The Thomas Blog

Social Media Marketing Trends For 2018

If you’re looking to boost your manufacturing sales this year, social media isn’t just an option — it’s a requirement. But the world of social media is constantly changing and evolving, with new trends cropping up every day. What worked in 2017 won’t work in 2018. To stay ahead of the competition and set your company apart, it’s critical to stay up-to-date on the latest trends and best practices.

So, what can we expect in social media marketing in the year ahead? 

The Best Online Marketing Courses to Boost Your Marketing Skills

B2B marketing evolves at a breakneck pace; with new trends, innovations, and technologies being developed every day, staying ahead of the curve can seem challenging. But keeping your marketing skills sharp and your know-how current is essential for remaining relevant among the competition.

This doesn’t mean you need to start making your own memes or communicating solely through emojis. Or that you need start using strange millennial slang in your content marketing. But it does mean you should be thinking about ways to hone your skills and increase your leads — which may even mean advancing your career at the same time.

Online marketing courses allow professionals to hone their skills on their own schedule, at their own pace, and can be hugely useful in gaining new leads. Below are five of the most popular online courses available.

How To Create Buyer Personas For Industrial Marketing Campaigns

The whole point of inbound marketing is to entice your target customers to come to you on their own accord, and you do this by providing valuable, directly helpful content that will help them reach their goals. Think of it as the antithesis of cold calling. But how do you go about creating the content that will attract the customers you want? Well, that depends on the customers themselves.

How To Outperform Competitors Using Your Product Information

Everyone knows we live in the Information Age, but how useful is it if the information never reaches the right people? This is especially true for manufacturers and their quest to get product information to the appropriate audience.

Why Organic Search Alone Won't Cut It For Your Marketing Strategy

Let’s say a manufacturing firm needs a new supplier. One of the first places they’ll go is the Internet. They enter some keywords, and Google or another search engine returns a list of results; this is an organic search. 

An Introduction To Account Based Marketing

Have you heard about the latest trend in B2B marketing, the new approach all the cool kids in the industry are talking about?

Account Based Marketing, or ABM, is an approach to marketing that concentrates sales and marketing resources on a specific set of targeted accounts.

The idea is to clearly define the clients you want, then launch campaigns tailor-made for each of them rather than going broad.

The State Of Manufacturing Reshoring Today

Over the past several years, many U.S. manufacturers have moved operations offshore in order to reduce labor costs and bring jobs closer to their raw material sources. Although this can be an efficient way of increasing profits, it does come with its drawbacks — more complex supply chains, delivery issues, culture and language barriers, and long distances to operations, to name a few, making it hard to keep track of jobs and quickly address issues as they arise.

How to Make the Most of Your Industrial Marketing Budget in 2018

For many people, the new year provides a fresh start, the chance to reflect on the past twelve months and make necessary changes and improvements. In the same vein, it can also serve as a great springboard for brainstorming new marketing initiatives that will help make the most of your 2018 budget. 

In today’s ever-shifting, increasingly digital landscape, there are seemingly infinite ways to put your industrial marketing budget to use, but some strategies may not provide the long-term benefits you’re looking for. Below are a few of the most effective marketing tactics you may want to consider implementing in the coming year.

Manufacturing Trends To Look For In 2018

With 2017 in the rearview mirror, it’s time to look ahead and consider implementing some newmanufacturing initiatives for the new year.

How much do you know about the Internet of Things (IoT), for example? Are you keeping up with developments in artificial intelligence (AI)? New technologies and other trends continue to barrel forward, bringing about new innovations that — even if you’re not yet in the position to implement — you still need to understand.