Growing a manufacturing business is not easy and as the owner of a manufacturing business, you will definitely agree on how hard it is becoming for manufacturers to increase production and sales.

Notwithstanding that, here are some strategies that you should work on to grow your manufacturing business:

 

1. Get Online Word of Mouth Referrals

If you are running a manufacturing business, you can tell how important word of mouth referrals are for growing your business.

In fact, according to this article on Forbes, word of mouth marketing is the most important and effective method of marketing your business.

But what about the online equivalent of word of mouth marketing?

If you go through multiple research studies on online word of mouth marketing, including this one on ResearchGate, you will understand how impactful online word of mouth referrals or online reviews are becoming, especially in the post-COVID-19 era when businesses are going digital.

As a matter of fact, according to this research study, 79% of consumers say that they trust online reviews as much as they trust recommendations from people they know.

What’s more?

To quantify the value of these online word of mouth referrals, two professors at the University of Connecticut and one at the Ohio State University have come up with a formula to calculate the lifetime value of your customers’ purchases and the value of their referrals.

Now that you have an idea of how critical online word of mouth reviews are becoming, how do you actually earn such reviews for your manufacturing company?

One good place to start collecting 100% verified reviews that your customers can trust and rely on is by listing your company on IBNESTO.

Among the various other good reasons to list your business on IBNESTO, one thing that sets IBNESTO apart from all other review platforms is IBNESTO’s commitment to verify all reviews before they are published on IBNESTO.

So when your prospective customers search for manufacturing companies online, they may decide to do business with your company with the help of these referrals and reviews on IBNESTO.

 

2. Prioritize Business Networking

Business Networking is a socioeconomic activity that involves developing relationships with other businesspeople, and then utilizing these relationships to increase business, and to further expand your business network and sphere of influence.

Again, business networking is one of the most effective tools for increasing your business, and small business owners, including owners of manufacturing businesses, will attest this fact.

In case of manufacturing businesses, networking is even more important due to the extensive range of applications, specialties and processes that exist in manufacturing.

Trade shows, local business luncheons, and other local, regional and international networking events are great places to get to know other people in your industry including fellow manufacturers, potential clients/customers, suppliers, contractors, competitors, educators etc.

You can also avail the power of online business networking platforms like IBNESTO and LinkedIn to find businesses in your industry and to connect with decision makers in these companies.

 

3. Develop Partnerships

In addition to just business networking, you can build mutually beneficial partnerships with other manufacturing companies in order to beat the competition. These partnerships could be in the form of agreements, acquisitions or mergers, and will allow your business to expand into new markets that may not have been possible without entering the partnership.

For example, heat exchanger manufacturers can join forces with other thermal engineering companies like those manufacturing air conditioning appliances to meet the needs of a wider market more efficiently with their combined resources.

You can also develop mutually beneficial partnerships with your suppliers and with other businesses in the supply chain.

 

4. Prioritize strategies over day-to-day operations

If you are the owner of a small manufacturing businesses, you may find yourself allocating a lot of time for the day-to-day operations of the business.

Although making the right decisions in day-to-day operations are critical for staying aligned with your company’s strategic objectives, you may want to consider re-allocating more of your time to focus on developing these growth strategies for your manufacturing business, if you want your business to keep growing, especially in the long run.

To achieve this, some of the things you can do include, but are not limited to:

• delegate details to managers
• hold growth focused meetings regularly, and reasonably frequently
• explore and study new technologies.

 

5. Strengthen Online Presence through Marketing

When you work on strategies, don’t forget online strategies! After all, unless your products and services are seen, they will not be sold.

In order get more customers and increase sales, you will need to build a strong online presence of your manufacturing business.

And when you start working on your online profile, there is so much you can do to grow your business that we will have to publish complete books on each and every digital marketing strategy that your business can implement to accelerate growth and revenues.

But instead of publishing such content in books, we are publishing the central idea of all of these online marketing strategies here on IBNESTO Insights.

For the purposes of this article, we present here a brief summary of some of these digital marketing strategies:

• Work on your website: Hire a professional web design company like Caweem to build, maintain and continuously update/upgrade your website on a regular basis.
• Invest in Search Engine Optimization (SEO): SEO Marketing is a combination of online marketing techniques that you must implement if you want your website to rank higher on search engines, like Google and Bing, for terms and keywords that are crucial to your industry. Again, we recommend you to check out the SEO services provided by Caweem since they are an SEO agency specializing in providing SEO services to businesses in operating in any field of engineering, science or technology.
• Do Content Marketing: This involves creating valuable and educational content for the online audience in your industry. This content can be in the form of articles, blog posts, videos, info-graphic or even interactive content. By creating and marketing such content, you can promote your company’s brand awareness and brand affinity.
• Stay engaged on Social Media: Half of the worlds population or more than 4,200,000,000 people are active on social media and spend at least 145 minutes on social media on average everyday, according to statista . Do you need any more reasons to stay active on social media?
• Consider Online Advertising: If your business needs to gain some traction in the online world relatively quickly, you should consider hiring a digital marketing company or work with us to start advertising your business on search engines like Google and Bing, and on social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook etc.

