Content Marketing in the Engineering Industry

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Countless industries fall into the engineering sector, from fabricated metal to transportation equipment, electrical equipment, and more. While the engineering sector as a whole is doing well, increasing competition means those who lag behind on digital adoption are sure to struggle. For businesses in the engineering industry, the main priority is getting on a path to sustainable growth.

Here's how you can implement content marketing for your engineering brand.


Benefits of Investing in Content Marketing for Your Engineering Brand

Benefits-engineering

Over 70% of companies agree that content marketing helps them bring in new leads. For those in the engineering sector, content marketing can build brand authority and help you attract interest from new partners and clients. It can even play a role in helping you find the right candidates next time you need to fill a position. Let's quickly breakdown the key, direct benefits content marketing can have for your brand.


Authorize
Spread Awareness and Build Authority

Whether you're an engineering firm that researches new technology or a long-standing production company with multiple contracts, there's no such thing as being too well known. Spreading awareness and building authority are fundamental to the success of all engineering companies as these endeavors will ultimately help you win more contracts.

If you do things right, your brand will also reach a point of industry recognition where others turn to you for insights and resources. This is a great place to be and opens the doors to new business and better talent. After all, the industry's best engineers have their pick when it comes to who they want to work for. Getting your company's values and culture out there will help you attract top candidates.

Organic
Increase Organic Traffic

If your engineering company is looking into content marketing, it's likely because you realize the importance of having a strong online presence. For most businesses today, the internet represents a great source of new leads, and it's likely no different for your company. Even if your business submits proposals to government bodies and other institutions to win contracts, having a digital presence that potential clients can reference can help you win more contracts.

Additionally, a strong online presence is critical to spreading awareness about your company's work. By publishing findings, offering informed opinions, and speaking on pressing topics, your brand will be able to become a thought-leader and authority for the niche.

On-page SEO and other SEO strategies also play a key role in driving traffic to your website and reaching your target audience. It can seem daunting, but with tools like Google Analytics, your company can uncover long tail keywords and increase search volume over time. Of course, the core focus of your content writing efforts should remain centered on offering value to your readers.


Resources
Offer Educational Resources

At its core, content marketing is rooted in offering real value to your readers. It gives you the opportunity to offer educational resources — whether they're targeted at other businesses, researchers, potential clients, or the general public.

While this ties in with building brand authority and becoming a thought leader, offering educational resources can also increase organic traffic to your site, directly powering your lead generation and conversion metrics. When you build a content strategy that caters to your prospects throughout every stage of the funnel, and one that helps nurture them through the stages, you'll find that your content works for you. It's generating leads and helping to nurture those leads, resulting in more clients for your business.

Having a variety of content, like case studies and blog posts, also plays a role in helping your content writing increase sales. If that all sounds too good to be true and you're wondering how you could possibly have your content generate and nurture leads for your business, we'll go through it in detail in just a moment.


Tips for Creating a Winning Engineering Content Strategy

Tips-engineering

The three examples listed above are only the beginning. As you go through the steps below, it's worth looking more closely at your direct competitors and other industry leaders for inspiration. Here's what you need to do to get your content marketing strategy going.


Steps
Step 1: Understand Who You Are & Who You Serve

Far too many companies skip right over this step because they feel like they've already defined the "who" and "what" of being in business. However, this fundamental step won't just help inform your content strategy, but it also serves as a tool for new hires so they know how they should represent your brand.

Before you dig into the upcoming steps, make sure you:

  • Define at least one customer persona. Researching your audience and identifying at least one consumer persona.
  • Build a brand book. A brand book is a reference tool you'll be able to show anyone (writer, marketer, etc.) so that they can quickly get up-to-speed on your company, what you value, and how they should represent you.
  • Bring it all together. There's no better time to check your brand book against your customer persona(s) and make sure that who you want your brand to be represents what your customers are looking for.

This is a good exercise for companies new and old alike and it will inform your strategy from here forward, so make sure you dig into the insights and demographics available to you.


Steps
Step 2: Identify Your Platforms

With an understanding of your audience and how they prefer to consume information, you can identify the platforms that will be valuable to your brand. Most every brand will choose to have a blog on their own website, and you might choose to add additional resources as well, such as a knowledge base or section where readers can download papers and other documents.

As a brand, it's also important that you work a social media presence into your strategy. Most B2B companies start with LinkedIn while most B2C companies start with Facebook. The fact is, there's no right or wrong answer that fits everyone. You should reference your understanding of your audience to determine where you need to be.

Your goals will also determine where your brand should establish a presence. For instance, even a B2C company that primarily posts on Facebook should establish a LinkedIn presence if they also hope to attract future job applicants. Consider all of your target personas when choosing your platforms and allow those personas to inform the content you post on each platform.


Steps
Step 3: Determine Your Media Types

While content marketing is largely made up of written content, don't think that your brand is in any way limited to Tweets and blog posts. In fact, adding video content and other forms of media into your strategy can further build brand authority, boost shareability, and get you more backlinks.

