Leads for manufacturing & logistics

Typical bottlenecks and solutions

1. Sales depends on two trade fairs a year

Why: For many manufacturers and logistics companies, a large share of new contacts comes from trade fairs. Afterwards, business cards and scanner lists sit with the field sales team, and little comes in between fairs. Yet buyers, design engineers and plant managers research online all year round, compare data sheets and download CAD data or white papers long before they send an enquiry.

Solution (Performance Marketing): We build year-round lead campaigns on LinkedIn, targeted by industry, job function and company size, and on Google Search for product and application terms. The landing pages offer a data sheet, sample request or call-back from application engineering. Every lead is pre-qualified by company, requirement and quantity before it goes to your sales team.

2. Trade fair contacts and long project cycles fizzle out

Why: After the fair, the sales team has hundreds of contacts but no time to follow them all up. Projects in mechanical engineering or intralogistics run for months: specification, budget approval, tender. Anyone who isn't present in this phase doesn't make the supplier list, even if the conversation at the stand went well.

Solution (Email Marketing): We transfer the trade fair leads into the CRM, segment them by interest and conversation notes and start a follow-up sequence within 48 hours: conversation summary, application example, technical documents, an offer of an appointment. After that come nurturing emails timed to the project cycle. Clicks and downloads tell the sales team when a contact becomes active again.

3. Drivers and specialists don't apply

Why: Professional drivers, forklift drivers, warehouse logistics specialists, mechatronics technicians or CNC specialists rarely search actively on job boards. Many are employed and switch when the shift pattern, route or pay is right. Classic job ads with a CV upload lose exactly these people, because they apply on their phone during their break.

Solution (Recruiting campaigns (part of Performance Marketing)): We run recruiting campaigns on Meta and other platforms in the area around your sites. Interested people answer a few questions on their phone about driving licence class, willingness to work shifts, qualifications and start date, with no CV at all. Automatic pre-qualification sorts the applications, and your HR department only receives suitable profiles and can call back within a day.

Reference: igus

igus is one of the industrial companies Minotaurus has worked for. We only publish figures and details from client projects with approval, so we only name the company here. In the intro call, we use your own case to show you how we model a B2B campaign upfront: cost per lead, share of sales-ready enquiries and expected order value.

Service mix

• Performance Marketing: LinkedIn and Google campaigns targeting purchasing, design engineering and logistics management, with landing pages for a data sheet, samples or a call-back from application engineering.
• Email Marketing: Trade fair follow-up and nurturing over months, timed to tenders and budget rounds, with alerts to the sales team on a click or download.
• Recruiting campaigns (part of Performance Marketing): Applications from drivers, warehouse and production specialists via social ads, on mobile in two minutes and automatically pre-qualified.
• Tracking with Tracyn (partner Atmos): Closed deals from the CRM flow back into the campaigns, so we optimise for orders rather than completed forms.

What we steer by (KPIs)

• Cost per sales-ready lead: Only enquiries with a need, budget and contact person are worth the field sales team's time.
• Pipeline value from campaigns: With high order values, the value of the pipeline counts for more than the number of enquiries.
• Response rate in trade fair follow-up: Shows how many stand conversations actually continue after the fair.
• Cost per qualified application: Drivers and specialists determine your ability to deliver, so we calculate per suitable profile.

Timing: We align lead campaigns with the budget rounds in autumn and the weeks before and after your key trade fairs. Logistics companies are best advised to start recruiting for warehouse and fleet well before the peak season in the fourth quarter.

FAQ

Does LinkedIn work for technical products with a small target group? Yes, especially then. On LinkedIn you can narrow down by job function, industry and company size, so your budget reaches design engineering, purchasing or plant management. Cost per click is higher than on Meta. That is why we calculate upfront which order value can bear which cost per lead.

How much does B2B lead generation for industrial companies cost? Performance Marketing costs from €1,500 net per month per platform, with each additional platform €900. Email marketing for follow-up and nurturing starts at €3,000 net per month. On top of that comes ad budget, which makes sense from around €5,000 per month. The contract term is one month in each case.

Can you process our trade fair leads from the scanner? Yes. We take exports from lead scanners, Excel lists or your CRM, remove duplicates and properly obtain any missing consent for email marketing. Then the follow-up sequence starts, ideally in the week after the fair.

When do recruiting campaigns for drivers pay off? As soon as you can't fill several positions at one site over the long term. Recruiting campaigns cost from €1,500 net per month per platform, plus ad budget from around €1,500. Beforehand we work out with you what an unfilled route or shift costs and which cost per hire is affordable.