Approach to Inbound Marketing
Siemens (German) and Rockwell Automation (American) are in the business of industrial automation with Siemens also involved with electrical and medical technology. When looking at their inbound marketing approach in Australia, they are B2B focused with their marketing strategies orientated around that. The complexity and variety of their marketplace poses a challenge to their inbound marketing approach where one size does not fit all.
Both businesses centre there inbound marketing approach around content. Their websites provide educational and insightful blogs, whitepapers, webinars, videos, and media releases. This content rich approach is supported by Decker “Because the B2B buyer’s journey is slightly different than the B2C buyer’s journey (which has shorter sales cycles and fewer decision makers involved), the content you create for your B2B content marketing strategy may vary more than the content you’ve seen as a consumer” Neither offer e-commerce, their sales go through partners and integrators, found on their site. Both have regular, sponsored editorials in industry magazines, aimed at how they can help their persona’s pain points through technology, with invitations to visit their corporate website. As pointed out by Jonathan Franchell, CEO and Founder of Ironpaper, “Effective content in the awareness phase educates the buyer on their pain points” (Decker, 2022).
Siemens participate in omnichannel marketing with regular posts on Facebook and LinkedIn promoting products, conferences, webinars and competitions. All posts contain inbound links to their website.
Inbound Marketing Strengths and Weaknesses
The Siemens home page is very professional and compelling. Their video celebrating 150 years in Australia is impressive, emphasising environmental and sustainable collaborations. They are also running a Beyond 150 competition on their site and on social media for their employees and customers, a brilliant way of sustaining and developing relationships.
While browsing Siemens, the visitor is at times unexpectantly transferred to a global site. Although there are breadcrumbs, they may not be aware they have relocated and become bewildered by the new content.
Rockwell are conscious of their decision stage customer, pulling them inwards with “Ready to talk to a Rockwell Automation consultant?” on most pages leading to landing pages. “How to Buy” along the main menu leads to their partners and integrators.
In terms of organic search engine rankings, neither company performs well when using generic terms such as Digital Transformation or PLC Automation. Specific names and brands will return better results. But this may be lost on awareness stage buyers as Decker explains “To reach the greatest number of potential customers, pay to target relevant categories within your brand vs. promoting your product or services”.
Which organisation was best at inbound marketing and why?
Rockwell stood apart with their:
- consistent call to action (CTA), urging the customer towards their brand with invitations to contact them.
- emphasis on gated content beginning on their homepage with a featured report requiring email to access.
- prominent and concise case studies where customers can see what Rockwell have done to help businesses like theirs.
- easy website navigation for a more relevant and speedy experience, serving each stage of the buying process; “When choosing vendors, 89% say it’s very important/important that vendors provide them with relevant content at each stage of the buying process“ (Mok and Davidson).
Examples of how each organisation could improve its inbound marketing.
Siemens could improve their site experience by including a FAQ section and ensuring customers do not exit the local website by making sure links open in a new window. Prioritise the decision stage of the customer journey, like introducing more sales hand-offs with highly visible CTA’s such as “How can we drive your business?” leading to landing pages. Landing pages are pivotal to conversions and can involve requests for a demo, consultation, or whatever is the best fit for encouraging customers through the funnel (Meneide, 2022). Best practice on landing pages is for no more than two required fields.
Apart from posting on LinkedIn and some YouTube activity, Rockwell’s (Australia) social media presence is lacking. This is not uncommon for B2B businesses “Social media has long been a powerful tool for B2C businesses but less so for B2B” (MedForce). But according to Hubspot “75% of B2B buyers and 84% of C-Suite executives use social media when making a purchase.” Regular posts and shares on channels Rockwell’s marketplace accesses could be a highly effective way to enhance brand expertise and improve their SEO.
Both companies would benefit from SEO to improve their organic rankings. Targeting the right keywords in their content or even considering some paid visibility could help ranking and organic traffic (Omanovic, A. 2022).
Some of their competitors have responded to their customer preferences and are able to provide them with e-commerce and online order tracking. Investing in inbound in this way may be what is needed to catch-up to buyer’s needs.
Reference List
Decker, A. (2022) ‘The Ultimate Guide to B2B Marketing’ Hubspot [Online]. Available at: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/b2b-marketing [Accessed 12 September 2022].
Meneide, J. (2022) ‘B2B Website Examples that Impress’ Hubspot [Online]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJHt_irVc0w [Accessed 15 September 2022].
MedForce. (2022) ‘How Siemens uses B2C Marketing Tactics to Reach New B2B Audiences.’ [Online]. Available at: https://medforceeu.wbresearch.com/blog/siemens-combining-b2c-b2b-reach-new-audiences [Accessed 15 September 2022].
Mok, S. and Davidson, P. (2022) ‘The B2B Content Guide: Tech Buyers Need Relevant Vendor Content Pre- And Post-Sales’ in Forrester [Online]. Available at: https://www.forrester.com/blogs/the-b2b-content-guide-tech-buyers-need-relevant-vendor-content-pre-and-post-sales/ [Accessed 8 September 2022].
Omanovic, A. (2022) ‘Organic vs. Paid Search—Which One Is a Better Investment in 2022?’Serpwatch [Online]. Available at: https://serpwatch.io/blog/organic-vs-paid-search/ [Accessed 14 September 2022].
NHP [Online]. Available at: https://www.nhp.com.au/ [Accessed 8 September 2022].
Rockwell Automation (Australia) [Online]. Available at: https://www.rockwellautomation.com/en-au.html [Accessed 6 September 2022].
Siemens Australia [Online]. Available at: https://new.siemens.com/au/en.html [Accessed 4 September 2022].
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