B2B Manufacturing Buyer Journey Study
Do you truly understand how your buyers are discovering and selecting manufacturers today? In this episode of Stop Being the Best Kept Secret, we dive into the B2B Manufacturing Buyer Journey with none other than David Mantey, Editorial Director at Industrial Media, the voice behind IEN.com and Manufacturing.net
With over 15 years of experience in digital media, David leads a team that produces award-winning, must-read content for the industrial sector. From daily news and in-depth analysis to innovative shows like IEN Now and Engineering by Design, David has built platforms trusted by buyers, engineers, and manufacturers across the country.
We unpack key findings from the B2B Manufacturing Buyer Journey Study and what they mean for your business. David shares data-driven insights on how manufacturers can align with how buyers actually shop, learn, and choose suppliers today.
Don’t miss this conversation if you want to attract the right customers and grow smarter in today’s digital age.
If your sales are stalling or your marketing feels stuck in the past, this is your wake-up call.
Key Highlights
• B2B Manufacturing Buyer Journey Study Introduction 0:00
• David Mantey’s Role and Industrial Equipment News 4:41
• Survey on B2B Manufacturing Buyer Journey 12:35
• Key Findings and Implications 17:11
• Digital Presence and Content Strategy 35:13
• Challenges and Opportunities in Manufacturing 39:18
• Final Thoughts and Business Advice 45:24
Resources
Lastly, thank you for taking the time to read this post.
If you found this information valuable, check out some of our other blogs.
You might want to read these blog posts:
Helping Manufacturers Identify, Plan and Execute Their Optimal Go-to-Market Path
SEO Strategies for Manufacturers: Out-teach the Competition
How Manufacturers Can Use Subject Matter Interviews to Dominate SEO
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Transcription
Damon Pistulka 00:00
Hey, Damon, happy Monday, dude, how are you? Man, I’m doing great. Curt and ready to roll. Man, with Damon, it
Curt Anderson 00:07
was like, it was like, kind of a mixed weekend, sports wise, right? For folks out there, right? So, you read a football game yesterday, and your team lost. I was at a football game last night. Our home team lost. And so, David, how’s How’s football in your
David Mantey 00:22
world? Well, we’re talking a lot of baseball in the Madison and Milwaukee area. And let’s just say that, Oh my Saturday was a great day. Oh my goodness, yeah, I was at a bar in the north woods that had a staff for about 15 people, and about 150 showed up. So it was a great atmosphere. Yeah, well, it took about an hour and a half to get our pizza. It was, it was an incredible vibe.
Damon Pistulka 00:47
You guys, the Milwaukee Brewers are playing such good baseball. I think everybody else, if they’re not already in the MLB, says, We hope we get there and we can just compete.
David Mantey 00:59
Yeah, no, it’s, it’s been really exciting. And every brewers fan is just like, This is real, right? But we had a bunch of friends and colleagues that were at the game on Saturday said it was an incredible atmosphere. So for the first time, probably in my lifetime, we’re talking more brewers than packers in October. And that is wild.
Curt Anderson 01:18
That’s, that’s a statement, right there. So we love to geek out. And so Damon’s in Seattle, so obviously he’s on club nine after the big one last night as well. Damon, right?
Damon Pistulka 01:28
Mm, hmm, yep, yep. Everybody was worrying about it. And that he’s, I mean, every game you gotta wait and see. Yeah, all of
Curt Anderson 01:35
this, yeah, and yeah, if you live in New York, like every, I think every sports team lost over the weekend. So we won’t talk about it, right? So alright, so we’ll just alright. So go brewers, go Mariners and so for our friends out there, happy Monday. So Curt Anderson got my dear partner in crime, Damon pesoca, and we have an amazing, wonderful, incredible guest. Dear, dear friend, repeat offender. David Manti, how are you, dude?
David Mantey 01:59
I’m doing great. I’m really excited to join you guys. I always love doing this, so thanks again for having me on.
Curt Anderson 02:04
It’s our privilege, our pleasure. I you know, what do you have any idea how many times you’ve been on?
David Mantey 02:09
I don’t, but I fail to remember even, like, easy things now that I have two small children, like just getting through the day, I can’t even get through the day by 7am I had already forgotten tuition for the week, which is just, you know, paying for daycare. I forgot a blanket because they flipped which day they were going to have school, Monday and Friday. So, like, by 715 I had already had three memory failures, yeah, yeah,
Curt Anderson 02:33
tough, tough, Dad moments all the way by 715 that’s just Yeah, so and it just gets worse. David, it just gets worse.
David Mantey 02:40
Yeah, I hear, I hear that the acceptance is better towards the Yeah, yeah. Been like this
Curt Anderson 02:45
Dad’s not, you know, but right now they’re at an age where dad’s a hero. So just eat up and gobble up every single minute of it, because it changes. It changes. David, right? It’s like, I’ll send you. Go from hero to like, the dumbest guy in the room. I’m not sure how that happens. And then it comes back, then it comes back, then they realize how smart you are, right?
David Mantey 03:03
Well, and we had a really incredible moment this weekend where we did, like, a quote, unquote, guys weekend up north, at the cabin, and we took our kids, my kids and my brother’s kids snipe hunting. And I don’t know if you’ve ever had the pleasure of going on a snipe hunt, but, man, we went all in, and it was just, it was incredible. Like, I mean, everything short of, I thought the only thing I could do different was, like, if we maybe cut ourselves to say we were bitten, like, the kids were all in like, that’s what, that’s what we’re doing. On the next one, there’s
Curt Anderson 03:35
going to be bloodshed. Well, I absolutely love it. The boys and Howard, are the boys now.
