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From mastering lead nurturing and optimizing email outreach to uncovering hiring trends and manufacturing pain points, 2024’s most-read stories on IndustrySelect reflect the pressing challenges that industrial sales and marketing professionals faced this year. Today, we're exploring IndustrySelect's most popular stories of the year, from industrial sales and marketing features to critical manufacturing news.
In-person events are back in a big way, reflected in IndustrySelect’s most popular story of 2024: what trade shows to attend. Manufacturing trade shows are key opportunities to connect, learn, and grow your business. Whether you’re scouting new partnerships, exploring cutting-edge technologies, or expanding your network, attending the right events can deliver massive ROI. From top U.S. trade shows to industry-specific expos, discover the must-attend events to maximize your business development opportunities in 2024. Read more: Manufacturing Trade Shows to Attend in 2025
Our second most popular story of the year reflected the needs of businesses for outside help as they looked to scale up in 2024. Outsourcing business development helps companies to tap into expert talent, scale faster, and focus on core operations while driving sales growth. From cost savings to accessing specialized skills, this article covers the key reasons why outsourcing can help you reach new markets and customers efficiently. Read more: Reasons to Outsource Business Development
Between inflation and supply chain disruptions, not to mention a tumultuous election season, 2024 has undoubtedly been a year of uncertainty for manufacturers. Uncertainty is inevitable—but businesses can thrive by embracing flexibility, innovation, and strategic planning. This popular story provides real-world examples of how manufacturers and B2B companies can navigate uncertain markets with approaches both practical and novel. Read more: How Businesses Can Thrive in Uncertainty
Email personalization can make or break your outreach efforts. When personalization fails, your email becomes irrelevant or even insulting, significantly decreasing engagement and trust. And we’re not just talking missed opportunities; these types of blunders can actively harm your reputation for future campaigns. Our fourth-most popular story this year reveals how to personalize effectively to increase engagement and strengthen your B2B relationships. Read more: How to Avoid Costly Email Personalization Mistakes
Remember how we said at the beginning of this article that in-person events were back in a big way? That includes in-person meetings. The face-to-face interaction remains a powerful tool in industrial sales, fostering trust, better communication, and stronger client relationships. While virtual alternatives save time, face-to-face interactions create deeper connections and opportunities to close deals. In our fifth most popular story this year, discover why industrial sales teams still prioritize meeting clients in person and how it can give you a competitive edge. Read more: The Value of In-Person Meetings in Industrial Sales
Manufacturers face unique challenges—supply chain disruptions, workforce shortages, and rising costs. Understanding your prospects’ challenges is crucial for prescriptive sales and marketing, but in the highly complex and dynamic world of manufacturing, grasping these many challenges is a challenge in and of itself. Ranking sixth in our most popular sales and marketing stories for 2024, this article on pain points in the manufacturing industry provides inside knowledge of the challenges manufacturers are facing, from labor concerns to interest rates and more. Updated each year for more up-to-date insights, this article remains a go-to for industrial salespeople to understand their prospects and determine how they can help. Read More: Top Manufacturing Pain Points and How You Can Help
Check back for our next Manufacturing Pain Points article in January 2025, or explore more on executive pain points by industry in our Executive Perspectives series.
As the highest ROI digital channel, marketers were keenly interested in topics surrounding email marketing this year. How effective is email marketing for B2B success? Backed by insightful data, this article explores key email marketing statistics, from ROI benchmarks to engagement trends, and highlights actionable strategies to optimize your email campaigns. Discover how to make every email count for your industrial audience. In this comprehensive post, we gathered 131 statistics from around the web on email marketing, including stats on timing your email campaigns, best times and days to email manufacturers, personalization, subject lines, automation, visuals, and more. Read more here: Email Marketing Statistics for B2B Success.
Retaining customers is more cost-effective than acquiring new ones, yet many businesses overlook its value. Our 8th most popular story this year, this article uncovers 41 surprising customer retention statistics that highlight why loyalty should be at the heart of your strategy. Learn key insights to improve retention and boost your bottom line. Read more here: Surprising Customer Retention Statistics You Should Know
In B2B sales, traditional funnel strategies are losing momentum, while the flywheel model is gaining traction. Unlike the funnel, the flywheel focuses on customer satisfaction to fuel repeat business and referrals—creating a continuous cycle of growth. By aligning marketing, sales, and service efforts, businesses can deliver exceptional experiences that turn customers into advocates. Discover how this model works and its potential to drive sustainable growth in your B2B operations. Read more: Understanding the Flywheel Method for B2B Sales
According to research from Forrester, marketers see an average 20% increase in sales from nurtured leads as opposed to unnurtured leads. Additionally, Forrester says that businesses who "excel" at nurturing leads can generate 50% more sales at a 33% lower cost! So what is lead nurturing? Rounding up our top 10 list is this in-depth article on nurturing sales leads. Read more: How to Nurture B2B Sales Leads
Workforce challenges continue to dominate manufacturing as companies face skills shortages and shifting hiring demands. While everyone can easily access the overall jobs report, it takes a little digging to get the details on specific manufacturing employment numbers. Updated every month, this article tracks hiring trends in specific industries as reported by the Department of Labor. As our most popular industrial story of 2024, this breaking news article and infographic helps industrial professionals, particularly those in recruiting and staffing, track the hiring needs of manufacturers and remains a top economic indicator for manufacturing. See the latest: Hiring Trends in U.S. Manufacturing
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In this tumultuous election year, avoiding political discussions at the holiday table was a top priority for many in 2024. Thus, our post on fun and fascinating manufacturing facts to share at the holiday table was our second most popular manufacturing story of the year. A surprising centerpiece of any holiday feast, this collection of 37 entertaining and intriguing manufacturing anecdotes. Whether it's peculiar Barbie trivia, the origins of bubble wrap, or the untold story of Velcro, these narratives are bound to captivate. Read the story: Fascinating Facts About Manufacturing
Coming in at number three, our post on the top manufacturers in the U.S. zeroed in on the leading manufacturers driving growth, from aerospace giants to cutting-edge tech producers. Explore this ranking of the 20 largest U.S. manufacturing companies, showcasing their industries, workforce size, and contributions to the global market. Whether you're analyzing trends, exploring partnerships, or benchmarking your business, this list provides a snapshot of industrial powerhouses fueling the nation’s economy. Read the story: Top 20 Manufacturing Companies in the U.S.
Racking up nearly 300 shares, our exclusive weekly report of the most in-demand industrial products and services in the U.S. remains a top industrial news story. At MNI, where we not only furnish detailed profiles of 460,000 industrial businesses but also monitor the preferences of millions of industrial buyers, we offer insights into the equipment, parts, and services trending across 11,000 unique product and service categories on our industrial marketplace, IndustryNet. Read the story: Products and Servies Industrial Buyers Are Seeking
New environmental regulations emerged in 2024 impacting everything from carbon emissions to waste management, and industry professionals were eager to keep up with the news. This article, our fifth most popular of the year, serves to clarify the regulations and incentives manufacturers are facing and how B2B companies can leverage these to strengthen their relationships with manufacturers and position themselves as valuable sustainability partners. Read more: Environmental Regulations and Manufacturing.
Drawing from MNI’s comprehensive data on 360,000+ U.S. industrial companies, our industry-specific articles on industry trends and topic companies remain a go-to source for industrial sales, marketing, and research professionals looking for insights on specific industries. Here were our most-read industry-specific posts of the year.
1. Top Semiconductor Manufacturers in the U.S.
2. Top 10 Battery Manufacturers in the U.S.
3. The Largest Aircraft Manufacturers in the United States
4. 10 Largest Glass Manufacturers in the U.S.
5. Top 10 U.S. Manufacturers of Lawn and Garden Equipment
MNI also publishes stories on industrial trends and statistics on all fifty states, providing exclusive insights for anyone looking to do business in a particular state. Here were our most popular state and regional posts of the year:
1. Top 10 U.S. States for Manufacturing
2. Top 10 Manufacturing Companies in South Carolina
3. Top 10 Manufacturing Companies in Texas
4. Top 10 Manufacturing Companies in Georgia
5. Top 10 Manufacturing Companies in North Carolina
Editor’s note: the ranking of these stories was based on a combination of Google Analytics and Google News view data.
In 2024, we helped thousands of companies find new business and drive sales with IndustrySelect, the industrial database for sales, marketing, business development, recruiting, and research. All of our industrial business profiles are researched firsthand by real people for unmatched accuracy (see a sample profile). Click here to learn more or set up your free demo account, loaded with 500 real company profiles so you can test all the features of this powerful software!
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