Marketing for engineering companies: what to film first

Engineering and manufacturing businesses are usually told they need marketing by somebody who has never walked their shop floor. The advice arrives as a list of channels and a posting schedule, the company tries it for four months, nothing happens, and the conclusion is that marketing does not work in this industry. What actually happened is that nobody decided what the content was for.

So start with the decision, not the channel. In a business that sells capability rather than a product off a shelf, content has exactly three jobs.

• Shortening the trust gap. A buyer placing a serious order with a firm they have not used before wants evidence you can do the work. Photographs of the work are that evidence.
• Recruiting. In most engineering firms this is the harder problem. Skilled people choose employers partly on what a place looks like to work in, and almost no competitor is showing them.
• Explaining what you actually do. Most engineering websites describe capability in language only the industry understands, which fails precisely when a non-technical buyer, a procurement team or a journalist is reading.

What to film first

If the budget covers one day of filming and photography, spend it on the work itself, not on a corporate overview with a voiceover. A day on the floor, shot properly, will produce material you use for two years.

1. One job, start to finish. Material arriving, the setup, the machining or the build, the inspection, the finished part going out. This is the single most useful asset an engineering business can own, because it answers the capability question without a word of marketing copy.
2. Detail at close range. Tolerances, finishes, the edge of a weld, the surface of a casting. Buyers in this world read those images the way other people read a specification.
3. The people. A time served machinist at their machine, named, doing something difficult. This is what recruits respond to and what buyers quietly trust.
4. The plant itself. A wide, clean, honest view of the facility, updated when the kit changes. It ends the question of whether you are a real operation.
5. The inspection and quality process. Rarely filmed, disproportionately persuasive, because it is the part every buyer worries about.

Nobody in this sector is competing on content, which means competent work does not put you level. It puts you first.

What to do with it

The material matters more than the channel, but the channel still needs deciding. For most engineering firms, the order is: the website first, because everything else points there and it is where a buyer checks you are real. Then LinkedIn, because that is where your buyers, your competitors and your future employees actually are. Then whatever your trade press accepts, because a photograph of real work is worth more to an editor than a press release.

A sales team should have the same material on a phone. A photograph of a job like the one being discussed, shown in a meeting, does more than any brochure.

The confidentiality question

Most engineering businesses say they cannot show their work because of client agreements. Some of that is real and much of it is assumed. Ask each client directly, because many will agree to a detail shot with no identification, and a surprising number are pleased to be named. Where nothing can be shown, film the process on a part you own, or the capability rather than the contract. Confidentiality restricts identification far more often than it restricts existence.

How to tell whether it is working

Not by views. Ask your sales team whether enquiries arrive better informed than they used to. Count how many applicants mention something they saw. Watch whether the same three pieces of material keep being sent by your own people, because that tells you what to make more of. And give it two quarters before judging, because purchasing cycles in this sector are long enough to make a four month test meaningless.

What not to do

• Do not commission a corporate overview film as the first purchase. They are expensive, they date, and nobody watches them.
• Do not post stock imagery of factories that are not yours. Buyers in this industry can tell instantly.
• Do not write the copy in industry shorthand without a plain translation underneath.
• Do not start five channels. Start one and be consistent for a year.

Common questions

What should an engineering company film first?

One job from material arriving to finished part going out, plus close detail of the work, the people doing it and the inspection process. That single day of material answers the capability question for years.

Does marketing work for manufacturing businesses?

It works when it has a defined job: shortening the trust gap for new buyers, recruiting skilled staff, and explaining capability in plain language. It fails when it is a posting schedule with no purpose.

What if our work is covered by client confidentiality?

Ask each client rather than assuming. Many agree to unidentified detail shots and some are happy to be named. Where nothing can be shown, film capability on your own parts instead of a client contract.

How long before content produces enquiries in this sector?

Give it two quarters. Purchasing cycles in engineering are long, so a four month trial usually ends before the first enquiry it influenced arrives.