Have you seen The Customer-Focused Marketing Playbook?

This comprehensive and practical guide to the latest ideas in customer-focused marketing hands you over 200 packed pages of strategy, best practices, do's and don'ts, practical know-how, facts and figures, and ideas to optimise your marketing strategy, boost sales, market share, increase ROI and profit.

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B2B manufacturers face ever-tougher competition

Time-to-market and AI are their main focus now

The report, entitled'Driving digital commerce in manufacturing', was based on a survey of 200 marketing decision makers in manufacturing businesses across the US, UK, and Germany, and found that almost 9 in 10 (87%) of respondents are now facing more competition compared to a year ago. In fact, 22% of those are facing significantly more competition.

The pressure to stay ahead is affecting the majority of businesses in the industry; 88% agreeing they have changed their business model to compete in current market conditions.

Being fast, being agile
The most common challenge when launching a new product to market is beating a competitor to market according to 65% of all respondents, followed closely by gathering the right product information at 60%. The three biggest product information challenges are the time it takes to create and update it, managing stakeholders, and localizing information.

Although 92% of respondents agreed that they can quickly update their product information, almost two thirds (63%) stated that product information problems often cause delays or product withdrawals.

"The pressure to get products to market quickly has been accelerated by the current economic climate and shows no signs of slowing down," said Thomas Zanzinger, CEO at inRiver. "Product information is a business's digital front door, so ensuring it's accurate and appropriate across all channels is critical for manufacturers to drive revenue and loyalty in such a competitive marketplace."

Diverse routes to market
The growing complexity of product information and the pressure to keep up with the competition is leading manufacturers to turn to automation and artificial intelligence to speed up processes. 90% of respondents agree that product information task automation is increasing and 94% say they use automation and AI to tailor product information for different channels.

Technology is also being applied to support new types of product information, with over a third of businesses surveyed using videos (38%) and virtual or augmented reality (36%) to sell products. Of those using product videos, 32% say that it is their most successful content for driving sales, and 72% placed it in their top three drivers.

A successful product information approach combines flexibility, speed, and intelligence. It can effectively handle the right content for both the product and the customer's needs, while providing flexibility to try new avenues and innovations.

"Businesses are now moving very fast in using innovative technology, rich media, and new channels to bring products to market," says Stefano Brandinali, chief digital officer, Prysmian Group. "However, moving at speed is only effective if manufacturers can operate freely across different channels and types of product information with confidence and agility, to optimize results."

Meeting customer needs drives conversion
The improvement of an organization's conversion rate online is a key priority. When asked what would help with this critical goal, respondents ranked product information technologies number one. Other priorities to drive improvements included:

• Easier comparison with competitors' offerings (54%)
• Reviews and visual user-generated content (53%)
• Visualizations, such as 3D images and virtual reality (47%)
• Improving trust in products is the biggest driver for maximizing conversion rates (28%), just ahead of helping people see and experience the product better.

Zanzinger concluded: "Providing customers with a service and experience that generates trust will deliver long term repeat revenue, driving business growth and success. Revenue is at risk when customers don't trust manufacturers' product information, with almost half (49%) of manufacturing decision makers finding that customers are often dissatisfied by products not being as expected. The impact is that over half (52%) admit to losing repeat customers due to such dissatisfaction."

Have you seen The Customer-Focused Marketing Playbook?

This comprehensive and practical guide to the latest ideas in customer-focused marketing hands you over 200 packed pages of strategy, best practices, do's and don'ts, practical know-how, facts and figures, and ideas to optimise your marketing strategy, boost sales, market share, increase ROI and profit.

Learn the insider's tricks and techniques to turn every customers into a 'super spreader' for your brand. It's better than free advertising. Once you start this ball rolling, your brand can grow rapidly through word-of-mouth, advocacy, influencers, and customer loyalty. Super-charge your company's marketing strategy, build up your market share, and make more sales through repeat business and customer loyalty.

Find out what works - and what doesn't - and who's succeeded, and how they did it. See how the world's top brands keep their competitive edge against all odds.

The Customer-Focused Marketing Playbook walks you step-by-step through the techniques, metrics, reporting, analysis, marketing models, technologies, tools and innovations for successful marketing strategies - both traditional and emerging - with expert guidance from thought leaders in every major market. Find out the best ways to gather, analyse, and act on customer data to increase profitability, build your brand, empower your customers, beat the competition, reduce churn, and increase customer profitability. This is a marketing book you simply can't afford to be without.

This book aims to hand you all the facts, figures and research data you need for the best decisions for a more profitable, more engaging marketing strategy. It also highlights all the facts, forecasts and trends identified by our experts from the global Marketing Factbook's vast database of market data, news, studies, research and articles, and presents you with an invaluable library of ideas and practical support you can call upon at will.

With The Customer-Focused Marketing Playbook at your side, you'll have instant access to a true goldmine of easily adaptable and up-to-date strategies, walk-throughs, trends, research and market data, plus all the supporting arguments you need to build a solid, profitable marketing strategy.

Get it on Amazon (Kindle/Print)