So if you are the owner of a manufacturing business, or any other business that operates in any field of engineering, science or technology, you are in luck!

This is because we, at IBNESTO, have partnered with Caweem to provide these and many other digital marketing services to companies that get listed on IBNESTO.

To get started, check out one of our listing plans which include marketing services: Premium Business, Supreme Business and Enterprise plans.

 

6. Invest in Talent, Skills, Training and Education

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” These are the wise words of Benjamin Franklin, who was himself a polymath, a scientist, an inventor, a writer, a political philosopher, and also one of the founding fathers of the United States of America.

Without a doubt, this is one important piece of advice that you must adhere to if you want to grow your manufacturing business or any other business for that matter!

Additionally, according to research, one of the problems that has been adversely affecting US manufacturing is the lack of and decline in an educated workforce in the manufacturing sector in the United States.

Here are some of the measures your manufacturing business must undertake to fix such shortcomings:

• Build a rigorous hiring system: Most manufacturers struggle to find and keep the right talent, so you will have to work on improving your hiring process and a system for retaining your top talent.
• Hire more educated people: Hire more engineers, including mechanical engineers, manufacturing engineers etc. as their knowledge will ultimately become the lifeline of your business, in today’s competitive and knowledge-based economy.
• Invest in staff training and education: By investing in staff training and education, your business will be investing in the most critical asset of your manufacturing business: a dedicated workforce. Thus, continuous learning and career development of employees is something every company should be focused on, especially manufacturing companies.

 

7. Invest in New Technology

In a similar way to investing in human resources, you will also have to invest other technology and capital resources.

These resources are the culmination and embodiment of the knowledge of the human civilization, and it is not possible to go any further if the current technological advancements are not utilized to their potential.

Thus, investment in the state of the art technology is critical for every manufacturing business, if they want to:

• Sustain Growth and satisfy growing demand
• Improve Efficiency
• Reduce Costs
• Improve Quality

In addition to upgrading just the factory production equipment, you as the owner of a manufacturing business, should also consider investing in technologies like engineering and manufacturing software, Industry 4.0 and Internet of Things (IoT) to grow your manufacturing business.

 

8. Implement Lean Manufacturing

Lean Manufacturing is a methodology that focuses on minimizing waste while maximizing productivity in manufacturing operations.

The core principle here is to reduce and eliminate those activities in manufacturing that do not add any value for the customer. You can learn more about the 5 principles of lean manufacturing here.

In addition to just eliminating waste, implementing lean manufacturing also reduces operating costs and lead times, and it can also help improve the quality of goods manufactured.

In essence, the goal of lean manufacturing is to minimize and eliminate:

• unnecessary transportation
• excess inventory
• unnecessary motion of people, equipment or machinery
• waiting, whether it is people waiting or idle equipment
• over-production of a product
• over-processing or putting more time into a product than a customer needs,
• defects, which require effort and cost for corrections, and
• waste of unused talent and ingenuity.

By focusing on things that create value for your customers, these above mentioned inefficiencies can be reduced or completely eliminated, thereby streamlining the manufacturing process, reducing costs and improving quality.

But despite all these advantages, lean manufacturing systems cannot be considered a remedy for every business.

Before implementing lean manufacturing practices, manufacturing businesses must first estimate the benefits of a lean system and compare them to the requirements of their business.

 

9. Earn Certifications

Without a doubt, certifications are one of the one of the most important factors that B2B companies use to evaluate manufacturers.

As a manufacturing company, you may want to showcase some of the following types of certifications:

• Quality Certification
• Lean Manufacturing Certification
• Six Sigma Certification
• Health and Safety Certifications
• Logistics Certification
• Project Management Certification

In addition to helping you grow your manufacturing business by fostering assurance in your products and services, some other major benefits of certifications for manufacturing companies include:

• increased sales and market share
• improved customer satisfaction and loyalty
• better quality products and services
• increased efficiency, fewer mistakes and less wasted time
• more dedicated and competent employees
• reduced overall risks
• improved business reputation

 

Need More?

That’s not all! We have some more awesome strategies in the pipeline to help grow your manufacturing business.

And we will keep adding these strategies to this article in time.

In the meantime, consider subscribing to our Insights to stay updated on tips, tricks and strategies that can help you take your manufacturing business to the next level.

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