Do you have an internal marketing team? How about an internal sales and marketing team? Is your "team" or "committee" 1 person? 

If you don't have anyone in-house that's working on marketing your business, you're not alone. I'm always astonished at the number of decent sized companies that we work with that don't have a dedicated staff for marketing. When a company doesn't put thought into the nuts and bolts of how they get new clients, who they are, and how to best reach them, it creates a challenge for companies like ours.

Lead generation is an essential element to every trade show. If you’re spending the time and resources to attend the trade show, you’re going to want to re-engage with potential leads after.

First things first — segment your leads appropriately before following up. Not all trade show leads should be treated the same. Once you have a list of all of your potential leads from the show, you can segment them and determine how to get in contact with each lead.

Once you’re back in the office, take the time to reach out to all the trade show leads you made connections with. The frequency is completely up to you, but remember — don’t be too pushy. Reach out the first week after the trade show, and then continue to keep in contact as much as you see fit.

According to Software Advice's Marketing Automation Buyer Report, 85% of manufacturers cited the need to nurture leads due to a relatively long sales cycle associated with their product. 

You may believe that your inbound marketing tactics will be over at lead generation --  but, you're wrong. In order to carry out a lead during the marketing funnel process, you need to nurture it. Lead nurturing is a vital role for all inbound marketers in order to gain valuable and sustainable relationships.

Manufacturing has a long buying cycle -- which is why lead nurturing is especially essential for this industry. B2B companies should be making consistent contact with prospects at all stages of the buying cycle to receive all of the awesome benefits of lead nurturing.

HubSpot’s reporting tools and custom reports give you the flexibility to see all of your data in one place. Making it easier than ever to make data-driven decisions.

Analysis is the most overlooked part of sales and marketing strategies. Knowing what’s working -- and perhaps more importantly, why -- ensures you’re not throwing your money away on crappy campaigns. And what’s a better source of smug satisfaction than a chart showing how great your campaign is performing?

What does every successful marketing strategy have in common? If you look closely, you'll find these five traits in every aspect of the campaign:

1. Pertinent
2. Profitable
3. Practical
4. Provocative
5. Plugged-in

Everything you create, post, publish, and share should follow all of these P's to make your manufacturing business strategy more successful.

1. Create Pre-Show Buzz with Hashtags
2. Post Behind-The-Scenes Teaser Videos
3. Add & Promote a New Landing Page
4. Live Stream During the Event
5. Record Customer Testimonials
6. Connect & Follow-Up

Integrating social media marketing into your trade show presence is incredibly important to promote your manufacturing business. If you want to know a little bit more about each of these tips, keep reading below.

You attend trade shows to obtain valuable leads for your company. But do you have a plan in place for what to do once you’re back in the office from the trade show so you can move those leads through the funnel?

There is a misconception that email marketing is dead. This couldn’t be further from the truth, especially when it comes to manufacturing marketing emails.

The truth is, when email is leveraged properly as a part of a larger trade show strategy, it is one of the most powerful tools for connecting with leads and informing them about how your company, product, or service can help solve their problems.

We’ve put together this guide to serve as a general overview for trade show marketing emails -- and the general cadence to follow before, during, and after the trade show to increase your ROI.

Before getting into the meat of this post... if you're looking for a quick answer, you can check out our inbound marketing pricing page. 

What makes up the cost of inbound marketing? What can you expect to pay, and how much should you budget for your marketing efforts?