The Thomas Blog

For Manufacturers: 5 Ways To Differentiate Yourself From Competition

The primary goal of an industrial content marketing strategy is to get your company noticed and grab the attention of potential customers. To do that, you have to differentiate yourself. But, of course, your competition is trying to accomplish the exact same thing. So with everyone striving to stand out, how do you actually get that done? You need the right approach to digital marketing, and you need to tailor your efforts to match your unique goals and needs. But what does that entail?

New and Noteworthy Categories on Thomasnet.com for August 2020

No matter what circumstances affect industry, no force can stop our sector's innovation. This month's crop of new headings includes products born of the pandemic like contact tracing software, as well as older trends that continue to grow despite the pandemic, like private label cosmetics. We’ve chosen our 15 favorite new categories added over the month of July to explore with you.

New Suppliers on Thomasnet.com for August 2020

Our newest companies added during the month of July build on a lot of recent innovations and developments: their offerings range from ocean-based green energy to augmented reality training to COVID-19 tax break help. Want to find out more? We've sorted through them all to bring you our ten favorites below.

How To Sell Industrial Products And Services To Your 4 Most Difficult Customers

Not all customers are created equally. Some will come to you fully informed and ready to buy. Others — likely the majority — require a great deal of time nurturing and educating. Oftentimes, many manufacturers spend a great deal of time and effort with a lead, only to reveal that they are not the right kind of customer for their business.

Thankfully, industrial businesses can leverage their website to help streamline and potentially expedite the sales process, while simultaneously weeding out unqualified buyers.

13 Sourcing Tips To Identify New Quality Suppliers

When most buyers plan on identifying a new supplier, they are usually tempted to focus on the best price. However, concentrating only on low costs can hurt you in the long term. That's because shaving a few cents off the price of a product is no help if the quality is below standard, and the component or material does not arrive when you need it.

Instead of solely focusing on cost, focus on quality by incorporating these 13 tips into your sourcing strategy:

How Private Label Manufacturers Can Increase Sales

With an increase of opportunities for private label manufacturers, we’ve been covering topics like challenges in the industry and popular website designs to help business owners and marketers grow their business. Recently, private label manufacturing sourcing activity has seen steady growth — up 45% year over year.

2020 Industrial Marketing Benchmarks For Manufacturers & Distributors

Thomas has been the market leader in the industrial space for more than 120 years helping manufacturers, industrial distributors, and service providers reach in-market buyers and grow their businesses. With a mission to make constant improvements for all our customers coupled with our 120+ years of experience, we thought it might be helpful to give you some benchmarks for your online lead generation efforts.

Brand Awareness Campaigns To Boost Your Inspiration From Manufacturing Companies

As a manufacturing professional, you’re more than familiar with industrial companies large and small. But if you ask someone who isn’t intimately involved in the space which company he or she thinks of in relation to manufacturing, the results will surely be limited. Perhaps a couple of the biggest names will come to mind. 

These companies are well-known because they’ve created a name for themselves over the years. They’ve spread awareness about their products and services, and now they’re ubiquitous and prevalent in people’s minds. 

But manufacturing is changing, as anyone in the space will tell you. The population of young people entering the industry is different than it was just a few years ago, automation is increasing, and the landscape is shifting with no end in sight. Marketing for this field has also had to change. The biggest names in the industry have been successful with this, but now smaller manufacturers are turning to industrial marketing experts to get their business found too.

How To Advertise And Grow Your Industrial Cleaning Services Company

Many manufacturers are experiencing changes in demand, slow down, or a spike in services. For the industrial cleaning services sector, there are opportunities to set themselves apart from competitors. Here are some business best practices industrial cleaning services and manufacturers can adopt to deliver a better customer experience and grow their company.