The short answer: start with people, then the company, then the website, and only then advertising. In the first two months the engineer who looks you up must find a company that matches its real size: 30 years, production lines, certifications, delivered projects. Fix two executives’ profiles and the company page, build a content system from material you already have, rebuild the website as a vendor-qualification asset, and advertise after that.
In 40 seconds
Related: Saudi Arabia Services — or see every industry we serve in B2B marketing.
- The accelerator is right, and the correct reading is not “spend on ads” but “make the company look online the way it is on the ground”.
- In Saudi B2B the buyer checks the people before the logo, so two executives’ profiles and the company page are the first proof layer, with your approval on every post.
- The bilingual website comes next, built to pass vendor qualification; campaigns come last, when a paid click lands on something that proves your size.
- In months one and two, measure who viewed, followed and messaged you, and how many meetings started there. Likes are not a KPI.
What the accelerator got right, and the one way to get it wrong
In your words: “An accelerator told us our digital presence is weaker than our company’s size. Our sales have been field-based for 30 years and they work. Where does a factory like ours start, and why start at all?”
The observation is precise, and its most useful part is what it did not say: “advertise”. The gap is between what the company is and what a stranger finds: a LinkedIn page with three posts and an old website that never mentions the new coatings lines. A procurement manager at a marine contractor in Jeddah checks exactly that before answering your quotation, and a company smaller than the one he heard about costs the quotation weight.
You are also right that likes are not a performance indicator. The only way to get this wrong is to advertise first: you would pay to send engineers to a page and a website that undermine you. Presence is what people find when they look for you; advertising only adds people looking.
Why executives’ profiles come before the company page and the website
Business in Saudi B2B is still personal, and LinkedIn is where the personal check happens. When your business-development lead sends a proposal for marine coatings on a port project, the project engineer opens his profile first. An empty profile reads as a small company; one that names the sectors, the new lines and last month’s site visit reads as a real one.
Hence the order: profiles, then page, then website. The profile is the face, the page is the institution, the website is the qualification file. Each profile gets a headline that names the sectors served rather than the job title alone, experience covering the established and new lines, a featured sector page or delivered project, and 2 to 4 posts a month in the executive’s own voice, approved by him before publishing.
The company page is then filled with what already exists: about, sectors, new lines, and ten first posts from the archive of site visits and events. Do not try to grow followers before the page is worth following; the LinkedIn side of the sequence is on our LinkedIn page for B2B companies.
How to build a content system from material you already have
A 30-year-old factory does not lack material; it lacks the system that turns it into posts. Four content pillars fit your case:
- Projects and sites: a photo from the site, the coating used, the problem (corrosion, salinity, heat) and the result.
- Certifications and specifications: the standards the products are tested to and the test reports, what an approval engineer checks before listing you.
- Sectors and new lines: marine, railway, aerospace, heavy-industrial maintenance. Each new line addresses a buyer who does not know you yet.
- People, events and plant: collaborations written as results rather than congratulations, and 30 years in a family industrial group, weight that today appears nowhere online.
The system repeats every month: a content meeting where you decide what may be published, a calendar, writing and design, your approval of every post, then publishing and a one-page report. The single rule: no post without a fact: a project, a number, a specification or a certificate.
The plan in one table
| Phase | What gets built | What you measure | Starting from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Months 1–2: positioning | Two executives’ profiles, company page, content and approval system | Profile views from target job titles, followers from target companies, inbound messages | LinkedIn account + B2B content from $300/month (about 1,125 SAR) for the company page; executive profiles add scope |
| Months 2–4: website | Bilingual B2B website for vendor qualification, linked to LinkedIn, on code you own | Website inquiries, datasheet downloads, visits to sector pages | B2B company website from $600 (about 2,250 SAR) |
| Month 4 onward: campaigns | LinkedIn and Google campaigns on the new sectors, tracking and CRM | Qualified inquiries, meetings, cost per qualified lead | LinkedIn ads management from $300/month with a platform budget of at least $1,500/month; integrated system from $800/month (about 3,000 SAR) |
That means a two-month positioning phase, then a monthly program of SAR 7,500 to 15,000 including platform budgets. Compare that with one industrial coatings supply contract of SAR 500,000 to 5 million, closed over a 4 to 9 month cycle. One contract carries the program for years, so what matters is who from such companies saw you and wrote to you.
