January 29 2025
Industrial Digital Marketing Past, Present, and Future:
An Interview with Tim Doyle, retired VP of Sales at OuterBox
Tim Doyle isn’t just a sales guy. He’s a scholar of metal fabrication. A precision machining guru. He’s our manufacturing Einstein.
And he’s the digital marketing expert for industrial B2B.
He feels obligated to pass on as much information on this subject as possible to the next generation of marketers. He has influenced our company’s employee onboarding to ensure new hires learn about this nuanced industry, its terminology, and its unique marketing factors.
Having recently retired as VP of Sales after 20 years with our company, we decided to pick his brain on past, present, and future industrial digital marketing. Let’s get to know Tim, learn from his experience, and take away some expertise for our careers and businesses.
Meet Tim Doyle
Tim refers to himself as a true Detroit kid. He saw manufacturing everywhere growing up, and his grandfather was a manufacturing rep for parts suppliers in the auto industry. His friend’s parents and neighbors were in the industry. His school field trips were often plant tours, and those plants made the headlines on the local news every night.
“It was a duck to water. It was so natural. It was fascinating how they could transform materials into something new. It was art.”
He earned a public relations and advertising degree and started with sales for Burlington Northern Airfreight. That was followed by selling computers to hotels and restaurants. His big opportunity for industrial marketing came with The Thomas Register of American Manufacturers, an industrial buying guide.
The Print Days
Keywords have been around a lot longer than digital. It started on paper. Yellow Pages was the OG Google—an idea that will confuse your kids along with cassette tapes and floppy disks.
Keywords here had a structured approach focused on nouns and modifiers. Things like “Pumps, Centrifical” or “Pumps, Hydraulic.” It was a way for businesses to get in front of people looking for something specific—the tricky B2B buyers who need a lot of research with a lot of specifics for a lot of stakeholders. He learned tons by paging through the full, finished Thomas Registries, not just his accounts.
They used the same methodology of super-specific nouns and modifiers when digitization came. Instead of turning through pages, users could query keywords using natural language on CD-ROMs with a searchable database—another technological ancestor we have to thank for SEO. His team also made capability brochures on disks before websites became ubiquitous.
“It was fun. We were at the cutting edge of everything”.
He used the idea of B-SMART before Google was live, considering details like brand, size/shape/SKU, materials, applications, requirements, and types industrial buyers looked for. Therefore, his transition to the internet came naturally, and he was already a keyword master by the time SEO and paid search came around.
Going Digital
The need to source the websites folks were creating in the late nineties was huge, so everything exploded as soon as the web browser came. The keyword king was ready.
Tim can give you approximate dates and founders for the game-changing platforms that appeared during the dot-com boom. He knows this history because he lived it.
Around 2002, pay-per-click changed things on the marketing side. Now, keywords weren’t just to populate queries; they held monetary value, and the war to rank above the competition began. Tim saw what was happening and saw an opportunity. Tim arrived at TopSpot in 2007 when PPC was no longer novel; it was becoming essential.
Selling paid media was a slow and consistent role as industrial lagged compared to B2C. Tim says it’s because the industrial industry doesn’t run on fads; they wanted to see it and for marketers to prove it.
Industrial Marketing Today
Manufacturing is a historical and evolving art form. We’ve been forging and pounding hot metal into shapes since the Bronze Age. These techniques still happen today, just with new technology. Robotics, automation, and software have made both industrial and digital marketing easier, faster, and more efficient. Innovations help us stay competitive globally.
Tim remembers that our manufacturers had to run to catch up when Japan, then China automated before the US. Sadly, this catching up is a trend in industrial marketing, too. Industrial has so many nuances that need testing and measuring that the industry’s affinity for “seeing is believing” takes time.
Tim says most industrial businesses have magical thinking regarding digital marketing. They think the agency will do everything, and it will happen fast. They don’t commit budget and human resources.
“You have to partner with a digital marketing firm and collaborate on content and analysis. You have to impart knowledge. The agency then has to put that knowledge into play. It’s hard work”.
He wants folks to understand the importance of having the right content, specifically B-SMART content, which will put you ahead. He has seen it hundreds of times. The right content doesn’t mean less content; just like business improvement, you’re never done. Constant restructuring and refreshing are needed to keep up with the market and your competition. It’s updating and creating landing pages, blogs, images, videos, FAQs, and structured data.
The Importance of Industrial
Tim’s priority has been to help industrial businesses thrive. He does this not just in his work. Tim reminds younger Boxers that the industry creates a strong, stable middle class.
“Being an industrial marketer is a badge of honor, a person looking to help the middle class and the overall national economy. There’s a bigger picture here that requires even the youngest marketers’ passion. We need to present US manufacturers to the world and do it right.”
He notes that we lost this as a nation for a time by outsourcing overseas. He says he’s not a nationalist but a realist. He wants to spread the word that careers in this space take math, engineering, and artistry. He is involved in organizations like PMA, FMA, and Nuts, Bolts, and Thingamijgs. Manufacturing offers fantastic pay and doesn’t always require the debt of a college education. He wants to see respect for the trades like we see in other parts of the world.
Industrial Marketing Tomorrow
Tim keeps up with technology. He talks to people, asks questions, and reads The Fabricator and Metalforming Magazine. He loves talking about the innovative things that are possible now. He mentions CRO, testing engagement without dismantling existing pages—creative ways to prove to businesses the possibilities.
Mining data to inform content is getting more innovative, too—tools like LOOP Analytics for lead forms, call tracking, and even using a website’s internal site search. We’ve seen this data inform digital marketing and inspire new product offerings. The future is AI, which can speed this up.
“You have to be open-minded and ready to embrace and test it. It’s the same as when the browser was new. How to put new tech in play to benefit yourself.”
Outgoing Advice
Before signing off after a fantastic career, we asked Tim for final advice for industrial businesses.
“When your head is down trying to run your business, you need to look up and understand the things that could help your business. Be willing to listen, read, test, and fund innovation”.
Tim’s genuine love and understanding of the industry was passed on to predecessors like Josh Blankenship, Director of Business Development, and the entire organization through onboarding. While he passed the torch, we expect to hear more wisdom via LinkedIn or at a friendly gathering.
Tags: digital marketing, industrial, manufacturing