Over the past few years, there’s been increasing interest in bringing U.S. manufacturing back to American shores, or “reshoring.” But “nearshoring,” or moving operations to nearby countries, rather than very far away, is becoming increasingly popular as a more economical, practical alternative to offshoring.

It’s important to have a solid understanding of both concepts when deciding on the best strategy for your company. Below, we’ll take a deeper look at these two options and compare their benefits and drawbacks.

To help buyers and suppliers stay ahead of the latest shifts and emerging trends in the digital industrial economy, we constantly analyze the industrial/B2B buying activity taking place at Thomasnet.com, where every 2 seconds a buyer evaluates a supplier on our platform. This powerful, proprietary data fuels our Thomas Industrial Index.

Here’s what we’re seeing in the Index this week:

In today’s increasingly connected world, establishing a strong digital presence is crucial for effective brand exposure and lead generation. With more and more people accessing business and product information online, it’s no longer effective to rely solely on broadcast commercials, newspaper ads, or telephone campaigns for effective B2B marketing.

As technology and industrial marketing methods continue to evolve, implementing a comprehensive, multifaceted approach is critical for staying ahead of the curve and ensuring potential leads become aware of your company.

Below, we’ve outlined some of the many different ways to advertise your business online and generate valuable leads.

So you’ve realized that your old traditional and digital marketing business tactics just weren’t working, and you’ve taken steps to get your inbound marketing program off the ground.

Now what?

Well, now comes the hard part — you’ll need to create content that your prospects actually want to read. Don’t panic. While this can seem like a big undertaking, understanding the inbound marketing funnel can make this process a lot more manageable — not to mention a lot more effective. Let’s take a look.

Take a moment to consider all of the components of your organization’s supply chain. Commonly, quite a few capital assets come to mind: raw materials, machinery, warehousing, logistics, distribution centers, brick and mortar sites, office locations, point of sales, and so much more.

Whether it’s keeping employees connected to one another, interacting with customers, or generally exchanging data from one system to another, interconnectivity is a crucial, but risky, component of supply chain management.

And, in a world where millions of cyberattacks happen each day, companies can no longer afford to approach cybersecurity with an “if this happens” mindset, rather establish the proper structure and protocol for when it does. 

As the digital world reshapes the industrial world, marketing budgets are on the rise. According to ENGINEERING.com's annual survey of engineering marketers, twice as many respondents reported that their budgets were growing rather than shrinking in 2017.

As industrial marketing budgets continue to rise, more funds are being allocated to the creation of content — in the form of blogs, eBooks, email campaigns, videos, webinars, infographics, and so on — as good content is at the core of any successful inbound marketing program. 

Like with any investment, the marketers and manufacturing companies that are making them want to ensure that they are receiving a positive return. We’ve outlined two major areas of return on investment (ROI) that illustrate the effectiveness of inbound marketing. 

If you've ever wondered whether the forms on your landing pages should be on the left or right side of the page, you're not alone.

We decided to put this to the test on the contact page for one of our client's who specializes in custom metal stamping, Engineering Specialties, Inc. Now, you may be thinking that a small change such as which side of the page a form is on would have little difference in lead generation, but on the contrary, we've seen even simpler tweaks like adding an arrow above a form convert like crazy.±

So, are you ready to see which side of the page the form should go on?

The manufacturing industry can be unpredictable. One minute you might be entering into a lucrative contract with a great new customer; the next, that customer could be going out of business – putting your own company at risk in the process.

The best way to guard against this risk is to diversify your business and expand into new markets. Here are three reasons why you should consider it in your shop:

More B2B buying activity takes place on THOMASNET.com than any other resource on the planet. In fact, a buyer evaluates a supplier every 2 seconds on our platform.

To help buyers and suppliers stay ahead of the latest shifts and emerging trends in the digital industrial economy, we constantly analyze all of the buying activity taking place on the platform. This powerful, proprietary data fuels the Thomas Industrial Index.

Here’s what we’re seeing on the Index this week: