Foundry Marketing – Where to Start?

When most people think of foundries, they don’t think about how to market them. It doesn’t seem like something that needs much marketing when you first look at it. After all, what do you do at a foundry? Melt metal, turn it into things. Whatever it is you produce at your foundry, valve bodies, pipes, tanks, pulleys, engine blocks, etc. they are all something that someone else definitely needs. It isn’t as though you are a phone company trying to get millions of people to buy a brand new phone, only marginally improved over last year’s model. All you should have to do is make sure your name is out there and provide a product that is low enough in cost with fast enough delivery, and people will come to you. Basically, foundry marketing takes care of itself, right? Not if you want to be successful and stay that way.

Most foundries will have a website with a rudimentary description of their services and some of the products they produce. Maybe someone puts up the occasional news item, but that’s it. Some may well think that is all that is needed. Once, that might even have been true. Now, with how quickly things can be delivered from almost anywhere to almost anywhere else, foundries don’t just compete regionally; they compete globally. That means there is a strong need to not just up your marketing game but to get better at it continually.

Digital Marketing Ideas For Keeping Your Audience Engaged

There are many different ways that you can work to improve your marketing, thanks to the internet. The most important thing is not to leave your website stagnant. The surest way to make certain your business shows up on page twelve instead of page one of a google search is never to update it. The algorithms will punish you for inactivity. What do you put up on the website? Several low-cost options are available.

• Change the images. Yeah, you have a couple of pictures of molten metal up there and maybe someone taking parts off an assembly line, but what else? Go in and swap them out once a month, perhaps even add a couple.
• Describe your process in detail. So many descriptions on foundry sites are hopelessly general. They assume either the potential client knows a lot already or that they don’t want to know. There are plenty out there that will be willing to sign up with someone interested in teaching them something.
• Post your products. What do you make? Detailed product information provides the opportunity to connect your foundry with people’s daily lives. What do you make that most people can’t live without? Make sure you update the list as you update what you do.
• Post your projects. Often, a foundry will get hired to produce something unique. Highlight that. Obviously, you’ll have to work with the client on how much you can show, but it will be worth it.
• Show your process. Pair it with text or a voiceover that explains what is happening. Post videos of your machinery and people at work. I promise, there are plenty of people out there who will find the process fascinating.
• Post your stories. How did the foundry come to be? What about the people who work there? Do you have someone who worked their way from the floor to the big corner office? People love stories like that.
• Post industry developments. Show that you are paying attention to improvements in the foundry world by posting news stories that affect the business.

All of this is low cost and simple to do. If there isn’t already someone in the office that can handle it, there are plenty of freelancers out there hungry for work like this that will be able to do it all at a cost that won’t bust your budget. There isn’t any reason to stay stuck in the same old marketing mold. With a minor investment, you can make a new one, one that is unique to your foundry that will help elevate your profile and attract more clients.