Thomas Industrial Marketing & Manufacturing Blog (101)

Procurement

How Procurement Managers Can Break Out of the “No Quote” Blues

“Not for us.” “Volume is too low.” “We can’t do that size.”

You’ve heard every excuse possible. No matter how hard you try, sometimes it feels like you will never find a custom manufacturing supplier that will even give you a quote, never mind actually produce the parts you need. In an economy that has folks pushing to maximize every opportunity, it seems very counter intuitive that we would see this many possible jobs get turned down, doesn’t it?

Procurement

11 Tips to Help Identify a Reliable Supplier

When starting your research to identify a new supplier, the knee jerk reaction is to look for the best price to lower cost. However, it is more important to look for the long term value of your partnership with this supplier.

Business Tips

Avoiding 4 Hidden Productivity Killers

What are some of the top enemies of productivity at work?

CareerBuilder recently put out a survey, which we’ll get to — just as soon as I finish this text message. Yes, most of the usual suspects are accounted for: wasting time online, social media, chatting with coworkers, and of course, cell phones and texting. Those are the obvious ones — the distractions. You can also run into hidden productivity killers, though — ones that come up in the course of just trying to do your job.

Email Marketing

FAQ: Complying With This Harsh New Email Law

The Canadian Anti-Spam Law (CASL) recent has garnered a lot of interest — and a lot of questions from you.

I trust that the “email police” didn’t beat down anyone’s door, but for small businesses especially, the compliance effort can still seem overwhelming. With the law on the books for nearly a month, let’s take a look at some of those big questions, as well as others that may remain.

Marketing Strategy

You Can Do Better Than “Somewhat” Effective Marketing

Would you go to a restaurant that a friend told you was “somewhat” good? How about a movie that was “somewhat” entertaining? Looking for a new TV show to watch? I’ll tell you about a few I enjoyed... somewhat.

It’s not exactly high praise, is it? So when 51% of b-to-b marketers recently called their content marketing just “somewhat effective,” with only 14% saying their content marketing was “very effective” — the rest saying “somewhat” or worse — maybe it’s time to take a look at how to get your content marketing back on the right track.

Sales

4 Ways You Can Flush Your ROI Down the Toilet

You can just hear the sound in your head as your marketing budget circles the drain, never coming back, with nothing to show for it. It’s the scenario you may find yourself in if you’re not thinking about return on investment (ROI) when you plan a marketing program.

ROI is a few things: it’s a measure of how effective your marketing is, how efficient it is, and how productive it is. But it really boils down to one yes-or-no, bottom line question: Was it worth it? You can have all the impressive metrics you want, but if the ROI isn’t there you may as well just toss those dollars down the bowl. How can a marketing program go so wrong? Here are a few ways.

Email Marketing

What Does The Email Spam Law Mean for Manufacturing Businesses?

“Sweepstakes Winner!” “Need Your Bank Information.” “Official Notice.” Those are just a few red flags that make most of us automatically think, “email spam.”

You probably wonder, “Does anyone actually get fooled by those things?” Apparently, they do — because one look in your spam folder will show that they’re still at it.

Social Media

Four Signs You Might Be “That Guy” On Social Media

We’ve all met “that guy” before. It might have been at work, maybe at a conference, maybe a party. You know the one: the person who barely bothers to make note of your name before starting in about all the greatest things about themselves — things you have no interest in whatsoever.

After about 30 seconds, you realize, “Wow, I’ve got to go!” No one ever wants to be “that guy” — but unfortunately, it’s all too easy for him to take over in our social media marketing.