultimately, it’s not about forgetting traditional machinery marketing strategies—it’s about digitizing and optimizing them for modern customers and adopting new solutions to long-standing sales and marketing challenges.
What You’re Up Against: Sales and Marketing Challenges in the Machinery Sector
Long and Complex Sales Cycles
The signi�cant �nancial investment involved in purchasing equipment leads to prolonged decision-making, with various stakeholders weighing in on the �nal sign-o�.
Navigating these complex dynamics and convincing technical and non-technical stakeholders on all levels requires careful relationship-building over months or even years.
Building Trust and Credibility
Potential buyers need assurance that their investment will deliver on its promises and that the chosen vendor will provide ongoing support and maintenance.
Marketing and sales have a steep uphill battle to continuously demonstrate technical expertise and industry knowledge to solidify trust and showcase the ability to deliver tangible results.
How to Market Machinery in the Digital Space: A Blueprint for Success
Reaching the Right Audience
Many machinery companies operate in niche markets, serving specialized industries with unique requirements. After all, there’s no step-by-step playbook for creating social media content about carbon �ber weaving and micro-�uidic devices. This factor makes it di�cult to understand your target audience and highlights the growing need to reach globally interested buyers through digitization.
Break the Mould: 10 New Approaches for Your Digital Machinery Marketing Strategies
Embracing new technology is the �rst step towards a successful digital marketing strategy in the machinery industry.
How to Market Machinery in the Digital Space: A Blueprint for Success
QR codes o�er a surprising number of creative applications for machinery marketers to bridge the physical and digital worlds. It’s not about replacing in-person sales but enhancing customer experiences during the sales cycle.
“ Even if in-person sales may not be entirely replaced, that adjustment will, in many cases, [mean] increasing the use of virtual and remote sales contact, including a greater reliance on self-serve platforms and inside sales techniques ,” as noted in a Bain & Company machinery industry report.
QR codes can enable self-serve experiences by linking to virtual factory tours, exclusive webinars, and your company’s social media channels. It’s an easily accessible medium, too, as you can place QR codes:
• Directly on machinery/equipment , leading to technical documentation downloads, maintenance videos, or relevant parts and product pages.
• On brochures or banners at trade shows, directing prospects to product demos or forms for their content details. -09
2_AR & VR
How to Market Machinery in the Digital Space: A Blueprint for Success
Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality
can give prospects new ways to access, explore, and interact with your products. Rather than just telling customers about your equipment’s capabilities, AR/VR lets you show them, which is critical for building customer trust during long sales cycles.
For example, AR can overlay information on physical machines, turning a smartphone into an interactive manual. VR builds on this interactivity, giving you the power to create simulations where customers can experience the machinery in a safe and realistic environment.
A major draw of AR and VR is that neither technology requires the customer to be present. Instead, sales and marketing teams can facilitate these digital interactions remotely, helping you reach global audiences.
AR/VR strategies are ideal for businesses like testing instrumentation manufacturer Coltraco Ultrasonics, which “no longer sell physically—the internet is our shop.”
Some machinery marketing use cases include:
• Trade shows : Create a virtual trade show booth where visitors can explore your machinery in 3D, download brochures, and even chat with sales reps via avatars.
• Product exploration: Develop an AR app that allows customers to point their phone or tablet at a catalog page and see a 3D model of the machine come to life. Prospects can zoom in, rotate it, and even see animations of how it functions.
• Digital overlays: Use AR to give customers “X-ray vision.” They can point their device at a machine and see a virtual representation of its internal components, how they move, and how they interact.
• Factory tours : O�er a VR tour of your factory, allowing prospects to familiarize themselves with your operations, see your equipment in action, and even “meet” key personnel virtually.
How
3_DIGITAL TWINS
How to Market Machinery in the Digital Space: A Blueprint for Success
Photo Source: SMS Group
How to Market Machinery in the Digital Space: A Blueprint for Success
Digital twin technology allows manufacturers and customers to interact with a machine virtually, gaining insights that were previously impossible without on-site engineers.
Microsoft and Siemens recently collaborated to create standardized approaches that will enable organizations to use digital twins to “monitor, predict, and improve the performance of their assets, enhancing e�ciency and reducing costs.”
Digital twins create exciting opportunities for machinery marketing teams to deliver engaging and personalized experiences, such as:
• Showing o� your products’ reliability: Use digital twins to build customer trust by proving that your machinery business takes a proactive approach to remote customer service and technical support.
• Delivering comprehensive maintenance: Digital twins are a springboard for upselling service and support programs, demonstrating your business’ commitment to customer satisfaction and reliability.
• Enhancing customer marketing: The data gathered from digital twins helps you improve customer marketing communications. The digital twin provides data about individual customer needs and preferences so you can personalize marketing messages and improve the customer lifetime value and the likelihood of repeat business.
4_OT AND IT
The convergence of Operational Technology (OT) and Information Technology (IT) is a major trend (and challenge!) in the machinery industry.
It adds a new layer of complexity to marketing e�orts; now, you’ll need to promote physical machines and digitally connected systems, both of which may require di�erent marketing strategies and campaigns.
Here are some challenges you may face when embracing OT/IT convergence in your marketing campaigns and tips to overcome them:
• Jargon overload: Explaining the bene�ts of converged systems requires a deeper understanding of both OT and IT. Marketers need to be able to translate technical jargon into clear, concise language that resonates with di�erent audiences (engineers, IT managers, business decision-makers) across multiple channels.
• ROI focus: Communicating ROI for converged systems to non-technical stakeholders can be complicated. The best bet is for marketers to get creative and turn complex statistics into easily digestible formats like infographics.
• Potential pushback: Cybersecurity and data privacy are major concerns amongst OT/IT adopters. Don’t shy away from this feedback—instead, incorporate messaging about security features or certi�cations into your campaigns.
How to Market Machinery in the Digital Space: A Blueprint for Success
Integrating IT and OT
The essential infrastructure supporting data processing.
Systems that act as repositories for corporate data, ensuring accessibility for business applications and end-users.
IT/OT convergence
Integrating the two distinct networks to share and utilize the data collected by each.
Fostering collaboration between traditionally separate teams to combine expertise and resources.
OT
The network of devices and software utilized in industrial, manufacturing, and process control systems.
Supports specialized tools that gather and transmit data, enabling industrial equipment to perform speci�c functions.
5. LINKEDIN
How to Market Machinery in the Digital Space: A Blueprint for Success
Every marketer recognizes LinkedIn’s InMail feature as a steadfast tool for lead generation, but focusing too much on InMails can detract your time and attention from the platform’s other use cases.
Consider approaching LinkedIn from a di�erent angle and using it as a digital community hub where your business can share thought leadership, advice, product content, and more.
You can translate physical relationships with prospects you meet at trade shows and events into digital connections to keep the conversation going.
LinkedIn is also a channel for consistency and long-term relationships. While buyers may move between careers, promotions, and localities, their LinkedIn pro�le remains a pillar you can use to stay connected with them no matter what.
Unlike industries such as tech and �tness, machinery doesn’t always embrace the quirks and trends of social media with open arms. Millennials and Gen Z, who have grown up with social media, are more likely to engage with content on LinkedIn than legacy buyers.
Finding the perfect balance between professional and fun can be challenging, but it’s all part of developing a brand voice that resonates with audiences of all demographics on LinkedIn—and stands out in the sea of “plainer” machinery marketing content.
6_ONLINE EVENTS & WEBINARS
The COVID-19 pandemic forced the machinery industry to totally rethink the approach to sales and marketing without access to face-to-face interactions.
Thankfully, many machinery businesses embraced the change and even discovered new and e�cient engagement strategies like online events and webinars.
Although some buyers will still prefer traditional face-to-face interactions , these digital touchpoints are a great way to engage buyers globally or nationally who can’t get to you.
However, it’s not as easy as directly swapping out a live seminar for an online webinar - challenges still remain in encouraging buyers to give your business their time and energy.
For this reason, digital events and content must be as educational and thought-provoking as any meet-up , providing valuable insights on the machinery industry’s headline-worthy topics.
Once you’ve handled the content, it’s important to translate other aspects of live events from stage to screen . For example, you can turn audience participation or Q&A segments into interactive elements throughout the webinar, such as polls or response forms.
In a recent B2B Revenue Masters webinar, Coltraco Ultrasonics included an interactive poll inviting participants to engage in an o�er for a free book about revenue generation. As well as keeping the audience alert during the online session, hosts Coltraco were able to gain data they could use to follow up with prospects after the event
7_SEGMENTATION
Digital marketing strategies give you the power to segment messaging to di�erent industry verticals and decision-makers, steering away from a one-size-�ts-all approach.
How to Market Machinery in the Digital Space: A Blueprint for Success
Traditional methods of machinery marketing, such as trusty live demos, don’t provide the opportunity to tailor messaging to segmented audiences in the way that channels like email and social media ads do.
Audience segmentation really does work in practice. For example, the sales teams at wire, sheet metal, and spring components manufacturer Filame faced challenges in qualifying leads due to the highly specialized nature of the products. Therefore, understanding their niche audiences’ wants and needs was di�cult.
As a solution, Filame used tools like conversion trackers to discover which products catch visitors’ eyes, enabling them to better understand the activity, industry, and size of prospects in segmented categories.