David Mantey 03:40
So they’re seven and five now. So I mean, talking about that transition from hero to not to obsolete. You know, at seven, our seven year old’s pretty convinced he’s got the world figured out. And, you know, he’s he’s starting that age where he’s starting to all the kids that are younger. He like, gives them permission to do stuff when they’re at the house. He’s like, You know what, why don’t you go get yourself a snack? And I walk in the room, I’m like, hold on, that’s not where we’re at, like, so we’re, you know, he’s just seven, going on 24
Speaker 1 04:08
nice. Oh, that’s hysterical. You’re like, wait a minute, wait a minute.
David Mantey 04:12
Yes, take it easy on the snack cabinet here. You gotta go shopping.
Curt Anderson 04:17
That’s awesome. That’s hysterical. I got this. Don’t worry about it, man, I got
David Mantey 04:21
Oh yeah, right. Just, he’s got that project manager blood in the man, just, Oh, easy. There you sit down and enjoy the game, right,
Curt Anderson 04:29
right, dad, yeah, come on, Pops, I got it. I got it. So, oh, that’s great, man, I absolutely love it. You know what? We’re just going to have to keep getting updates, because it
04:37
just, yeah. So, yes, yeah.
Curt Anderson 04:41
Let’s dive into you’ve we’ve got some really exciting news, some great information for manufacturers out there. Man, I tell you, this information is absolutely priceless. So David, I’m going to share my screen, but you’re talk a little. Just introduce folks to yourself. Industrial equipment news, how are you guys making world? Better place. And then we’re going to dive into this great survey, priceless information to help manufacturers with their marketing strategies. Talk, tell folks who is industrial equipment news, and how are you guys making the world a better place?
David Mantey 05:11
Yeah, so industrial equipment news is part of a product portfolio of industrial media. We own other brands you might know, like, like brands, I mean websites and magazines, manufacturing.net, industrial maintenance and plant operations, food manufacturing, industrial distribution, just to name a few that you might know. And basically, the way we try and make the world a better place, or at least an easier place, is with good information. Because, my God, there’s so much bad stuff out there these days, but so we provide as a trade publication, we try to put out information that helps manufacturing and design engineering professionals do their job better. And we do that every day with daily newsletters. I think we have 19 daily newsletters serving 19 different audiences. We have nine different websites now. And you know, every day is every day is something new in the news business, and I enjoy it, and we kind of we like to provide everything from we’re built on a tradition of new product information, so anytime new products come out under the market, that’s the one thing that we really like to make sure we deliver every day. And we also have a number of best practices, application stories, case studies, feature articles and news you know that you can get delivered to your inbox every day to help you do your job a little bit easier.
Curt Anderson 06:24
Yeah, you have a fun podcast for folks. You want to just talk about
David Mantey 06:28
that real quick? Oh, the podcast. Yes. Sorry. I really should have plugged that first. I apologize. No, the today in manufacturing podcast goes, We’re four years strong now. Every Thursday, it’s live on YouTube. It’s the panel is typically myself, Anna wells and Jeff Reinke. We’ve been covering the manufacturing industry for more than 20 years now, and so we take the five biggest stories that have been on our websites, actually what we’ll be talking about today. We recently did that on a podcast, and we discuss what that means for the industry. And it’s been, it’s been really fun, kind of growing this community as a podcast. Yeah, this week’s episode is a pretty wild one. I mean, we got a whiskey heist in there. We’ve got a robot accident. We’ve got a lot of I mean, and then we have a parachute made out of a sheet of plastic. So we’ve got, we cover a range of topics, everything from sort of the front end, R and D, part of the industry all the way to, you know, M and A and other big things that are going on. So I highly recommend you check it out, give us a chance and subscribe if you like it, because it’s kind of a cool community that we’re
Curt Anderson 07:31
building. Yeah, and I, you know what I want to say, you were on the show, if I’m not mistaken, right around the time you started it. And so, you know, four years strong, is that what you said, yeah,
David Mantey 07:41
it’s, it’s wild. I mean, it’s crazy that it’s been that long. But, you know, you start you just when you upload it, it’s just one episode at a time, and it’s a weekly podcast. And I think we’re at episode 238, and we actually just got off our longest break. We took a two week break, and that was mostly on me, because I thought we could do it without producer Eric, and that just turned out to be not possible. I wouldn’t be here right now if he wasn’t right there. So like, love and cherish your producers, because they do everything and I can’t exist without them.
Curt Anderson 08:09
Yeah, hey, thank you, Eric. How about a round of applause for Eric out there? Yeah, Eric, way to go. Brother. You know,
Damon Pistulka 08:16
keeping it moving.
Curt Anderson 08:18
Dave’s not only handsome, but he’s got good, wonderful support around him. So it takes, you know, takes a village. David, takes a village, is what they say, right?
David Mantey 08:26
That’s right. This is built on a foundation of producer Eric. I mean, he even did the studio. Everyone’s always just like, hey, really love the studio. And I’m like, I know, right? I had nothing to do with it, not even the microphone.
Curt Anderson 08:41
Oh, that’s hysterical. That’s great. Absolutely, alright. So stop by manufacturing.net. Industrial equipment. News for those of you been manufacturing for more than a few decades. You know the print this goes right back. God, you guys go back to the 1920 1933
David Mantey 08:56
1933 were the oldest trade many manufacturing trade publication still in print today. Nice, you know, we have more than a million readers in the manufacturing industry, and it’s just really cool, like, I love it when we’re out on the road, and we still see it on, you know, we see it on the table in the lobby. We see it on desks when we’re visiting people’s offices. So, you know, it’s actually, it’s wild. I was just at an event with a couple of other trade publications, and people are talking about, you know, I’m on the digital side of the business more so than print, but I’m talking to like, 24 year old people talking about how print is coming back. And I’m just like, what, where, what, and it’s just, it’s because right now, like we’re going through this renaissance of there being so much bad information that there is really something to information that’s fit to print. And there’s a, you know, there’s a trust there. And so I was surprised. I just kept asking her. I’m like, How old are you? She’s like, Yeah, I’m 24 and I think Prince coming back. I’m like, oh, right, that is. New to me.
