Composites are made from two or more different materials that combine to make something that is stronger than the individual materials. Composites have a range of benefits; they have a very high impact strength, significant durability that can last over 25 years, as well as being low-maintenance and a cheaper alternative when compared to materials like metal.

The market is constantly evolving and expanding. In 2020 the market size was estimated at USD 86.4 billion and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.6% from now until 2028. In order for your business to succeed in this ever-changing industry, marketing will be an essential asset.

To start, consider these seven reasons as to why marketing is important for your business in the composites sector.

1. Create Brand Awareness

Brand awareness is how well a consumer recognises and remembers a business. By promoting a business through marketing, and targeting the correct stakeholders, the more familiar a brand becomes. Providing all the marketing is positive towards the brand, it makes the target audience more likely to consider and think of a brand when they need products and services which they sell.

As previously mentioned, the composites industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.6% between now and 2028; this means that many new businesses will be joining the industry making it rapidly competitive. Therefore, it’s important for a business to make sure their target audience is aware of the brand and can recognise it from a logo.

In recent years digital marketing has rapidly expanded, both for B2C and B2B organisations. More customers within the B2B landscape are turning to digital platforms to find products and services. There are many ways to build brand awareness digitally, such as boosting your presence on social media, improving SEO ranking, and paid ads.

Alongside digital marketing, it’s also important to continue with offline or ‘traditional’ marketing techniques, such as attending exhibitions and conferences, as especially within the composites industry, marketing is also about building relationships. A great example of these events are the Advanced Materials Events, which showcase the latest innovations within advanced materials.

2. Consumer Interaction and the Rule of Seven

Within marketing, many refer to the rule of seven, but what is it? The rule of seven says that it takes on average seven interactions with a brand before a consumer will make a purchase. This is because most people require a level of familiarity before making a purchase, to gauge if that business is trustworthy. An interaction can be anything from a social media post impression, appearing as a search result, or watching a speech at an event.

Consider your personal life; let’s say you’re looking for a new lawn mower. You go to Google or Amazon and search for ‘lawn mower’. Then look at the top results. The next day you’re scrolling through Facebook and keep seeing ads for lawn mowers, all for the same lawn mowers you looked at yesterday. This process carries on for a couple of days but feels like everywhere you turn you keep seeing lawn mowers. When you finally bite the bullet and go into a shop to purchase a lawn mower, you automatically go to the brands which you already have knowledge of and purchase one of those.

The same concept applies within B2B marketing and the composites industry. Therefore, marketing is needed to ensure that your business stays at the forefront of a consumer’s mind, because they are more likely to make a purchase if they have repeated interactions with the business.

3. Demonstrate Your Company’s Expertise

Within engineering and composites, customers want to make sure they are purchasing from industry experts who can help and support them. Therefore, marketing can also be used to showcase your business’ expertise and to prove to the consumer that you are industry experts, professionals in its craft, and offer the best solution to the customers problem.

With growing competition, businesses need to position themselves in the limelight as an expert in the field—this is done through marketing. For example, businesses can post tips and tricks on social media so consumers can see and understand their credibility. Although these kinds of posts don’t specifically generate sales, they help to portray a business as reliable and trustworthy, making people more likely to make a purchase.

At Fluency, our team has over 30 years combined experience in producing content that showcases our clients as industry professionals.

4. Competitive Industry

The composite industry is an incredibly competitive one as mentioned previously with the CAGR of 6.6% meaning many more businesses will enter the industry and for this reason marketing is essential.

Linking back to point 1, businesses need to make sure they are known to potential customers and are at the forefront of people’s minds when they think of companies within the composite industry. Without marketing, potential customers might have no idea that the business even exists and are more likely to purchase from a competitor. A business needs to make sure they keep an online presence and are constantly promoting themselves to create a relationship with customers, hopefully leading to increased customer loyalty and sales. Alongside this, businesses need to engage with new customers so that they hopefully become a repeat customer and avoid purchasing from a competitor.

5. Help with Recruitment

The composite industry relies significantly on engineers and technicians, but a problem lies with employment shortages. It is estimated that between now and 2024 the industry will need 200,000 skilled engineers to meet the demand. One reason for this is a lack of investment from employers in training young people as they would prefer to hire qualified engineers. Ultimately, recruitment has become a challenge.

Before applying for a job one of the first things a person will do is research the company to find out more about them, as they will want to see positive attributes about the company and ensure that their ethos is in line with the business culture. This is where marketing comes in.

Marketing is needed to make sure that the business is promoting its workplace as a great space to work, giving potential employees the impression that it’s a company they want to work for, and encourage them to apply for a job.

6. Switching Demographics and Moving with the Times

As the customer demographic is changing to millennials and gen z’s who are just getting started in the world of composites, a business’s marketing needs to change with it. As these generations spend more of their time online, having an online presence is crucial, and not such a basic website.

Social media has changed the world; there is at least 4.2 billion people using it and by 2027 this number is predicted to grow to 5.85 billion. On average, users will spend 144 minutes on social media a day—this shows a massive potential to reach your target audience in a new way. Currently many businesses within the composites industry are not using social media to its full potential, so why not get ahead of your competitors and branch out into social media before they do.

7. Generating Sales Leads and to Grow the Business

At the end of the day, one of the most important things to a composite business, or any business, is making sales. For this reason, marketing comes hand in hand with sales to influence consumers to make a purchase. Marketing helps to push the product in front of the target audience so that they become aware of the product and can see how it would benefit their business. As previously mentioned, if it wasn’t for marketing then your target customer might not be aware that your product even exists, so they are never going to buy it.

As the composite industry is full of new innovations and is constantly evolving, now more than ever, marketing is essential to keep a business at the forefront of people’s minds and to help it grow. Growth in a business is an important factor because no business wants to stay static forever and never progress forward. Marketing can help a composite business to grow by spreading the business name, establishing a brand, retaining customers, promoting a positive reputation, and ultimately creating sales.