Which direction should I take my industrial marketing?

Linkedin and getting your hands on a list of decision makers at companies that use what you sell and start contacting.

For you website, start with your ideal customer in mind. What are they looking for - besides piping skids? What makes them buy? What do they need to see on your site to buy from you? People have certain expectations, if your site convinces them their expectations are going to be met, they'll buy.

Testimonials, reviews, guarantees, logos of companies that make sure transactions are not going to be hacked, they all help.
Do you have such things?

Do you need to have white papers? Case studies?

Who else sells to your ideal customer? Have you thought about joint ventures?

I would get the new site up.. look at others that do what you do and see what their site looks like. I suspect install diagrams, tech details etc?

Marketing? I would start with each and every past customer and a brochure that hi-lites your site and the information that is available.

Once you are comfortable with that.. I would suggest trade mag ads, and maybe hit a convention or 2.

And as DABK mentions you can directly communicate with who you need to communicate with thru LinkedIn. Join the groups that you would like to target.. see what is going on within them, and maybe produce some content that helps your target, and not selling to them. and over time create more and more content expanding that help and creating a working relationship with those group members. In other words be SOCIAL and not so much a salesman.

YOU have the knowledge to help these folks.. and with time if you provide that help it will pay for itself in spades.

i'm not giving advice here ..because you are not dealing with low end or impulse purchases ..

who does your father or the people who sell for your father actually sell to ..to me .. and i am just going from my experience in working in a few factories and warehouses ..is that something like this doesn't get sold to the end user .. but to instillation and repair companies . hvac people and such..

you might want to go to your current client base and build a site with feedback from them in order to better serve current client needs ..with a lot of attention on a smooth smartphone interface ..so when a repair person is in the field seeing the part they need ..they can pull their smart phone out look through your selection of part you offer ..and have a phone number their to call

this might be something you develope to serve current clients .to better serve them..and can then be rolled out to get new clients

so i might just be making this up.. so it is not real advice .. but first you digital marketing to or digital/internet systems to better serve current clients ..building it along side or onto what your father has been doing for 30 years

Thank you everybody for all of the great responses. It's a lot to absorb. From looking at other websites within the industry, the current one is not too far off. It just needs a facelift. I've been overlooking the more traditional forms of marketing as well as LinkedIn. I'll work on all of the suggestions and report back!

Hi Frank, use the Quote function so we can see who you're responding to (and you can on future visits.)

I would post your question in the Offline subforum, as most of the experienced brick and mortar business owners are in there and usually not up here. Though savidge4 and DABK are representatives of the subforum.

2010-12 I was the sole technical writer for an Inc. Top 500 scientific & testing equipment sales co. I think the result you want is similar to what they got: engineers, scientists, * intelligent buyers * coming in who need to take your content seriously.

One of the big reasons this company hired me and kept me working for them until they got bought by a larger Canadian firm--and my time became too valuable to spend on writing technical articles--was the response of the people reading them. Since my background out of college was in power generation and control equipment, the readers knew what they were reading was technically competent...and they said so in their comments. Then they bought, because they knew the people they were buying from gave a damn.

If they had felt the company was simply "slinging product," they'd have run in the other direction...after expressing their displeasure.

The level of awareness of your typical prospect will be high. You won't have to explain what a PLC does...instead, your content should focus on how best to use your equipment, or how it is more robust and lasts longer than a competitor's.

Often the decision, in the absence of any differentiating factor, can boil down to price. You want to avoid that situation.

Make sure your site has an opt-in feature, so you can collect their name & email and maybe phone number (though you could get that later; make it easy for them to get started), and continue to market to them.

If I was in your position I'd do some information interviews with decision makers at the smelters and factories. Who actually makes the decision? Purchasing dept.? Or a Facilities Manager or Operations guy?

What problems do they admit to having? (Once you learn this language you can repeat it back to new prospects.)

Think about what the process looks like that you want your ideal customer to experience. Right now from what I'm seeing a dozen people come to your site a week, look and leave. Capture that lead. Take it to email. Continue marketing through email, where you can send them video case studies, use case stories, tell them about problems they never thought of before about this kind of product, and so on. Then you can get them on a phone call for a real discussion.

By having good quality articles on your site, you can develop SEO authority and start getting found by the right people searching for relevant terms.

As @DABK mentioned LINKEDIN is perfect for this you can aim your marketing to a lot of small and big conpanies out there the market is huge

I would also consider a google adwords which is I think very effective but If you dont have any idea how to do it hire someone so you dont lose money

I could be wrong, but i'm thinking your demographic is going to be fairly confined to your specific region. I'm still guessing but you're likely not looking to ship to other countries? You could start an instagram page showcasing all that you guys do, maybe a few indepth videos of the processes and then do some paid promotions specific for your area.

Linkedin is probably a good suggestion but one thing I would suggest that doesn't really fit this forum is carrying on offline. Do you have any large mobile signs advertising your business? Are there any local business that you can cater to that you can do a walk through? During your walk through find things you can improve for these people as potential customers and then pitch your idea to them.

Are there local events you can sponsor to get your name out there and attached to? Not entirely related but we have a local brewery here that has their hands in EVERY event and fundraiser you could imagine. Helping other people can really help you.
Hope this helps and good luck

Also, on the off chance you are looking to ship far outside your region is it possible to advertise one off prefabricated parts? I know a guy who owns a large boat dealership and they have literally sent boats around the world from just posting them on online marketplaces

It is good you are already here. The first thing you will need to do is to join forums where you will easily meet your potential customers. Discuss and share ideas about what you do and you never know, you may get some leads. Also, think creatively and use email marketing as well.

Welcome to the forum. Start by choosing a niche in which you want to practice.

I think you can do off page SEO at this situation.

Thank you everyone again for the suggestions. Utilizing LinkedIn messaging and offline lead chasing, I have been able to get more meetings. Now the priority is working on content that we can use as a newsletter and start gaining a following on LinkedIn.

Also, you need to think outside the box. The current number of traffic visiting your site is extremely low. Can you imagine your competitors are doing 10,000+ visitors per month while you are only doing 50? So, get an SEO expert to help improve the ranking. Second, think about using social media and posting blogs with your web site's link to guest post sites.