What to measure in months one and two instead of likes
Positioning is measurable, with five figures on a one-page monthly report:
- Executive profile views by job title: procurement managers, project engineers, maintenance managers and consultants, not people in total.
- Page followers by company and sector: marine contractors, railway operators and heavy-industrial plants, or employees’ friends?
- Inbound messages and connection requests: who starts a conversation, and what his title is.
- Website inquiries: logged with their source from day one, even on the old site, as a baseline for the rebuild.
- Meetings that began with a digital touch: sales asks every new prospect “where did you see us?” and records the answer.
These grow slowly at first; what you want is a direction: the right titles in, the right companies following. When it holds, the website and then the campaigns follow, as in how to generate B2B leads in Saudi Arabia.
When the website comes, and when the ads come
The website comes once the material is organised on LinkedIn, built from the same material as a vendor-qualification file: capacity, certifications, datasheets for every line, reference projects, and a page for each new sector in Arabic and English. Domain and hosting stay in your company’s name. What a factory site needs is on our industrial website design page.
Advertising comes last, when every paid click will land on something that proves your size: a complete profile, a live page and a sector page that answers the engineer’s questions. If someone proposes ads in month one “to speed up results”, ask where the click will go. If the answer is the page with three posts, that is answer enough.
Six questions before you sign with any marketing company
- Who writes the executives’ posts, and will he sit with them to learn what they say to clients, or write from templates?
- Do I see every post before publishing, and who has the final word on what is said about a client’s project?
- What will the month-one report show, and does it separate project engineers from anyone?
- What is paid once, what recurs, and what do I keep if I stop after two months?
- Who owns the website code, domain and hosting, and how will the site connect to the LinkedIn page?
- When would you advise moving to advertising, and which number justifies it?
When we’re the right fit — and when we’re not
VadeCom is the right fit for a factory or industrial company in Saudi Arabia that sells to other businesses, has real projects and certifications but no system to show them, and will approve the content every month and judge the result by titles, companies and meetings rather than likes. We are not the right fit for a company that wants a page that merely looks active, for one that wants ads before there is anything to prove its size, or for a consumer brand; in those cases we say so on the first call.
Related reading
- B2B marketing agency for Saudi Arabia
- Industrial marketing for factories and B2B suppliers
- Best marketing agency for factories in Egypt
- VadeCom — B2B marketing agency, Egypt and the Gulf
FAQ
Why start with the executives’ profiles rather than the company page or the website?
Because the Saudi B2B buyer checks the person who will supply him before the company. The project engineer opens the profile of whoever sent the proposal, and an empty profile costs it weight. A complete profile is the fastest proof layer you can build.
How many posts a month does the positioning phase need?
Between 8 and 10 on the company page and 2 to 4 per executive, all from existing material. Quantity matters less than the rule that every post carries a fact an engineer can verify.
Will approving every post slow the work down?
Not if it is part of a system: one monthly meeting, an approved calendar, then a quick approval of each post. It also protects you from publishing what may not be said about a client’s project.
When should the website be rebuilt?
After the material has been organised on LinkedIn in the first two months, because the site is built from the same material as a bilingual vendor-qualification file. A B2B company website starts from $600 (about 2,250 SAR), with domain and hosting in your name.
What does this cost in Saudi Arabia?
A LinkedIn account with B2B content starts from $300 a month (about 1,125 SAR) for the company page; executive profiles add to the scope. An integrated system with website, tracking and campaigns starts from $800 a month (about 3,000 SAR), with advertising budgets paid to the platforms directly, without markup.
