The Thomas Blog

Inbound Marketing Case Study: How One Manufacturer Increased Leads by 285%

If you were to ask any business leader what their main goals for their company are, the answer would most likely be something along the lines of increasing sales and leads. In fact, even if they mentioned other goals, such as improving website performance and SEO, or redesigning a website for better user experience — the main objective behind these actions is to get more people onto the site, ideally leading to more sales.

For Corrugated Metals, Inc., these were the goals in a nutshell. But as with many companies in the industrial space, carving out time to improve their online footprint was a daunting task. As a roll forming manufacturer creating necessary products for the construction, equipment, transportation, and defense industries, focusing on customer needs usually trumped their own business development.

6 Social Selling Tips: For Sellers In Manufacturing

Facebook? Check. Twitter? Check. LinkedIn? Check.

If you’ve already put in the work of building out profiles on these major social media platforms and have gained some followers, you’re off to a great start. But even more important than gaining followers, of course, is gaining customers — and simply having a social media presence isn’t enough to reliably convert connections into leads.

Below, we’ve outlined six tips to remember when developing and optimizing your social media marketing strategy. These tips will help you to better leverage your professional online brand to create more relationships with buyers through social media interactions — the process known as social selling. Here's how you can keep your social selling on point.

Opportunities For Business Growth During The Summer Slowdown

Every year, thousands of manufacturers around the country shut down their plants and facilities for a few weeks in the summer. They do so for a variety of reasons — to allow for vacation time, to take care of deferred maintenance, or to retool for the second half of the year.

While these activities are certainly important, too many manufacturing companies let the summer slowdown distract them from one of the most important activities of all — generating new business.

8 Wordpress SEO Plugins To Optimize Your Website

Search engines are a major source of website traffic — 93% of all internet experiences start with a search engine. So it makes sense that many manufacturers are stepping up their online presence by using Wordpress for their website and implementing smart SEO to get their website found.

If you think about your own behavior when you type in some keywords or key phrases, you probably click on one of the first few results on the page. If you’re serious about having your business' website make it to the top spot on Google, make SEO one of your priorities. In fact last year, 61% of companies listed growing SEO as their biggest priority. Luckily, you don’t need to be an SEO expert to begin.The following list of plugin recommendations can help improve SEO on your Wordpress website.

The Basics Of Instagram For Manufacturers

When it comes to content marketing, social media plays an undeniably huge role in how businesses manage their online interactions with consumers and partners. You’re likely already familiar with the “Big Three” social media channels — Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. 

These networks are just the tip of the digital iceberg; the social media landscape is vast and teeming with a wide variety of platforms. In order to master your social media game, it’s important to understand these networks and how they can be utilized.

One of the most popular social media networks is Instagram. Synonymous with ethereal, nostalgic filters, and heavily edited photographs, this image-based platform might not seem like an obvious choice for an industrial social media marketing strategy. However, with its high popularity and excellent engagement rate, integrating Instagram into your social media marketing strategy is definitely worth considering.

Top 3 Pitfalls for Industrial Sellers

Over time, sellers learn that not all customers are created equal, and some customers are more difficult to sell to than others.

That's because the industry is evolving and the buyer’s journey of an industrial customer is changing along with it. As an industrial business, how are you managing these changes — are you keeping up internally, or are you facing roadblocks when it comes to connecting with the right buyers and closing your sales?

In this post, we discuss three common pitfalls industrial sellers experience, important things to remember about the industrial buying and selling process, and how to make sure you're on the right track to closing those deals.

3 Unlikely Places To Connect With Engineers Online

As a manufacturer, you deal with many different types of buyers — procurement pros, purchasing agents, MROs, general managers, etc. However, perhaps no type of buyer is more valuable — and more desirable — than an engineer.

That’s because engineers aren’t concerned with pricing and contracts, they care about the nitty-gritty — form, fit, and, function. If you can meet their needs, you can increase your chances of getting spec’d into designs and recommended for projects. However, too many manufacturers sit around and wait for RFPs to roll in before they concern themselves with meeting the needs of engineers. By that time, however, it’s already too late. You need to continuously and proactively build connections with engineers to understand more about them, to speak their language, and to position yourself as a proven, trusted partner.

Where can you make those connections? All across the web. In this post, we’ll explore the unexpected — and overlooked — places across the web where you can connect with engineers.

10 Stats You Didn't Know About Thomas

Industrial buyers are typically 70% of the way through their purchase decision process before they reach out to a supplier.

If you are a manufacturer trying to grow your business, this is an eye-opening, game-changing stat. It means that the buyers you want to do business with — the ones you need to connect with in order to grow your company — are researching, designing, evaluating, shortlisting, and, ultimately, making their purchase decisions online, all with very limited interaction with your sales people.

How, then, can you forge the connections you need while staying top of mind throughout the long and complex buying process?

The Social Media Accounts (And Hashtags!) You Should Be Following

In the digital age, the shop floor isn't the only place that manufacturing puts in work. Today, many industrial companies are incredibly active on social media, sharing their stories and interacting with fans and followers.

If you want to get in on the conversation, or see how a manufacturing company can effectively leverage social media as a sales channel, these are the accounts you want to follow.