Filame’s Managing Director, Jean Gabriel, emphasized that their “strategy works best when […] we share the necessary data between our sales and marketing teams through our CRM,” giving all teams greater visibility over the audience’s wants and needs.
Similarly, this strategy proved its success for sheet metal vendor McAree Engineering, which generated €217K of new business after its sales and marketing teams prioritized tailored communications to each audience segment.
“[Machinery marketers must] learn how to utilize data [and] how to turn data into productivity.”
- Peter Zech, Head of Innovation and Digitalization at the Siemens Electrical Motor Factory in Bad Neustadt
Digital marketing in the machinery space requires constant (and some would say relentless!) e�ort, ampli�ed by the long sales cycles that underpin industry needs.
Retargeting strategies enable you to send “friendly reminders” to prospects who have already interacted with your digital marketing e�orts, encouraging them to re-engage with your business to keep you at the top of their minds.
Retargeting can yield excellent business development results , as metalworking machinery company Selmach Machinery experienced. By using retargeting strategies and following up with website visitors who didn’t initially inquire about their business,
Selmach Machinery closed over £100,000 worth of deals.
How to Market Machinery in the Digital Space: A Blueprint for Success
Here’s an example retargeting �ow to follow in Selmach’s footsteps.
1. Host an online webinar about a hot industry topic , such as IoT network security.
2. Reference a recent thought leadership article about this topic during the webinar . After the event, send an email thanking the participants and inviting them to �nd out more by providing a link to the thought leadership article on LinkedIn.
3. LinkedIn provides a host of opportunities to direct prospects to your website. For example, you could provide links to your homepage, product pages, or other content in the article
Your B2B website can act as a hub for all digital marketing activities, and driving tra�c to it should be a top priority for machinery marketers. After all, BigCommerce magazine emphasizes that “ one of the biggest KPIs for marketing is website tra�c . If you can drive enough of the right people to a site, the thought is that you’ll make your sales numbers.”
9_ABM
Account-based marketing (ABM) campaigns provide yet another opportunity to leverage audience segmentation to the best of its abilities. In the machinery industry, one high-value client can signi�cantly impact your bottom line, and ABM will help you seal those all-important accounts
Similarly, ABM might be right for you if your existing lead generation strategies are not reaching your Ideal Customer Pro�le (ICP). Coltraco Ultrasonics explained in a recent webinar that they faced this exact challenge: “ First, we needed to assess the leads to see if they were genuine leads. […] But, sometimes, we weren’t bringing in the right type of customers—genuine, true customers .”
Controlled cavitation technology developer Hydro Dynamics was in the same boat. They aimed to take a one-to-one approach to their messaging by creating a work�ow that identi�ed businesses in the markets they were most excited about growing. Using a variety of tools to bring this to life, Hydro Dynamics were “blown away” by the results , which provided the ideal foundation for future targeted campaigns like ABM.
10_IDENTIFY YOUR WEBSITE VISITORS
How to Market Machinery in the Digital Space: A Blueprint for Success
One way to achieve visibility is through visitor identi�cation software that unveils those anonymous visitors, revealing valuable information like:
• Which companies are visiting your site , so sales and marketing can target leads based on their potential value and relevance to your ICP.
• What pages they’re viewing . This info helps you understand their interests and tailor marketing materials. For example, are they interested in a speci�c product line? Have they downloaded technical speci�cations?
• Contact details of key decision-makers , aka the gold mine. You can gain direct access to the people who matter within those companies, facilitating personalized outreach and relationship building.
Machinery Marketing 2.0: It’s Time to Put Audience Insights into Action
While the machinery industry’s foundation is still rooted in the powerful engines and intricate mechanics that transformed the world, the way these machines are marketed and sold has irrevocably changed.
Sales and marketing teams in machinery organizations can shake hands in agreement over the importance of audience insights . Both camps can utilize this data in compatible yet di�erent ways.
For sales professionals in the machinery industry, going beyond basic demographics and delving into the speci�c industries, company sizes, and even individual job titles of potential prospects is vital for understanding the minds of niche and highly segmented audiences.
How to Market Machinery in the Digital Space: A Blueprint for Success
Identifying anonymous website visitors provides valuable context that will form the bulk of your marketing team’s messaging and content strategies; Doug Mancosky, Head of Research & Development at Hydro Dynamics, summed up the power of website visitor identi�cation neatly: “All that information in one place blew my mind.”
By bridging the gap between online interest and real-world engagement, Lead Forensics helps machinery companies transform their digital presence into powerful lead generation. Lead Forensics is designed to improve marketing ROI for machinery companies by uncovering the identities of your anonymous B2B website visitors and providing actionable insights to empower sales and marketing teams.
Unlock the potential of your B2B lead gen strategy by booking a demo today.