Curt Anderson 10:00
Thanks. Print is coming back. I think said Prince. I thought Prince was coming back where we’re saying print is coming Yeah.
David Mantey 10:07
Prince has never left us. He will always
Damon Pistulka 10:10
be there. Yeah, yeah. I actually used to drive by his place in Minneapolis, like, multiple times a year when I would go to work there. Yeah, quite a place.
Curt Anderson 10:21
It is, I tell you, I’ve taken a tour. There it is for our prince friends out there. I’m digressing. It is a great tour. So, David, let’s get back on track. So pretty. And so we’re going to dive on we’re going to be diving into this incredible survey that you did, and you just hit it on the head. It was a perfect segue. Is building that trust. And so, you know what? And before I did, I you piqued my curiosity. Nine websites, 19 daily newsletters, is what I heard. Did I hear that correctly? I didn’t write it down? Yeah, yeah. How do you guys just, how does your team manage that?
David Mantey 10:53
Well, I mean, we have a we have a staff of six professional reporters. Everyone has their own beat, and it’s a lot. You know, mornings are hectic, afternoons are better, but you know, it’s definitely a mix of video and news reporting and also just feature writing. You break up your day in terms of what you have resources for, and you kind of go about your business. Luckily, we’re kind of all under a manufacturing and design engineering tentpole. So something that my colleague Andy’s all writes for food manufacturing or industrial distribution can be used by Nolan beilstein on manufacturing.net or something that Ben Munson writes for medical design and development can be used by Devin burbski on design and development today, and we’re all working together. I mean, it’s a newsroom. Man, like, we stand up and we’re like, did you see this? And then there’s a pause, and then someone’s like, yeah, I got it. So it’s, you know, anytime people are around, they think that it’s a very lively newsroom, because they see the moments where we’re all talking back and forth and then, but they don’t understand the like, like, obscene quiet, when everyone puts that down and actually has to write, but yeah, it’s it’s a labor of love, and it’s a lot of work. But you know, we’re doing it for all the right
Curt Anderson 12:08
reasons. You’re doing it. It’s a worthy cause, my friend, you guys do an amazing, incredible job. Again, guys, if you’re just joining us, we’re here with our dear friend David Manti, stop by industrial equipment. News, manufacturing.net. Check out David on LinkedIn. Do yourself a favor. Connect with David. He’s got great content that he puts out. And we also mentioned a podcast today in manufacturing. So David, you guys put together an incredible, wonderful, amazing survey. Curious minds would love to know, where did this come about? How did this you partner collaborated with another organization. How Share? Share that with us, please.
David Mantey 12:40
Yeah. So we were approached by our partners at RH Blake looking to do a little bit more in depth, in depth research about the buyer’s journey. Like we keep hearing a lot about how, how do people come to information, and how do they make purchases when it comes to especially like the the big ticket items, right? So they came to us, and they’re like, hey, is this information that you can get from your readers? And we figured, yeah, you know, we talked to him quite a bit. So we could do, we could do pretty in depth studies. So RH Blake put together the B to B manufacturing buyer journey study, and this was the results of more than 250 in depth surveys and interviews with manufacturing executives and managers, just to learn a little bit more about how they make decisions and when they make those decisions along the purchasing journey. And I don’t know, some of the things that we found out, I mean, were reinforced some of my own beliefs, like kind of a genuine distrust in AI generated content. But some of it was really surprising, just in terms of how many people are kind of just cold going to websites, kind of fishing around on their own, looking for good information. And sometimes they get pretty far along the way without ever reaching out to a company. So one thing that I learned from this is just you need to have engaging, quality information on your site, and you need to be seen as a thought leader throughout the industry to really gain some ground with people looking to kind of buy some of your big ticket items. Excellent.
Curt Anderson 14:14
Okay, I’m just jotting down some notes here, and so as you take a look here, guys, we have the B to B manufacturing buyer journey study. I couldn’t love this more. Damon, we’re constantly talking about buyers journey with folks we’re working with, and jam sessions that we do. So David, just dive into so you connect with this agency. What was, was there anything in particular that was just kind of off the page? Aha, moment for you in
David Mantey 14:38
particular. I mean, a lot of it was like a lot of the information came back. So the first thing that we covered was the why, why are people looking and the number one cause for people looking for these, starting these purchasing processes at their company, number one was asset aging or replacement needs. And the one thing this made me think of was that I recently thought that my. My faucet in my kitchen was part of a recall. Right? Recover recalls all the time in the industry, because a lot of times they are the result of a manufacturing defect, yeah? And I’m like, oh my god, I’m feeding lead to my kids anytime I use the tap. And so I replace my faucet and find out that actually it wasn’t the one that was recalled mine was the one that they were knocking off. But I still wanted to know, like if there was any sort of anything associated with it, right? So I just searched the name brand and the model number and a competing faucet manufacturer’s website, came up with a list to faucets that had been recalled or otherwise problematic. And I was like, oh my god, this is genius. My faucet actually had nothing wrong with it, but this other faucet manufacturer had the SEO chops and the foresight to basically put all of these competitors, brands and products, to send them to a page that’s like, Oh, watch out. You might have something dangerous there. And then you search it, and you’re like, No, but it was, I don’t know, it was incredible. So now getting back, sorry to get off topic. No, that
Curt Anderson 16:16
was good. SEO chops. That was perfect. That phrase has never been expressed on the show that Damon. That was perfect. SEO chops. I love
David Mantey 16:25
