In a 2013 survey of 1,000 Americans, conducted by market research firm YouGov, 47 percent of respondents indicated they would most likely purchase an item if it had “made in the USA” branding on it. And in 2015, Consumer Reports found that eight out of 10 American consumers said they would rather buy a product made in America than an imported one, while 60 percent said they would pay 10 percent more for it.
Furthermore, according to an August 2016 article by the Made in America Movement:
[Google] searches for “Made in USA” and “Made in America” have climbed sharply from just a few years ago. In May 2016, “Made in USA” hit 94 on a 100-point scale, indicating peak search interest.
I’m one of those consumers who buys US-made goods whenever possible. I made the commitment in 2014 for a number of reasons, but mostly because I wanted to help bring jobs back to the US. According to the Million American Jobs Project, if each of us purchased just one more item (or an additional 5 percent) made in the US, we’d create a million new jobs. Sounds good to me!
Since making that commitment, I’ve learned quite a few things about how to find American-made goods (yep, plenty of them are out there). One thing I’ve learned is to research everything online beforehand.
Given that I’m also a digital marketer, I’ve studied how companies use PPC, SEO and content marketing to promote their Made in the USA products — sometimes effectively and other times not so much.
In this first part of this three-part series, I’ll give five examples of companies marketing their Made in the USA products using PPC and SEO — plus brief analyses of landing and product pages — to illustrate how difficult or easy it is to determine if the product is indeed Made in the US (which is important, as I’ll explain).
Next month, in part two, I’ll cover content marketing, link building, PR and other ways to help build awareness for Made in the USA products. In part three, I’ll cover how B2B vendors can attract manufacturers sourcing US-made materials for their products.
In this article, the examples I’ve used illustrate my perspective as a consumer; none of the companies discussed are clients or affiliates, nor do I have any data on their PPC or SEO campaigns.
I’ll provide five examples across two searches, along with my recommendations for how search marketers can help consumers purchase Made in the USA products with confidence.
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