Systems Integrators fail at digital marketing
March 23, 2015– Authentia published a comprehensive study of the control system integrator industry’s digital marketing performance. Many industrial/manufacturing industries lag behind in their adoption of modern digital marketing practices, largely due to target demographics that have been slow to embrace social media and mobile computing. This has especially been the case in the control system integrator industry. However, with digital trends accelerating and workforce demographics rapidly changing, businesses are being forced to adapt quickly.
Authentia randomly selected 100 North American control system integrators and assessed their digital marketing effectiveness against 32 separate criteria. The results indicate areas of opportunity for control system integrators to take advantage of industry-wide latencies. Owners, business developers, and marketing professionals will find this information valuable in assessing their own efforts and opportunities against their peers and competitors.
“With my background in industrial controls and leadership positions in the International Society of Automation (ISA), control system integrators are near and dear to my heart,” said Authentia Strategic Marketing Consultant Jon DiPietro. “I have many friends and colleagues who work in that industry. Over the past few years, I’ve conducted dozens of digital marketing assessments for control system integrators and other automation companies. I thought it would be interesting to conduct an industry-wide assessment and see how the industry as a whole is adapting to digital marketing trends.”
Key findings from the report include:
- Websites are outdated in terms of messaging and technology:
- 79% of CSI websites we analyzed make site visits from a mobile device difficult or impossible, alienating nearly half of their web visitors.
- 48% of the website cannot easily change site content or even enable blogging, as they do not use a Content Management System (CMS).
- 45% of all sites studied make no attempt to establish trust with site visitors through the use of social proof, such as testimonials, awards, certifications, memberships, etc.
- Search engine marketing is nearly non-existent in the industry:
- 3% of websites surveyed were determined to be paying for advertisements on search engines.
- 85% of CSI websites had a Domain Authority below 40, which is a measure of how much clout a website carries with search engines.
- 42% of websites did not have any analytics operating which track their performance.
The industry has not yet adopted content marketing as a strategy:
- 67% of those studied do not list or promote social media accounts, such as Facebook or LinkedIn
- 65% of websites have no blog or news feed.
- 12% had a blog and published industry-focused content (as opposed to company news).
- 88% of websites surveyed did not incorporate social sharing buttons, making their content difficult to find and share.
There are very few mechanisms in place to interact with prospects:
- 2% of websites were connected to a marketing automation tool.
- 84% of websites surveyed did not utilize visible call-to-action buttons.
- 95% of websites failed to use landing pages, which contain an offer designed to collect information from prospects.
The 2015 Control System Integrator Digital Marketing Benchmark Report can be downloaded for free at www.authentiasoft.com/2015-csi.
About Authentia
Authentia provides End-to-End Digital Marketing services to businesses looking for sales growth. Formed in 2003 with an exclusive focus upon helping sales and marketing organizations improve their performance through best practices in CRM, Authentia has evolved with the innovations brought to sales and marketing teams and now offers a full range of digital marketing solutions, including website design and development, inbound marketing, and outbound demand generation.

Check out our free e-newsletters
to read more great articles.
- Posted in:
- Industry
- Related Portals:
- Factory Automation, Manufacturing Operations Management, Process Automation, Systems Integration
MORE INDUSTRY NEWS
-
Verizon helps Virginia shipbuilding company implement 5G service
With 5G’s increased bandwidth and ultra-low latency, NNS will be equipped to meet network connectivity demands and will test new ways its...
-
Kinedyne announces John Seliga as Vice President of Finance
A certified public accountant, Seliga holds a master’s degree in business administration from Cleveland State University and a bachelor’s...
-
IFR Report: Korea hits record 300,000 industrial robots
Within five years, the country has doubled its number of industrial robots. Following Japan and China, the country ranked third in 2018. But the...
-
Senseye partners with ATS Global to accelerate smart factory strategies
ATS will support Senseye's clients with the design, implementation, or integration of automated machine data systems such as historians or...
-
ARC Advisory Group Report: ABB leads DCS market for 20th consecutive year
According to the report, ABB’s presence in many end-user industries was a major factor in this success. The DCS market saw its main growth in oil...
RELATED
-
Industrial Internet Consortium and oneM2M release whitepaper on Advancing the Industrial Internet...
The joint whitepaper, “Advancing the Industrial Internet of Things,” written by the IIC and oneM2M, demonstrates how these two IoT...
-
Litum IoT helps Ferrero Group enhance worker tracking
Ferrero needed a way to confirm that all its employees could be safely accounted when an emergency evacuation was underway.
-
Association for Advancing Automation Report: North American machine vision market down in 2019
Machine vision systems saw a decrease of 2% year over year, at $599.9 million. This category includes smart cameras and application specific...
-
The Death of the Family Album: Specifying the right cleanroom environment
By Mark Howard, EU Automation
It is vital to understand how cleanrooms truly operate if you are to get the best out of yours. This article... -
Inside the Rise of 5G Industrial Automation Networking
By Bill Lydon, Automation.com
5G is starting to make the goal of wireless industrial automation a reality. Companies are already starting to...