The Thomas Blog

New Suppliers on Thomasnet.com for September 2019

With a continuously growing number of over 500,000 detailed profiles across 70,000 categories of products and services, we provide actionable information on a wide variety of companies for your sourcing needs, including on the top suppliers of each field. In this look behind the scenes series, we bring you some of our most interesting new suppliers across the Thomasnet.com platform who have been added over the last month. 

New and Noteworthy Categories on Thomasnet.com for September 2019

As North America's leading industrial sourcing platform, we love sharing how Thomas works from behind the scenes. Ever wonder how we achieved our 70,000 sourcing categories, from Alloy to Zinc? Each month, our 20+ expert supplier analyst team identifies manufacturing trends and business needs from our buyers, and create new categories to help make industrial sourcing easy. Here's a list of our latest new sourcing categories from across the platform, from Charpy impact testing to modified shipping containers. 

7 Marketing Mistakes That Manufacturers Make Over And Over Again

After all of the time and resources you’ve invested into your digital marketing engine, you wouldn’t just walk away from the progress you’ve made, would you?

Common mistakes can derail months and even years of hard work. In many cases, the biggest risk is doing nothing at all — no more new content, not following up on industry trends, and not performing due diligence. Unfortunately, we see many companies making the same mistakes over and over again and it can cost them leads, customers, and a lot of revenue.

Here are common manufacturing marketing mistakes you should avoid:

5 Things Every Product Manufacturer Must Know To Drive Leads

According to Forrester Research, rich omni-channel experiences deliver several competitive advantages for B2B businesses and manufacturers — especially those with complex products. A multi-channel experience is about providing more options while omni-channel supply chains serve customers across different channels and are fully integrated in order to provide a seamless customer experience.

Engineers and sourcing professionals rely on comprehensive, digitized product data in order to do their jobs. They need accurate data, and they need it fast. But some manufacturers are challenged with meeting the needs of B2B buyers and delivering a seamless customer experience. 

We’ve listed out five things all OEMs and industrial manufacturers must know to generate more leads, satisfy customers' needs and increase sales.

Are You Creating Quality Content?

Content marketing for manufacturing companies is a critical element to any lead generation strategy. When done right, it builds your brand image and creates a stronger relationship between you and your customer. But the last thing you want to do is crank out blog posts, eBooks, or other resources that won't be effective — it will not only waste your time, but it'll turn your prospective customers away.

So whenever you're producing content that is aimed to help drive in buyers and engineers to learn more about your company's products and services, ask yourself these key questions below and see if it passes the quality test.

Top Suppliers on Thomasnet.com for September 2019

With over 900,000 registered users (and growing!) on Thomasnet, we help a lot of businesses find the products and services they need. And as one of North America's top industrial sourcing platforms, we love to share sourcing insights from behind the scenes. Although we already provide information on the top suppliers in many of our categories in the Thomas guides, we're also here to share our info on the most popular suppliers across all categories. Here’s the rundown on our most popular suppliers across the platform by engagement metrics for the past month, who run the gamut from conservation product suppliers to injection molding services.

Does Your Manufacturing Company Have A Unique Selling Proposition?

There are tens of thousands of job shops across the country. (As we know — we list many of them on our supplier discovery platform.)

Chances are, some of those suppliers are producing the very same products you are. So how can you stand out from the crowd when customers are deciding between you and your competitors? Start by developing a compelling unique selling proposition.

(Take The Quiz!) Do You Need Industrial Marketing Agency Services?

With all of the uncertainties that exist in today's manufacturing world, there's one thing that's guaranteed: Agencies will cold call and email you to try and sell you their marketing services. And it makes sense — industrial companies are set up for successful marketing programs and typically don't even know it.

After decades of relying on word-of-mouth referrals to bring in new business, you might be hesitant to bring in someone new to your process. But marketing agencies can be very helpful in generating qualified leads and helping your sales team close your dream customers. But if you don't have certain goals or a budget to put behind their services, how will you know what's worth your time and how to spend your money effectively?

5 Trade Show Tips For Manufacturers And Industrial Companies

It’s that time again. 

You’re registering for conferences and figuring out which ones will be worth exhibiting at. Crunch time has arrived and there are a lot of decisions to be made in a short window of time.

To make this the most productive trade show season ever, here are some tips to make the shows work for you while you’re workin’ the shows.