Edmund Optics Inc., a manufacturer of industrial optics for scientific, biomedical and pharmaceutical industries, saw its future in social media.
The company began working on reaching new customers through social networks in early 2013, and put the most effort into the online professional networking site LinkedIn. It faced a particular challenge in promoting its brand and engaging potential customers in that all of the manufacturer’s products are used in devices that carry other brand labels, Geoffrey Forman, content marketing manager and marketing analyst at Edmund Optics, said at last week’s Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition in Chicago.
Forman used the lenses in eyeglasses, though not part of Edmund’s product offerings, as an example. “If you wear glasses your frame is often branded,” he said. “But if you pop out the lens you don’t know who manufactured it.”
The first step Edmund took in its social media strategy was to identify its audience, Forman said. Edmund Optics found that the majority of people browsing its site were researchers at companies looking to buy or learn—and who influence their company’s purchasing supervisors—as well as non-buyers among student researchers and journalists. To promote its brand, Forman developed a thought leadership strategy by displaying educational content on lenses on Linkedin.com, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, YouTube and in such online question-and-answer forums as Quora, Stack Exchange and Reddit.
After loading content to these social networks, the company compiled information on the number and type of visitor from each site that landed on EdmundOptics.com over a two-week period.
Forman found that the content Edmund placed on LinkedIn and Google+ appealed to potential buyers, students and news media professionals alike. Potential buyers also used the Q&A communities, and sometimes used Facebook; Edmund concluded Twitter was used mostly by the news media.
Edmund identified Linkedin as of the most effective channel for engaging with its core audience of researchers who were also potential buyers. During the two-week test period, LinkedIn referred 38% of the visitors that arrived at EdmundOptics.com from social media sites, and the majority of them were in the manufacturing, educational or other business areas mostly likely to include buyers of Edmund’s products. Edmund has approximately 2,364 followers on Linkedin—double the number it has on Facebook—and found that video was its best-performing content type.
Edmund ramped up its online presence on LinkedIn a year and a half ago, producing a “notable” increase in both web traffic to EdmundOptics.com and the number of prospective customers signing up for its online catalog, Forman said.
In 2014, about 20% of the company’s orders were processed online. Almost all of online purchases were of what Forman calls low-volume purchases, or products that customers order online to try out before ordering in higher volumes from sales reps. The company’s aim through its e-commerce site is to provide enough information online to persuade these customers to continue buying online when they begin ordering in higher volumes, Forman said.
Edmund developed a content strategy for each form of its social media channels, Forman said. For Linkedin, YouTube and Q&A communities, Edmund Optics focused in on in-house-developed technical product descriptions and product videos.
Edmund also invested in Linkedin’s Lead Accelerator, a service that offers targeted display ads to users the networking platform identifies as likely to be interested in a company’s content. Through the Lead Accelerator, Edmund targeted customers by group membership and country, and promoted dialogue within these communities by providing a mix of promotional and non-promotional content. Through paid social advertising with a focus on Linkedin, Edmund Optics doubled its rate of converting LinkedIn content viewers to visitors on EdmundOptics.com from 3% to 6%, Forman says. The company has found that it has greater web site conversion rates through its social channels, rather than through paid advertising in industry publication web sites.
In the future, the company is looking to place greater emphasis on online Q&A forums; explore as a content distribution platform SlideShare, a web site for sharing professional and business web content; and test paid advertising on additional platforms, Forman said.
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