Making LinkedIn Work for Niche Manufacturing: A Solo Marketer’s PlaybookMaking LinkedIn Work for Niche Manufacturing: A Solo Marketer’s Playbook

Making LinkedIn Work for Niche Manufacturing: A Solo Marketer’s Playbook Transcript:

Jeff White: Welcome to The Kula Ring, a podcast for manufacturing marketers brought to you by Kula Partners. My name is Jeff White, and joining me today is Carman Pirie. Carman, how are you doing, sir? 

Carman Pirie: I’m delighted to be here, Jeff. And you?

Jeff White: I’m doing good, thanks. 

Carman Pirie: Nice. I’m looking forward to today’s conversation. I think we, I’m really hopeful that our guest today can shine a little light for our listeners on how to succeed on LinkedIn a little bit. 

Jeff White: Especially with limited resources and things like that, because there’s absolutely no question that, if English is the language of business, LinkedIn is the social network of it, yeah. 

Carman Pirie: I guess it does seem that way, doesn’t it? And, I think, look, obviously, that’s the default reputation that they wanted and that they do enjoy. Although I gotta say it’s not every firm or every person that’s able to get it to work for business, really.

I know a handful of people who are LinkedIn-famous in some way, shape, or form and don’t make a dime off that fame. And others that certainly don’t seem to be able to translate that activity into corporate lead flow. Maybe it’s more of a personal following, but translating that into corporate lead flow doesn’t necessarily always work. So when we heard of a smaller manufacturing organization doing that, we went, “Cool.”

Jeff White: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, and it is ubiquitous. I remember folks sending me invitations to join LinkedIn, like back when Twitter was still good, in the early aughts. But yeah, resisted for a while, but now you would not be able to be in B2B and not be on LinkedIn, I think, especially if you’re in sales or marketing. 

Carman Pirie: Man, I almost want to make the contrarian side of me just leave LinkedIn- … just to see if I can still continue to exist. But that’s fine. We’ll save that for another day. Let’s introduce today’s guest and get meaningful contributions rather than my contrarian nature. 

Jeff White: Absolutely. So joining us today is Reshmee Bissundyal. Reshmee is the marketing manager at Mechanical Solutions. Welcome to The Kula Ring, Reshmee. 

Reshmee Bissundyal: Hi, Jeff and Carman. Thanks for having me. 

Carman Pirie: Reshmee, it’s awesome to have you on the show. Thank you for joining us today. I’d love to learn more about Mechanical Solutions and what you folks do there. Could you perhaps introduce our listeners to the company? 

Reshmee Bissundyal: Yeah, absolutely. Mechanical Solutions or MSI, we’re an engineering company that’s been around for about 30 years. We specialize in helping companies solve problems with critical rotating equipment, such as pumps, compressors, and turbines. Our team works with plant operators. We also work with engineers and the maintenance teams to diagnose vibration and reliability issues in their machinery.

Some of the industries we serve include oil and gas, water and wastewater, and power generation. Sometimes we help prevent problems before equipment is installed, and at other times we troubleshoot issues in systems that are already running. To add to that, we combine advanced computer modelling with field testing to understand what’s really happening inside the machinery and find practical solutions.

We also develop tools, such as ViView, which uses motion-magnified video to identify the root cause of vibration in machinery. So, to sum it up, our goal is simple. We help companies keep their most important machinery running reliably and efficiently.

Carman Pirie: Reshmee, that’s fantastic. And it’s interesting to me because when I think about somebody who has an opportunity maybe to leverage LinkedIn to drive lead flow, it doesn’t immediately occur to me that the… somebody who’s targeting a plant management function would would be ideal for that because, of course it’s funny, I find people who are trying to target plant managers they often view them as not being perennially in front of their computer, as an example, and being a little bit more out and about, and therefore harder to target digitally. So you’ve made me even more interested in this conversation today, Reshmee. I wonder if we could get a bit of a background on you as well. How did you end up at Mechanical Solutions? 

Reshmee Bissundyal: Yeah, sure. I’ve worked mainly in the AEC industry for the past 15 years. And I work mainly with small to mid-size companies, doing things like digital and social media marketing, content strategy and creation, brand awareness, graphic design, email marketing, and CRM and website management. And now with generative AI and SEO, I’ve been with MSI for three years, basically doing all of the above. It was funny how I got to MSI. A recruiter called me. I wasn’t really sure, but then she sent me the job description. She said, “Oh, this is a small engineering company. They’re really in need of a marketing manager.” And I was like, “Okay.” And then she sent me the job description, and I was so excited because I thought it was exactly the right fit for me. After seeing the job description, I said, “Okay.” I felt the company really needed someone like me to grow the business and improve their brand awareness.

Jeff White: It’s interesting because that is a very diverse task list, skill set, however you wanna define it, and I think they were probably seeking a unicorn and lucky for them, they found one. 

Carman Pirie: Yeah, I think Jeff, such is the nature I think of a lot of firms in this space. They do, frankly, try to get a lot done with one person or a couple of people. Yeah. 