it, yeah. And I mean, but like now, my faucet manufacturer is not the first thing in my mind this other website is, you know, so the next time I go to a purchase, I’m, you know, I’m going there. But so asset aging, replacement needs, so I’ve made me think about how you know what the shelf life is of some of this equipment. You know that people are probably searching like this specific machine, this specific parts, this specific part number and replacement, and that could be a very viable thing, especially if that is a competitor. So asset, aging and replacement. 59% of respondents. That’s why they start the process. Regulatory Compliance was the second, capacity expansion, or just growth, was number three, and then there was a bit of a drop off to 44% of people said just techno technology obsolescence and advancements needing to upgrade, and then cost savings. So a lot of those really stood out to me, and it also, we’re looking at it with this study as to what does that mean for you? So like, when you’re talking about your messaging or the types of content and information that you have on your site, it needs to be problem solving. You know, a lot of times it’s great to have that storytelling on there, but how are you different from the competitors? What are the benefits they stand to gain? And, you know, because we’re seeing that a lot of these people, so then going into another part of the study that kind of really blew me away. Really was, Where do people go? Right? Where the question specifically was, where do you go for information when researching high value purchases, 85% of people said they go to the vendor or supplier websites. And that blew me away. I was in terms of making sure you have great information, the first place they’re going is to your website before they ever talk to anybody. 54% said that they go to technical trade publications, which made it seem that, A, I still have a job for a little bit. B, you know, how much we emphasize the importance of thought leadership and putting out quality information into the industry. We have so many people that write on our site, and that’s how people find, you know, find out about their company or their service. Under those two, I was surprised that conference and trade shows was number three, at only 46% of people, and then below that, peer recommendations, and below peer recommendations, only 45% of people said they go to the sales or applications engineers first, and so you could have all this information out there, kind of painting the picture for potential customers before you ever even speak to them.
Curt Anderson 19:14
Okay, this is powerful. So All right, so I’m on the website now, right here you see 85% of manufacturing executives and managers conduct a preliminary research, and you said, go to the website first, correct? Yep, yep. So let’s actually So on this page right here, folks can go down to the bottom, and you can actually click that link right there that I have on the screen, and you can download this survey, right? David, yes,
David Mantey 19:38
yeah, that was, that was the other thing that was really important for us and our partners to offer this information for free. Like a lot of times, I know that when it comes to a study or something like that, you’re really used to hearing that and then being like, all right, how much of my information do you need in order? What do I got to give you? And this one’s free. Just click on the link on this page, and then I can also put. Post it to my LinkedIn too if you want to, or reach out on LinkedIn if you want it. So, I mean, what does this tell us? This means that you need to make sure that your digital assets that you have on your site are strong, right? You need to make sure that you have engaging contents, human centric content. And, you know, unfortunately, it also means that you got to tie in some of those Curt buzzwords. You know, a lot of times I think people put quality content on their site, and it kind of just lives there forever, but it might have, while still relevant, it could be stale. So it’s always good to kind of go give that content a refresh and maybe modernize some of the things. Like, you know, everything’s machine learning. But for a lot of people right now, everything that’s machine learning transition to AI, so maybe you make some of those changes in your content, just to, you know, give it a bit of a facelift.
Curt Anderson 20:53
Yeah, absolutely love it. So, alright, just jump around screens here for a second. So again, just kind of recap. You know, really powerful information here. It’s all right in this buyer journey study guide that David partnered with RH Blake, the team at IEN, just created this incredible So Dave, let’s run through a couple more highlights here for folks sure. So I’m going to dive in and I’m going to jump down here. So 64% of buyers actively seek independent, objective information? Mm, hmm.
David Mantey 21:24
No, that’s, I mean, it’s important, right? Like, I will say one thing is we become a more digital society. Is that it seems like more and more people can their sniff test has gotten a little better, right? Yeah, at least professionally. Personally, my God, there are people down some rabbit holes lately. Jesus, but when it comes to professional content, you could tell when someone’s trying to sell you something, right? And I think that that’s why authenticity is so important to people. That’s why it being published on a third party is important to people, right? I mean, I think that there is an inherent acceptance that when people come to a brand’s website that, or a manufacturer’s website they want it to, you know, there’s an expectancy that it’s going to be a little bit of bias. You know, that’s why it’s important to be at those independence publishers, you know, with just, just facts, good information. You know, on page eight here, one of the questions we asked people, when you first recognize the need to research complex, high value work purchases, what’s the very first source you typically use to find a potential solution? 45% I think that was actually low Google. You know, they go to a search engine. You know, we say search engine, eg, example, Google. But I mean, it was like most of these people said Google, and then like 5% said Bing, vendor, supplier, oh, and only 5% of people said chat, GPT and other generative AI tools. You know, we did the study. We were started putting this information together about three, four months ago, and just published the study recently, so I’d be interested to see how this has shifted already, just because generative AI is advancing at lightning speed. But if you go to the page of the study, let’s see Chapter or Chapter Page 14. Don’t worry, we don’t have chapters. We’re not taking that much of your time, right? But it we asked the level of trust right from a one to a 10. How much do you trust this? Ai generated content, and the majority of people gave it about a six. So they’re taking it with a grain of salt. I thought that was encouraging. We did have one person that said absolute 10 out of 10. I believe everything they say. And I’m Well, personally, I’m frightened for that individual and their family, yeah, but it just goes to show that, like, the other thing is that where does this AI generated information come from? It’s harvested from, from sites like ours, from sites like your manufacturer’s personal website. That’s where it’s harvested from. So you need to make sure that you have quality. That you have quality information, because you know, if people get burned once, man, they’re never coming back, right? Yeah? Okay, lots
Curt Anderson 24:11
of digest right there, right? We just fired. We’re firing on all cylinders. Damon, what’s going through your mind right now?
