7 Effective Digital Marketing Strategies for Oil and Gas Companies

Keeping in mind its scale and overall dependence on cutting-edge equipment, there shouldn’t be any surprise that the oil and gas industry often listed itself among the early adopters of some of the most exciting technologies in the previous couple of decades.

It seems that the rise of digital marketing for the first time forced the petroleum sector to play the catch-up game. Although the digital marketing strategies have been successfully implemented across the industry, the innovations and highest productivity are implemented elsewhere which creates a gap that is measured in millions of dollars.

Let us take look then at a couple of effective digital marketing strategies that will bring O&G companies closer to their IT peers and allow them to become a disruptive factor in this marketing sector.

Set tangible goals and develop a digital marketing roadmap

Putting more effort into the digital marketing strategies of your company won’t produce any satisfying results if you don’t have a clear idea about what exactly you want to achieve. Try then to define the goals of your tweaks in a tangible and measurable manner. When you are done, use these milestones to backtrack and find the specific steps to lead you there. Digital marketing roadmap should consist of the following steps:

·         Short term objectives

·         Competitor analysis (SEO keywords, SERP information, etc.)

·         Website analysis (UX, conversions, landing pages, etc.)

·         Content strategies

·         Social media strategies

Drive more leads with effective inbound marketing

Short-term marketing strategies bear short-term results. If you want to really put your company on the map you need to nurture the audience by offering valuable content tailored around the experiences and the needs of the targeted audience. A recent survey says that inbound marketing can produce up to 72% more leads for the companies that use this strategy. Here are a couple of tips that should help you in this regard:

·         Give away free guides and content that is related to your business

·         Pick only a handful of keywords and focus all of your resources on them

·         Build an appealing and inviting digital brand

·         Interact with the audience on social media

·         Guest blog on influential platforms

Put an emphasis on sustainable practices

As we could see above, the success of your inbound marketing strategy will to a large extent depend on the appeal of your online persona. This is one of the areas where petroleum companies can make the biggest improvement. That is why your marketing efforts should put a stronger emphasis on green practices and initiatives. For instance, the O&G companies are successfully using hydrogen sulfide removal products to increase the lifespan and sustainability of their equipment. Examples like this one provide an excellent opportunity to market the entire industry in greener colors.

Increase the number of conversions with on-site tools

The goal of one website should not be only to the static source of information. If you want to maximize its potential you need to turn this priceless asset into a dynamic environment that will actively work to generate more quality leads. Fortunately, the tools for this strategy are readily available and you only need to implement them effectively. Here is the shortlist of the most noteworthy mentions:

·         Insights and blog subscriptions

·         Free downloadable content

·         Live chat window

·         High-quality video content

·         Interactive contact page

·         Educational content

Use effective digital marketing channels

Digital marketing is a broad term that covers dozens of different tools, assets, channels, and strategies. However, keeping in mind your native industry and the audience you are trying to reach out to, these three approaches should produce the most effective results:

·         SEO – One of the pillars of present-day digital marketing, Search Engine Optimization puts your company higher in the Google SERP and makes your website more discoverable. This shouldn’t be underestimated since, at the moment, Google drives as much as 70% of the global online traffic.

·         PPC – Although not as effective in the long term as SEO, PPCs produce excellent immediate results especially on the social media channels where users are segmented by their interests, location, and demographics.

·         Email marketing – Keeping in mind that the large portion of the marketing in the O&G industry envelop in the B2B environment, email marketing still represents one of the most effective ways of communicating your portfolio to the audience.

Set up the foundations for innovation

This is the only way to stay ahead of curve and stop playing a catch-up game with the rest of the digital marketing industry. To do that you will need to take notice of the latest digital marketing trends and lure in the talented marketing experts that will produce the creative output in the following years. Here are a couple of marketing areas that are expected to push the envelope of the industry in the future period:

·         Augmented reality

·         Micro-moment marketing

·         Highly integrated content

·         Artificial intelligence and personalization

·         Digital assistants and voice search

In conclusion

In the end, we can only summarize that the O&G industry has a very strong presence in the world of digital marketing, but the sector is not exactly known for driving innovations and pushing new trends in this area. This can easily change with the adoption of more creative thinking, implementation of the latest digital marketing trends, and a higher influx of prospective digital marketing talents. We hope the strategies we gave you above will help you in meeting these demands.