Reshmee Bissundyal: Yes, I definitely wear a lot of hats because I’m the only person in the marketing department, and I’m pulling in many different directions. 

Carman Pirie: I bet. Take us through your LinkedIn strategy. I would love to learn more about the lead flow you’re generating on LinkedIn, the awareness you’ve built there, and the playbook to help drive it.

So, Reshmee, maybe we’ll start with the success and work back. How would you summarize your LinkedIn success thus far? 

Reshmee Bissundyal: Yeah. Good question. I’ve managed to increase our LinkedIn followers 50% in three years. We’re now close to 12,000 followers. To give you some stats on LinkedIn, in the past year, we have had 190 impressions, 4,000 reactions, 153 comments, and 100 reposts. That’s a year alone. I think that’s really great. And so, pretty much that’s the gist, and I think my success story is that it’s really rapidly growing.

I’m very proud of the information, content, and designs I put out. It’s interesting, and I get a lot of feedback when we’re at trade shows. It feels really great when someone contacts us through our contact us page on the website, saying they found us on LinkedIn, and that leads to business.

Carman Pirie: And do you have a sense of how frequently that’s actually occurring? 

Reshmee Bissundyal: Not as frequent as I would hope or want, but I would say, once or twice a month, that happens. But I think the important thing to note about the LinkedIn presence is that you’re constantly getting your brand out there and reminding people what you’re about, your service areas, and how you can help them.

So I think just being on people’s radar, sometimes you don’t get the instant gratification, but I think it’s a way of always getting into people’s minds and just being a reminder of what we do. 

Jeff White: Reshmee, I recognize that, with all the rotating equipment you work on and service across so many industries, there are probably many opportunities to create LinkedIn content about those industries, your offerings, and the solutions you provide.

How do you plan it so you have something to work towards? Or is it a bit more ad hoc? 

Reshmee Bissundyal: I try to put myself in the shoes of prospects and clients. Clients mean repeat business and referrals. I try to put myself in their shoes. It’s not only about getting content consistently out there. It has to be a strategy. It has to be thoughtful. It has to be meaningful. And the way I go about doing that is by hiding an emotion, such as necessary fear. For example, what can happen to your machinery if you don’t act now? Sometimes I dabble between fear and then laughter. Some of the other things I have funny posts sometimes.

I have also animated designs, so they’re more interactive than just a plain old image. And I think I get to prospects, clients’ pain points- with good content. And I use AI to help me with that. I put together the content myself and asked AI to help me clarify my intentions and what I want to achieve.

And, I get… Full disclosure, I do use AI for a lot of my content. And again, as I mentioned, just tagging people in my company and having them react and share as much as they can to the posts I create. 

Jeff White: Do you find a fair amount of interaction from the team overall?

Reshmee Bissundyal: It was a slow start ’cause I work for engineers, marketers, and engineers are like oil and water. But I think they are getting it because I was… I’ve been consistently reminding them how important it is. Every little bit matters.

Sometimes it, it all adds up in the end, and it’s very effective if they interact and share. So I think that’s one of the most important things, besides content and graphic design, is having people share your posts and interact. When someone comments on your company on LinkedIn, respond proactively. So it’s just the constant interaction that really helps. 

Carman Pirie: Reshmee, are you tracking the individual contributions as well? So, for instance, if a salesperson or another team member reposts that content. And I guess the reason I ask that, the kind of question that’s embedded in that, is I’m wondering if that more personal content is performing better than the corporate-authored content?

Reshmee Bissundyal: Yeah. I try my best not to do so. For example, in a week, one of the things that I’m really proud of, actually, which tackles that personal content, is that I’m very proud of putting together, hiring a videographer to put together a brand story and then having social clips for LinkedIn.

So they talk about, across all our service areas, various social clips and what we’re about, and how we connect with our audience. So I dabble between that and also, as I said, like some humour, something that resonates with people emotionally as opposed to sounding very salesy. I’m not for that. I think I’m a person where I feel like you have to get into someone. You have to feel something. Again, whether it’s fear, unfortunately, or laughter or… But something intriguing that gets someone to that emotional level. So I think that’s what I do with my posts. And also just creating content that is, like, I don’t wanna brag, but state-of-the-art in design. But I think just intriguing to capture emotional response. 

Jeff White: How are you… You mentioned you’re using AI to generate some of that content. You have a graphic design background. Are you leveraging it in the design sense as well, or are you using other tools for that?

Reshmee Bissundyal: Yeah. So some of it’s… Yeah, so all of the above. I use Canva a lot. I use Adobe Express, which is an AI-generated social media tool. In Adobe, I use InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop. And then so I go, I just don’t use one platform. Depending, for example, on whether I have a post that I intend to post next week, I just go into these platforms and creatively think about which tool is best to use at this time based on this message.

And it’s not just like using one tool to get a whole bunch of posts. It’s very thought-out and strategized. And then, regarding the content, I speak from my heart. I go… For example, ChatGPT and I write what I think would resonate with prospects on LinkedIn, our LinkedIn followers, and then my end goal, and it helps me polish the content even more.