Damon Pistulka 24:16
Yeah, I really, I love the way you put this together, because this is detail that you rarely see and understand. And a couple things that really stick out to me is that the independent, objective information, right? I think that as a manufacturer, as someone that’s doing some sort of you know, solution, you can always lean too much into yours, but you really need to to also go, this is the right use case, and I think or a specific thing, and this is where it works the best, and it might not work well here. I think that lends so much more when people are doing that and really going, this isn’t perfect for everyone. This is perfect for this person in this situation. Because it’s, it’s such a differentiator, when you can say, Nah, you probably don’t want this,
David Mantey 25:05
yeah. I mean, you’re right. Like, you can, you can always sell somebody once, a good salesperson can always, you know, it’s about whether or not you’re going to maintain that relationship and have a lifetime of sales, right?
Curt Anderson 25:19
Yeah, right. And I look like on this screen right here. We’ve got, you know, foster trust. And one thing you were mentioned, David, one, a topic that we bring up almost every episode, is like, for manufacturers, you know, they’re new to marketing. This is, like, daunting, overwhelming. It’s, you know, this whole digital thing is, how do you take a step back and just be a fierce, unapologetic educator? And we use this little tagline, how do you out teach the competition, you know? And so, like, what a real was stroke of genius for that one website to post. Like, Hey, these are, these are all the recalls. Yeah, yeah, that is
David Mantey 25:53
absolutely hysterical. Well, and it doesn’t even go to, it’s, it might not even be recalled, but they still had every part number, every manufacturer go to this list of well, it could be recalled here. Use this, this lovely little tool on our website, a trusted manufacturer of office,
Curt Anderson 26:10
right, right, exactly. I absolutely you threw out a bunch of numbers, and I apologize I didn’t keep it so you’ve got it here. Can you just give like a for folks that are just joining us? Or maybe they cut some of the numbers earlier. I believe this is what you were, you were sharing before, right? 59% are eight are looking to replace agent equipment. Oh, yeah, yeah.
David Mantey 26:30
So that’s what most often. Triggers are what they were calling, I guess, the real Buy button, right? Like, why, when things start to get old and you need to start replacing parts. That’s what often triggers these very big ticket items, these large purchasing decisions. That was number one, followed shortly by regulatory compliance requirements, and also just growing as a company capacity expansion. And I mean, talk about when you need to get in, like, if it’s a company that’s expanding, and right now we’re seeing a fair amount of companies that are expanding, you know, you get in good with one facility, and the next time they build another one, the first time, or the first person they’re coming to is you. So it’s a lot about building trusted relationship. You know, one thing that was kind of surprising to me on that page was the how low cost savings initiatives were, as well as economic events, like government incentives, stuff like that. Like, only 7% of people said that that actually triggered the buying process and competitive pressures, so and sustainability. I mean, we hear about ESG all the time, and then to see, like, only 8% of respondents say that that even gets the ball rolling. I think that was surprising to me as well. But I mean, like, when it comes to the most pressing issues, like uptime, the biggest thing, so asset aging makes sense when you’re talking about for some operations, like every minute that they’re down is like, what a million dollars you got to make sure everything’s moving.
Curt Anderson 28:01
Yeah, yeah. It’s almost like, sometimes we get caught and I’m guilty, like, being a little bit more reactive than proactive, you know. So that’s, you know, unfortunately, like, oh, you know, you know, but getting these replacement parts. But again, you know, with this information here for that manufacturer, how can we meet them where they’re at? So if you’re in that space of like, providing those replacement needs. Man, just be providing that content or that information. I know it’s easier said than done, but David, what are your What are your thoughts, as far as, like, when you look at this, what should a manufacturer do with this information?
David Mantey 28:34
My thoughts with it? I mean, I think that you should look at this information, you should understand where you are in the market, who your competitors are and what your true differentiators are, and give provide real tools on your website that can help people use your equipment to the its best possible potential, and also understanding like what sets you apart. And I don’t know, I think that when it comes to maintaining a website for a manufacturer, you need to have this type of information out there, because there are customers coming to your website right now. They’re your customer. Their customers going to my website right now, because our newsletter just deployed right before we jumped out on this. Because I’m like, we got to go, I’m going live. We gotta go get it out the door. They’re reading that newsletter right now, maybe while what they’re watching this or having their ham sandwich for a lunch, and you know, they’re reading an article by a thought leader in the manufacturing industry. And they might not know that they’re reading an article about best case scenario or best practices for injection molders, right? But when it comes up that they need to either replace one or think about buying one, they’re going to have that article in their mind, and they’re going to know that you wrote it. They’re going to and I think that it’s really important to put yourself out there in the industry as a thought leader with good information, because my god, releasing the garbage out there. Just like the chat GPT special, right? Like, blip, what you’re going to read about three bullets? About It? Blip, what you’re going to read about three bullets. Like, my goodness, for being artificially intelligent. You think it could mix it up a little bit more, but just making sure that you are doing a service to the industry, right?
Damon Pistulka 30:20
Yeah, yeah. Well, and it’s that, that content again, it comes back to really sharing honest and real information, and it’s just given your opinion, because so many people in manufacturing that say you can pick whatever product they’re manufacturing, they know the good and the bad, and you just got to get out there. Because the people that want to want to consider that, want to use that, they need to know that good and bad so they can make a good decision. And that’s really what I believe anyway. Just keeps over and over. How can we help them make a better decision? And like Curt likes to say at midnight on a Friday night if we need to,
31:03
right, right? No, exactly
Curt Anderson 31:05
available. 24/7, right, true.