Popular types of content include:

  • Articles and blog posts
  • eBooks and white papers
  • Podcasts
  • Videos
  • Online courses
  • Live webinars
  • Infographics

While it's not always possible, deciding on a healthy mix of these media types will help you reach and engage your audience across platforms. If you're on a tight budget, focus on producing short-form written content (like articles and blog posts) to get your strategy going.


Steps
Step 4: Schedule Your Content

Once you know where you're posting and what you're posting, you have two of the three components necessary to complete this step. Now you just need the third component, which is how often you'll post. As with which platforms you choose, there's no one-size-fits-all number for how often you should post content.

How frequently you publish will depend on how active your audience is and, of course, the time and money you have budgeted for content creation. The old adage, "quality over quantity" should certainly be at the front of your mind. Once you know how much content you can produce, it's time to assemble a content calendar.

Your content calendar is basically a schedule that helps you organize what you're posting, where you're posting it, and when. Ideally, you'll lay out a schedule for a full calendar year (January through December) so that you can account for any seasonal content changes or topics. Don't worry about filling in the slots in the schedule just yet, that's for the next step.


Steps
Step 5: Fill Your Calendar

With your content schedule in hand, your content calendar is finally coming together. The last step is to fill up all those empty slots with specific content ideas and topics. For most businesses, this feels like the most daunting part. After all, it can seem like quite a chore to sit down and brainstorm a year's worth of ideas, but the good news is: You don't have to.

Most businesses only fill up their content calendar a few months at a time. Plus, you don't need to pull your ideas out of thin air — nor should you try. Your next task is to perform some in-depth keyword research so that you can understand exactly what your audience is searching for. These keywords will inform the core of your content strategy.

When you base your content strategy around keywords, you'll set yourself up for growth in organic traffic and an overall boost to your site's SEO. You'll also make sure that you're hitting on your audience's key questions and concerns. However, you can't take a cookie-cutter approach and base all your content around keywords.

If looking at the previous examples proved anything, it's that engineering firms big and small should be putting their values and backstory front-and-center. So, besides content that hits on the keywords you identify in your research, you should also take your audience behind-the-scenes with content that explores who your company is, how it came to be, and what it's like working for you and with you.

All of this can sound a bit intimidating, but it's easier if you have talented writers standing by to help.

Successful Engineering Brands (and how they did it!)

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Before we dig into the step-by-step of creating your content strategy, it's always worthwhile to get inspiration from those who have proven their abilities. Here's a look at three engineering brands that have invested a great deal of time and energy into their content marketing efforts, and it's paying off.


In the past 50 years, Henderson Engineers has repeatedly proven one thing: they believe in putting people first. To this day, their content marketing strategy and company as a whole reinforces people-centric values, which prioritize relationships with clients and employees alike. Now operating coast-to-coast, Henderson Engineers employs over 800 specialists with expertise ranging from construction management to acoustics, forensics, and more.

When it comes to content marketing, the first thing you should examine from Henderson is the company's robust website. In addition to a detailed history that brings the brand's story to life through photographs and numbers, Henderson offers a detailed look at its areas of expertise, projects, and the people behind it all. An Insights section devoted to thought leadership is where the brand's focus on creating an innovative, ever-evolving company culture really shines.

Key Takeaways: Henderson's robust website tells a reader anything and everything they want to know, from how the company came to be, to the areas they specialize in, to the people behind it and what it's like working for Henderson.


With a history dating back to 1939, Jensen Hughes has long led the industry with their specialization in risk-based engineering and consulting services. The company's global presence is backed by security experts along with innovative technological solutions. Well-aware of their reputation and reach, the brand features news and insights on the homepage, grabbing readers' attention right away.

You'll find a dedicated section for case studies and another one for media articles. In addition to a blog, Jensen Hughes maintains a growing website featuring the industries and services they deal in and job opportunities. The company devotes entire pages to explaining the company's purpose and principles, too. Like most major engineering firms, they keep their values front-and-center.

Key Takeaways: Jensen Hughes routinely provides points-of-view and research from its own industry experts, and it's a resource many businesses turn to when they need answers. In addition to an array of static content, they also maintain a blog and a section of case studies.



With origins dating back to 1959, WSP became the company it is today through multiple acquisitions, now operating with over 15,000 employees and 300 offices around the world. As another major engineering firm, WSP offers insights that lead the way regarding climate, mobility, society, technology, and more. Like others, they put their values in the spotlight, with a focus on a sustainable future.

The notion of "act locally, think internationally" comes up often as you read through WSP's content, and it's just one way they introduce and reinforce the principles of their work.

The diverse content attracts potential partners, researchers, and future job applicants thanks to its variety, and since WSP is a trusted authority, it's a well-known source for statistics and new information. This leads to more organic traffic because WSP simply comes to people's minds when they're looking for information in the engineering industry.

Key Takeaways: Jensen Hughes routinely provides points-of-view and research from its own industry experts, and it's a resource many businesses turn to when they need answers. In addition to an array of static content, they also maintain a blog and a section of case studies.


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