Jeff White: Have you worked with others in the organization to bring their perspective, promote them, or interview them on the MSI LinkedIn page? 

Reshmee Bissundyal: Yeah. As I, I mentioned before, we did a really great brand story video. It’s on our website also. Just promoting that on YouTube and on LinkedIn with the content that goes with that, just emphasizing how much…

And this is not a sales pitch; we really do care about what we do and our clients. It’s what my executive team thinks about in the shower. They really care about what they do and about people, and I bring that forward in the brand story video and in these amazing social clips.

We have about 12 of them that we, I occasionally put up. For example, for the CFD analysis engineer, I would make his social clip, and the next day, I would post a little piece about CFD analysis with something very graphically engaging.

So it’s– as I mentioned, it’s all strategy, and it’s all planned out. And yeah, I think as I mentioned, engineers are really smart. They’re good at what they do. But sometimes it’s, it was a little challenging getting them to understand marketing and what I do. But I think as time went by, they’re seeing the importance of that and understanding that emotion does play a role in this.

And they’re also able to market themselves; think with that strategy in mind. 

Carman Pirie: I wonder, I’m just trying to wonder, I’m trying to imagine what the indicators are of that or the leading indicators. How do we know that the emotional message is starting to resonate with what is often considered a very literal, rational buying audience?

I guess, do you– is it more based upon anecdotal evidence of comments that are made to the sales organization, or do you have another way of, in some ways, measuring the emotional resonance of the message that you’re putting out? 

Reshmee Bissundyal: For example, this is just one post I would post on Friday: “Do you know what your pumps are doing this weekend?” Meaning like how is it, are you able to… or, are you something along the line, these lines of you’re sleeping, but how is your pump behaving, so that, with that being said, it’s very interesting that impressions would be so much. I measure impressions from each post, and I notice that when I put up a lot of posts that connect with people’s emotional responses, rather than just a post about our services, I get a lot more impressions, comments, reactions, and likes. It’s something that I’ve actually been able to measure. 

Carman Pirie: Yeah, it makes sense to me that it makes sense that something that’s a more emotional message would solicit a more response.

You’d notice that in impressions and some of those awareness metrics. It makes sense. 

Jeff White: Something you said a few moments ago resonated with me. What are they thinking about in the shower? And now I’m envisioning a shower thought. 

Carman Pirie: engineer shower thoughts, the good kind.  I think it’s gonna be big. Yeah. 

Jeff White: Yeah. Yeah. 

Carman Pirie: I’m curious, Reshmee, what are you seeing as next for this LinkedIn audience that you’ve built? 12,000 is not an insignificant number within a niche category. So it would seem to me that there’s something there to leverage. But is it more of the same, or do you have a trick up your sleeve for the remainder of 2026 that you wanna give us a hint on?

Reshmee Bissundyal: Yeah. It should never be the same. It should be the same strategy, but with a different intention. But I guess the consistency or the continuation of the strategy is just to capture the audience and let them know, oh, this is something we need. We need this service or this product right away.

If not, you know what? We’re in big trouble. But do it and diversify the creativity interaction… sorry, the creativity and the and how it resonates with people. But overall, the gist is the same; I think consistency is important. In this day and age of marketing, everybody is m- marketing marketing everywhere.

Our main social media is LinkedIn. And I think we’ve started to resonate with our followers, and they’re starting to trust and believe what we say, and hopefully we can get more business from it. But to sum it up, I think the strategy will be the same.

Maybe the strategy may change a little bit, but I think just having more graphic designs, animations, and good content. I think content is so understated. I think it’s really important; it helps people resonate with what you’re saying on LinkedIn.

Carman Pirie: I think that shows a remarkable patience, Reshmi, to have built that community up to 12,000, and to do so through a lens of really awareness built without being overly salesy. So I look forward to watching how that i- is converted into more sales attention over time, because, as you say, you’ve taken the steps in these early stages to build awareness and build trust with that audience.

So that’s gonna be interesting to watch. I wonder if you have any parting words for our guests, Reshmee, fellow small and mid-sized enterprises in the industrial space. Any tips you might give to them if they’re looking to jumpstart their marketing endeavours?

Reshmee Bissundyal: Yeah. I would say, be passionate. I’m a very passionate person. Love what you do. Just always be creative. Stay one step ahead of the game, especially with AI now, just, if you have to get certifications, if you have to always learn as I sa- as I mentioned, s- be one step ahead. And, don’t only consider what you do a job, I would say. Don’t limit what you do to a job you’re paid for. Just have that mindset to generally, genuinely help solve problems because you care about what you do and care about people. And I think that is a big differentiator.

Jeff White: Thank you so much for joining us today, Reshmi. It’s been a wonderful conversation, and I look forward to learning more about your success on LinkedIn in the future. 

Reshmee Bissundyal: Thank you both. Thanks again for having me.