David Mantey 31:08
And, and I think that sometimes when you think quality good information, you think dense articles, right? You’re thinking like, a lot of times people are like, well, I don’t have the bandwidth to write a 1500 page article or a 1500 word article, and it’s like it could be, you know, good information can come in a 45 second video. You know, really good information can come in 250 to 300 words, because you’re just tackling one very specific problem that somebody is googling in that moment, and maybe needs to fix it right now. And so I do think that a lot of people overthink it right, like we gotta, we gotta whiteboard this all right, we’re gonna go from our origin story. We’re gonna tell where we’re at now and where we’re headed, and then everyone’s gonna trust us. But I don’t think you need to overthink it either. It’s, I don’t know.
Damon Pistulka 31:57
I love that example. It’s because we don’t want, we don’t want the encyclopedia version of this thing. We want to be able to, you know, when people are looking for a solution to a problem, they would like to go, oh yeah, watch the 32nd video and go, huh? I heard the two things in there that make me want to go deeper, right? And then give them that to go a little deeper yet, and then understand them well enough to go, okay, what are two things that they would need after that maybe, and continue allowing them to be more and more comfortable, because then when they’re ready, they can reach out
David Mantey 32:32
well. And we run into this with our like I said, we’re, we’re built upon a foundation of new product information, right? And it is astonishing to me how long I have been in this industry, how press releases have not evolved, because we’ve all seen the press releases like Company X launches this new product. It’s robust, innovative, the best thing you’ve ever seen. You can’t live without it. And you’re three paragraphs in and you’re like, What the hell does it do? Yeah, and so a lot of why our product coverage is so popular, it’s because this company offers this product. Here are the key features as bullets, and here’s where you find more information. You know, you kind of cut out all that, all the fluff, dude, I apologize for cursing.
Curt Anderson 33:17
Drop the mic, man. This is, you know, Eric, what a great job Eric has. I get to listen to David every day, right? This is just, I love it. So I
Speaker 2 33:25
don’t know, I feel like Eric’s had a long time of listening to David and happy,
Curt Anderson 33:30
poor, poor guy. So never opinion. This is so we’re, gosh, we’re time’s flying. We’re past the hour. If you’re just joining us here with David Manti and industrial, gosh, industrial equipment. News, manufacturing.net. Connect with David on LinkedIn. Do yourself a favor. Tons, just a wealth of information. We’re diving into a guide. David Damon has dropped it into the into LinkedIn, so you can click the guide. David, I’d like to talk about the pave. Pave the path to purchase right here. I feel like this is really, this is gold. You’ve mentioned, I didn’t for friends of ours, kids at home, keeping tabs. I think you used thought leadership probably three to five times already. Talk a little bit right here, like what’s going on in the screen and how paving the path to purchase. Just talk a little bit about this slide right
David Mantey 34:19
here. I mean, really, it’s just, it’s about making it easy for people to buy your products and services online, right? The specific question that we tackled here was in thinking about the entire buying process for significant work related purchases, from early research to the final purchase decision, how much of the process happens online before you choose to speak to somebody at the company. So a third of people say that they do up to a quarter from 10 to 25% of their research before they’re even talking to you. That’s a third of people, you know, I mean 6% said they only talk to representatives after their final decision between 26 and 50% of. People? Well, let’s just look at that entire chunk. 76% of people say that they go up to halfway along the journey before they ever talk to somebody. And so what does that tell us? That tells us, like I said, make sure your digital storefronts are optimized for self self service. Anticipate pre contract questions and other hesitations, and be able to combat those issues with your content on those pages and bridge the sort of digital to direct gap. So design, clear, low commitment calls to action on your website that encourage buyers to gradually engage as they progress. So downloading gated content or free content, first, that’s not gated, and then gated content requesting a demo or connecting with a technical expert, rather than immediately pushing for a sales call. Because we see this all the time, right? You know, person generally interested in something provides a name and an email, it’s sent on to sales and boom, pick up that call and start hitting them for sale because they’re ready. They’re warmed up and ready. That’s just not how it works. They’re just yeah, they’re just fact finding right now. So help people get along that, yeah? Help people get along the journey before you start peppering those phones.
Curt Anderson 36:15
That’s right. Well, David, if you recall, I know like you mentioned the memory thing, right? So I’m sorry. I’m sorry to go, I’m going back to hitting up your memory. Okay, I believe it was like June of 24 we did a wonderful, fun jam session with manufacturing.net we had our dear friend Chris Harrington, and we were diving in talking about e commerce, that digital self serve and, you know, configurators, you know, e commerce, getting that buy button on your website, you know, chat, you know, having a chat option. So there’s so many ways, you know, I feel you hit it right in the head. How do you make that ideal buyer, Damon, like you’re saying, help them make a buying decision on a Friday night at midnight without having to wait for you to open up your doors on Monday morning. And like, the proof is right here. It’s right in front of us, right? Yeah.
David Mantey 37:01
And honestly, I mean, hey, we’re poised for another one of those. I really like those e commerce roundtable discussions that we have, just because there’s a lot of really good information that comes out of, I mean, yourself and your colleagues. I mean, you guys are the E commerce experts. You know what you’re doing, like and I think it’s very I think it’s very important, because one of the things we talk about all the time is that a lot of manufacturers don’t necessarily think that their product fits an E commerce model, and they’re wrong.
