You're a manufacturer. You want to increase sales. You want to impress your prospects with your capabilities and experience, so you deck out your website with page after page of your excellence. Unfortunately, you're not even in the top 1,000 best manufacturing websites...

McHone Industries started out as a single-facility small-town manufacturing operation in Salamanca, NY. They struggled to fill their one facility with work. Now, they’re seeing business growth beyond their wildest dreams.

Manufacturers, in general, have been slow to learn and adopt digital best practices like content marketing to stand out in the 21st century. Not being absolutely sure about website traffic isn’t an option in the breakneck speed and high stakes of the digital world.

I have a friend over while sitting down to write this. She’s trying to finish her degree in education. Strewn about the coffee table and couch are textbooks and piles of paper she printed at the library - a crazy, disorganized organization. This cluttered scene makes sense only to overly caffeinated college students and old-time movie detectives haphazardly connecting pictures and newspaper articles on the wall with thumbtacks and string.

Oh, yeah, she’s doing some online research, too. And this got me thinking about blogging best practices and the role research plays in crafting a well-fed, credible, informative, well-performing blog.

Oh, I get it, believe me.

You envisioned sitting down to write a blog post for your business and expertly crafting the words like Charles Dickens toiling under candlelight. You planned on relaxing afterward with a glass of bourbon.

Every business has a business strategy. Yet when it comes to content marketing, many companies either have no strategy or think 10 minutes of blog planning is good enough.

Halloween is fun. It's scary. It's sweet. Halloween is all-around an incredible American experience. Like every other holiday, it's also a chance for brands to flex their creativity with Halloween marketing campaigns. This holiday is especially fun for me, because I enjoy seeing how companies push the boundaries of what makes good "marketing."

These companies serve us new unforgettable advertisements every single year. They're highly entertaining, but they're ALSO perfect learning experiences for your own marketing. With each example, I'll give a quick point on what I believe made them successful or unsuccessful, and what you can take away from the campaign. 

Without further ado, here are 7 Halloween marketing campaigns that I, at least, will never forget.

With so much emphasis on content, content, CONTENT, you may be wondering how manufacturers can use content to reach prospects... Don't worry, you're not alone! Understanding how a manufacturing company can be successful with content is an issue that most modern manufacturing marketers face.

Around here, we talk a lot about inbound marketing and content marketing. We also mention that you need relevant, high-quality content for your marketing efforts to produce results.