Marketing to the Mining Industry

Mining suppliers and service companies tend to be great at providing their products and services but not so great at marketing them to the industry. Many will tell you that they sell by referral and don’t need to market themselves but they can’t understand why they can’t gain new prospects in the industry, and when selling can’t close the deal. The truth is that sales in mining starts with marketing, long before your sales people call.

The biggest problem with most mining suppliers and service providers is that they consider marketing to be short term sales lead generation only and not medium to long term reputation building and knowledge sharing. Sure, you need to get leads coming from your marketing though this is not going to happen without establishing who you are, why you are different and what make you a credible alternative.

Mining Marketing Tip 1: Sell the same way you buy

Would you buy high value plant and equipment or industrial services over the phone from someone you’ve never met? 

Would you buy plant and equipment or industrial services just based on an envelope sized brochure or flyer? 

Would you buy plant and equipment or industrial services based on an advert? 

If the answer to these questions is no, then why would you try and sell your products or services this way?

What questions do you ask yourself before you buy anything of value? What credibility factors do you look for? Where do you pick up information on the subject? What type of issues will influence your buying decision? Knowing these issues for your category is the first step in effectively marketing your mining equipment and services.

Mining Marketing Tip 2: Referrals are great but they are simply not enough

So many people say their main source of new business is referrals. This is great and we would hope that a large part of your business would come from referrals, but how does that get you to customers who are not in your network? You may get by on referrals for a while but eventually a competitor will come into the market and take your sales or market conditions will weaken or you simply won’t get the growth rates you want from passive referrals. Whatever happens you are leaving your marketing open to chance.
Do you know what is driving customers and prospects buying decisions? What information is out there for your customers and prospects to check before they pick up the phone or drop you an email.

And how do you think your prospects react when they discover:

• Your outdated website which looks ten years old? 
• Products and services on your site that you don’t offer any more? 
• Your testimonial from eight years ago. 
• Your basic and unembellished LinkedIn profile. 

Through building a reputation based on providing value through articles, whitepapers, videos, interviews, blogging, case studies and more you can then start to connect with customers and prospects using the credibility that you’ve built. If is the right content, delivered via the right channel to the right people then it can then be leveraged into leads. Review the process of inbound marketing for an introduction to the process to develop leads from the content and credibility you have created.

Marketing mining suppliers and service companies is more than just trying to get on a list of providers to large mining companies. It is about understanding your market and how they buy, developing the right content to describe your products and services and delivering that content consistently to the industry. 

 Fit 4 Market are Marketing Strategy and Inbound Marketing specialists, operating in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth.