Marketing Your 3D Printing Business: A Crash Course

As a technology, 3D printing has brilliant implications for manufacturing at large. Thousands of companies across the world are additively producing parts for other companies or directly for customers themselves.

Yet without knowing how to market your business or service bureau, companies face significant barriers in scaling operations.

Additive manufacturing is still primarily a B2B industry, so the ability to capture leads online is crucial for increasing sales revenue.

In this article, AMFG outlines the methods you can take both on and offline, to draw interest in your product and secure business.

Know your niche

There are many areas of differentiation of service bureaus and 3D printing companies in general:

Do you offer in-house design or consultancy expertise? Do your services include in-house post-processing or finishing? Is a rapid turnaround a key element of your solution? Do you offer turnkey solutions in a close collaboration with the customer, from start to finish? Do you specialise in a specific type of part? A particular material? A process? Do you place security at the top of your list of priorities? Is your key concern sustainability?

For service bureaus, understanding the particular aspect at which you excel helps you to specialise in certain areas and deliver, and to create the basics for building your brand. Identify your USP, and show why you’re the best on the market.

Understanding your customer is essential, too. Knowing demographics and firmographics, including company size, buying habits, challenges they face, and where they spend their time online is key to understanding their pain points, and allows you to identify how to improve your services and respond to their needs.

Build your brand

Just like any other business, clear, consistent, and powerful branding is at the heart of marketing. A brand is a combination of activities, the service you provide or thing you produce that sets you apart from the competition, and attracts a specific target market.

As discussed, a solid understanding of your customer and what makes your business unique is essential, yet into a brand also goes website design, logo, colours, a mission statement, tone.

What comes out should be recognisable and representative of your expertise in your niche.

The following marketing suggestions, whilst all independently are good sources of lead generation and potential business in the short term, also contribute to a business’s brand in the long term.

Content marketing is key

Branding should inspire confidence, and there is no better way to do this than to establish your company as an authority in the sector.

Producing and releasing well-researched, high-quality content about additive manufacturing can position your company as a trustworthy industry leader. These can be blogs, white papers, customer articles– the list is as long as a piece of string.

For example, French company Erpro uses LinkedIn to share infographics in the form of carousels, drawing in potential customers, communicating their brand, and establishing them as an authority on 3D printing.

Blog content can raise awareness of the practical applications of 3D printing beyond the bluster and hype surrounding the technology 10 years ago. Additionally, the vast majority of queries relating to 3D printing services begin online, and 71% of all B2B queries begin as generic search terms in Google.

People search for general terms, not a specific company, so ensuring visibility in the search engine is key. SEO is the process of optimising your website to get organic, unpaid traffic from search engines through the strategic use of keywords and backlinks in headings and titles. Mastering SEO will ensure that your content appears at the top of searches.

Every customer wants to feel like they are in safe hands, and case studies are a valuable way to prove that with your company, they are. Customer success stories can outline how you effectively meet the needs of your customers with high-quality products and services.

Media consumption, however, is changing, and it is worth considering other forms of content production. Infographics and images require less investment from the customer yet, if well designed, can be just as engaging as a 2000-word article.

Blog posts can be repurposed into podcasts, which can then be clipped up and released as short-form content, an increasingly popular media format. The way we consume is changing, including in the additive manufacturing sphere, so your marketing efforts should reflect this.

Get social

You’ve produced high quality content to establish your brand– now what?

Social media is an easy and cost-effective tool for telling your company’s story through the content you produce.

Make sure to pick well, however; for example, if you’re a small service bureau focusing on prototyping, creating jewellery moulds and design projects, then Instagram and Facebook are great platforms to explore. For service providers specialising in industrial AM applications, professional social platforms like LinkedIn can be a better choice.

TikTok and Snapchat may not be hugely beneficial for budding 3D printing service bureaus or businesses, but given that 30% of adults globally have a LinkedIn account, some social media is definitely useful.

When using LinkedIn, it is important to be sensitive to algorithmic preferences in order to grow your page. Responding to comments and reposting mentions, interacting with the space around you through tagging other companies and responding to their posts, and reaching out to big names and relevant influencers for collaboration are all ways to build a network and further awareness of your company on social media.

Network, network, network

Despite our penchant for the digital, old-school networking is still essential. Industry events allow manufacturers the chance to stay abreast of major advances and the general feel in the sector– a good yardstick for the industry at large.

Furthermore, good relationships can be built, and faces put to names, allowing them an up-close-and-personal experience with your product. Before the event, there are plenty of opportunities to start promoting early, giving potential visitors a taste of what they can expect and generating anticipation ahead of the event.

Networking doesn't just spread the word about your business; it builds an ecosystem around it that fosters growth.

Award shows offer the added opportunity of being recognised for your service or product. An additive manufacturing industry or regional award win or shortlist will increase your sales, as customers are far more likely to invest in products that have been highly rated. They are an inexpensive way to increase the visibility and credibility of your manufacturing business, as we highlighted in our article from January about industry awards.

Appearances in publications will also drive traffic to your company; ‘traditional’ media often already have a direct connection with their audience. Resources like VoxelMatters’ monthly spotlights and extensive databases like MTA can showcase your solutions to tens of thousands of potential customers.

Creating your own newsletters, containing highlights and calls to action, is a fantastic way of staying connected with your customer base.

Paid opportunities, such as Google ads and geotargeted campaigns, may be beneficial; consider the potential value of a specialist agency.

Final thoughts

Effective marketing for AM businesses requires a combination of digital strategies, content marketing, networking, and client engagement. By leveraging your unique strengths, building a professional online presence, and continuously refining your approach, you can attract new clients and grow your business.

AMFG helps facilitate customer experience, with our award-winning software ensuring clients can request quotes for parts with ease.

AMFG works with high-mix, low volume manufacturers across the globe, streamlining their operations with our cutting-edge software platform. Our scalable tools automate all stages of manufacturing operations, providing automatic quoting and order management, with 500+ integrations. Using our software, our clients can adapt to complex demand with efficiency and precision, securing their place at the forefront of the manufacturing industry.

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