Curt Anderson 37:27
Does? Yeah, yeah, exactly. You ran through these numbers real quick. I just want to summarize, you know, 85% of that website I couldn’t encourage you, welcome, you, invite you. Man, get off this call and, like, get on your phone and just take a look at your own website and just look at it. And I, Damon and I are doing that constantly with ourselves. Like, would we buy from ourselves? You know, Would would you buy from your customer? I you know, from would you become a customer to your own company? Are you providing the right information? You know? Are you resonating trust? There’s a lot. Again, we won’t go through the whole thing. You need to download this. Eric, thank you for dropping it in the chat. So we’ve got Damon’s dropped it, Eric’s dropped it. Guys go to manufacturing.net. We’ve got the link in here. You guys can download this. Let’s go, David, for the sake of time. What else do you want to point out to our friends here that is really critical information that you want to
David Mantey 38:16
share? Well, one thing that isn’t spelled out specifically with the study is also understanding the no’s right. So as part of providing coverage to our audiences, we do something. We call reader calls, right? We reach out to a handful of times every year, every brand reaches to reaches out to 10 to 15 readers and just asks, What do you like? What don’t you like? What are you reading more of? What are your critical issues? What are impacting? What’s impacting your day to day, getting an understanding of the people you’re serving, just so that way you don’t lose touch, right? It’s really easy to kind of get tunnel vision, wind up in your own echo chambers, and understand that, hey, we’re doing it the right way, and everyone should do it this way, because that’s how we do it. And you need to, you know, when people are abandoning sales when people are you need to understand when somebody goes with the competitor. You need to understand what those no’s Are you need. And so sometimes it helps to pick up the phone and just, you know, kind of get a better understanding of, maybe where the Miss was and and understanding your customer a little bit better.
Curt Anderson 39:18
Yeah, and I love this line right here, known before the knock right just absolutely love that. Damon, thoughts, comments, what do you got for us?
Damon Pistulka 39:27
I love that study. I’m going to dig through it in even more detail, because it really does show how the buying journey is progressing. I mean, we, we’ve talked about it for I don’t know 510, years now how this is changing. And every time a study like is is done with actual buyers, it just keeps telling us more and more and more buyers want to interact, educate themselves, get really familiar with a. Product or solution before they even talk to anyone. And it’s remarkable how this number keeps inching its way up every single study you read as we move forward, that’s just, it just floors me every time, how this changes.
David Mantey 40:15
And I’m glad that you landed on or that you pulled up this slide Curt, just because when we ask people what your top concerns are, when evaluating vendors for large purchases, the number one with the bullet, 73% said their biggest concern reliability, right? So you need to emphasize the reliability of your products. You need to understand. You need to give people the understanding of life cycle costs, and you also need to have that support with marketing communications, just because people need to feel confident that they’re going to be supported as a customer. You know, some of the other things here, you know, top concerns. The other one was total cost of ownership. And it’s, you know, you do so many, I do so many interviews in the industry, and it is wild to me how sometimes people are shocked to hear when you ask them, like, so what’s the total cost of ownership and what’s the ROI? It’s just like, you need to have that ready. Man, that’s like, number two. Like, that’s, I mean, people want to know, like, it’s gonna cost this over the lifetime, but if everything goes right, it might be paid off in six months, right, right?
Curt Anderson 41:24
You know, I don’t know who was it? John Damon. We were talking about John Maxwell. I don’t like who. Nobody wants to look the fool. Is what it really comes down to, nope. The thing is, when you understand your buyer, if you’re selling to a small machine shop, Job Shop. Like, you’re, you mentioned David, like, you know, half a million dollar laser machine or whatever. Like, that business owner is, like, I can’t take a chance to, like, Miss on this one, you know, yeah, a $2 million company. I’ve got a dozen employees. Like, I cannot afford to buy a bad piece. Like, this machine needs, like, I’ve got no margin of error, right? Yeah. And now, if you’re dealing with somebody corporate, and I’m a buyer, well, maybe I’m trying to appease my boss, my supervisor, maybe I’m on some type of a profit share, you know, like, I’ve got pressure coming from other people. I can’t make a bad decision because other people are relying on me. And I think the more what you’re telling here, what I love about the benefits beyond the buy is like, man, holding my hand through the process. Don’t let me look like the fool to either my employees, my team, my staff, whatever. And like just exuding that trust. And it comes back to you’ve mentioned it half a dozen times now, thought leadership, right?
David Mantey 42:33
No, thought leadership. And I mean this also you gotta, you gotta find where people are looking for information as well. I mean, I think, I think about a lot are cobot manufacturers, right? And the number one application that I’ve seen for Cobots at the last automate IMTS, a bunch of shows are machine tending applications, right? Yeah. And then I think of some of my close personal friends, family. You know, my godfather owns a machine shop, right? And he has problems finding and staffing machine tending positions. And I’m like, there are robots that do it. And he’s just like, but the misconception for him to go from his mind. He thinks, cobot robot expensive, price prohibitive, and it’s a non starter. You know, you need to figure out better ways to reach those audiences and kind of help educate them as to how things have changed, especially with that kind of technology that is shifting so quickly. You know, you know, his understanding of a robot is still like, you know, a half million dollar machine that’s spinning cars, you know, not something that’s going to be pulling molds out of a machine, right?
Curt Anderson 43:45
Yeah. Absolutely love it, yeah. And I love this slide right here. Benefits beyond the buy. You know, I was just sharing with the guys before we went live, I did a little manufacturing, manufacturing Month event. On Saturday, I was in a manufacturer was founded in 1808 1808 Isn’t that insane. And you think about, like, how does a company sustain for like, you know, not five years, 20 years, you know, two centuries. And what was cool, it was like, it was like a step back in time through part of the tour. But, man, they had some, like, cutting edge CNC machines, and they’re like, this is how we’re staying competitive. And so much of our competition is either gone abroad, gone overseas, left the country, you know, but this is how we’re staying competitive. Because here’s this 200 year old company, staying on top of things, buying new machinery. You know, it was just so inspiring to see it. You know,
David Mantey 44:31
it’s so easy to get complacent and fall into the trappings of this is how we’ve always done it. And I’m, hey, I’m very aware of how easy that is. You know, I started, I I started my career as, like, no, move fast and break things. And now, like, all of a sudden, like, my initial I’m just like, well, that hasn’t worked for us traditionally. And I’m like, when did that happen? Like, with every gray hair, I became more complacent, yeah. I mean, so you do need to challenge yourself. Yeah. I to be receptive to that, and you can’t get complacent. Yeah, I
Curt Anderson 45:05
agree. You know, the the dreaded, this is how we’ve always done it, you know, that’s how we did it 20 years ago. That’s how we vote, you know? So, David, welcome to the Welcome to maturity.
