Kyle Fritz
Marketing & Industry Awareness Committee Member
Northwest Electric
Waverly, Nebraska
Effective industrial marketing isn’t about listing services—it’s about solving problems. This brief article explores how shifting your message from offerings to outcomes can better connect with customers and position your company as a true partner in reliability.
Market the Problem You Solve, Not the Service You Offer
In the industrial services world, marketing tends to get a little... technical. It’s easy to fall into the habit of listing everything your team can do—motor rewinds, dynamic balancing, thermography and alignments. After all, these are the tools that keep plants running.
But here’s the thing: that list, on its own, doesn’t always connect with the people you’re trying to reach.
Most maintenance managers or plant engineers aren’t sitting at their desks thinking, “I need dynamic balancing today.” They’re really focused on avoiding downtime, keeping the plant running smoothly and maybe making sure no one from corporate calls about the last unexpected shutdown. That’s where the opportunity lies—not in selling the service itself, but in showing how it solves the problem.
It’s About Outcomes, Not Offerings
When someone skims your website or flips through a sales brochure, they’re trying to figure out one thing: “Can this company help me with my issue?” If all they see is a list of services without context, it’s easy to tune out.
But you've got their attention when you talk about solving real-world problems—cutting unplanned outages, speeding up repairs, catching faults before they escalate.
It’s a subtle shift, but a powerful one. You’re not just saying what you do, you’re saying why it matters.
Keep It Grounded in Their World
This isn’t about watering things down or avoiding technical details. It’s about leading with relevance. Plant managers and reliability engineers know the difference between a good vendor and a great partner. A great partner sees the bigger picture—how their work impacts production, safety and the bottom line.
So instead of starting the conversation with, “We offer predictive maintenance,” it might be more useful to say, “We help customers spot issues before they lead to costly shutdowns.” Same service, different framing. One is easier for your customer to relate to.
Stories Help More Than Specs
What really resonates with customers and potential customers are real-world examples. A quick story about how your team got a motor back online before a plant’s weekend run, or how a vibration analysis caught a failing bearing before it took out a gearbox—these are the type of stories people remember.
They’re proof that you don’t just know your craft—you understand the urgency and pressure that comes with it.
Final Thought
At the end of the day, it’s not about making a flashy pitch. It’s about meeting your customers where they are in the process. If your marketing sounds more like a conversation about their headaches—and less like a catalog of services—you’ll stand out in a crowded field.
Because in this industry, solving the right problem is what gets you the call back. Not just saying you offer the service.