David Mantey 45:14
I’m working. I’m working as hard as I can against it.
Curt Anderson 45:19
I want to be mindful of your time, my friend, we talked about chat right here. I’m going to come down to the end In conclusion for our manufacturer out there, like, Hey, David, this is awesome. Thank you for sharing it. I appreciate it. We’ve done no digital marketing whatsoever. Do you have any guidance? Where would where? What would you share with a manufacturer has no digital marketing presence? Where should they start?
David Mantey 45:45
I mean, they could start as simple the low hanging fruit. Could be as simple as just a Q, a right? We have a lot of very low, low barrier products, editorial products that you know, they’re all free. One is the five minutes with video that we do on our websites. It’s two to three questions, just five minutes worth of content we jump on a zoom call, and that’s it, you know, that is a, you know, that’s something that people can do, like people can do two and a half minutes, four minutes on their products, right? Also. So I think that you need to understand that it’s it’s different, and it might not be comfortable, but it is fairly easy to accomplish in terms of getting your story out there, getting your message out there, and getting good quality information out there. You know, there are people like there are publishers like us that can help you get it out there. There are marketing firms like RH Blake that can help you put it out there as well. I mean, you guys do a great job of teaching people how they can start from nothing. And, you know, get people to their websites. I don’t know, I think, find the resources that are out there. Or, you know, you could, it could just be as simple as figuring out, you know, what makes your products uniquely superior from your competitors, putting that on a list and putting that on your website or publishing that somewhere else in the industry, even on LinkedIn, you know, so people can find it.
Curt Anderson 47:13
Absolutely love it. Alright, yes. Damon, as we wind down parting thoughts on your end,
Damon Pistulka 47:19
thank you, David, that’s all this good stuff. Just a
Curt Anderson 47:24
heartfelt thank you. Hey and Eric dropped in here. We’ve got some great five minute examples. So again, go to so this is I n, d, d, i s, t.com, so again, we’ve got the link right here in LinkedIn. Connect with David. Connect with Eric on LinkedIn. They would be happy to walk you through that. So, David, you know, we’re talking baseball, how the Brewers they’re going to take it in? How many games?
David Mantey 47:46
I don’t know, but I already bought tickets to the championship series, mostly because when I try to buy tickets to the divisional series, they were already sold out. Yeah, you know, and no, I’m I don’t know. I don’t know how things are going to shake out, but let’s just say I remain confident and encouraged by how things looked on Saturday, and hopefully we see the same thing tonight.
Curt Anderson 48:09
Well, maybe you’ll see. You might run into Damon in the World Series. So how about
David Mantey 48:12
that? We’ll go that is producer Eric’s ideal world series scenario is he is, yeah, let’s just go for that.
Curt Anderson 48:22
Eric, so you know what? David, Damon, why don’t you? You know what? David, you can go out to Seattle and catch a game with Damon. Damon, you can cruise over to Milwaukee. I’m lucky.
Speaker 2 48:33
I’m down. I’m down. We will, we will treat and host.
Curt Anderson 48:38
So I’m digressing. So my daughter and I, we’ve been to every major league baseball stadium, and also, I’ll tell you, one of the hands down, the best tailgate baseball stadiums, bar none, is Milwaukee, man, I tell you, they know, like, it’s like a football game. They’re like tailgating at seven for, like, a, you know, an afternoon game.
David Mantey 48:57
It was, you know, this this weekend was challenging, because I think the game was at one, but I think producer Eric and some of our other associates, I think, left around eight or nine in the morning, had that grill hot by 10. You know, Bloody Mary bar was open by 1015 so well how to get a die?
Curt Anderson 49:17
Well, well done. Guys. Hey, David, as we close out, I’ve got one last question for you, my friend, business advice, I would love for you to share, what is the best business advice that you were ever given or that you would love to pass along to our friends out there? Best business
David Mantey 49:31
advice? The best business advice is, you know, I don’t want to fall too much into the trap of like, trusting your gut, because, you know, there’s some bad guts out there. But don’t be afraid to evolve and always and do keep trying new things. Because, like we were talking about complacency a little bit earlier, it is very easy to find successes or small wins early and then kind of you. A hitch to that, that wagon. But you know, you need to continue to evolve, or all of a sudden you wind up the dinosaur getting replaced by AI. Oh, my God, that’s already
Curt Anderson 50:14
Oh, my God, drop the mic. David, I could gosh, I love you, dude, you’re just the best. I appreciate you. I appreciate our friendship. Thank you. And another piece of advice you shared a few minutes ago, don’t be the guy that says, hey, this is how we’ve always done it. So don’t be that guy, right? So don’t be that guy. We’re going to close out so again, connect with David on LinkedIn. Stop by IE industrial equipment news. Check out their survey. Eric and Damon have both dropped it in the chat box here for you guys. So we appreciate everybody out there. You’ve been hanging out with us for 50 minutes or so. I would encourage you. I invite you stand up and how about a big round of standing ovation for David Manti for just crushing it, Eric, for crushing it. Thank you to the team@manufacturing.net we appreciate all you do for manufacturing industry here in United States. We appreciate you, brother. God bless you guys. Damon, anything, anything closing out, this is good. This is good stuff. Alright, guys, David, hang out with us for one second. Catch the replay button, right? Damon, yeah, replay. Catch the replay. Go back. David, dropped there. Alright. Well, David, hang out with us and we’ll see you guys on Friday with another amazing, incredible guest. Thank you guys, God bless. Thank you. You.