The Thomas Blog

How To Meet The Needs Of B2B & Industrial Buyers [Updated 2022]

No matter your role — sales, marketing, operations, or leadership — you have a lot to accomplish.

And so do the buyers of your company's products or services. 

By understanding what your buyers have on their plates, you can more easily accomplish one of your most important tasks — generating more leads and contributing to your bottom line.

We have more than 120 years of expertise in connecting industrial buyers and suppliers, and we're happy to help share all we've learned from our data and relationships over the years. In this post we'll share what you should know to meet their needs and create more meaningful connections to win more business.

How To Grow Your Textiles Manufacturing Company (With Digital Marketing Examples)

It’s an active period of growth for some textile manufacturers, especially in the U.S.

The pandemic, trade agreements, and changes in the economy have impacted the industry as a whole, but it's still on target for billion dollar growth in the years ahead.

Suffice to say, there's opportunity in this sector of manufacturing, and if you're looking to increase orders—of if you already have a five-year plan to double your business and expand your facility—here are ways textiles manufacturers can get more customers and stay ahead of the competition.

7 Manufacturing Newsletters To Subscribe To Today

Most of us are already bombarded with sales notifications, internal back-and-forths, and did-I-really-sign-up-for-this marketing emails in our inboxes.

But with the global supply chain challenges, shipping and logistics management, and local community engagement, it's important to stay up to date on what's happening in the industry to continue to grow your business.

And email newsletters make it easy to do so.

There are plenty of trade and niche business publications you can seek out, but we've put together a list of broad market industry and manufacturing newsletters to help you stay in the loop — check them out below.

The Manufacturing Leader's Step By Step Guide To Converting Anonymous Traffic Into Warm Leads & Reaching Out To Your Contacts

After you’ve worked to build your online presence, increase your brand, and drive traffic to your website, the next step to growing your manufacturing business is converting that traffic into leads. You’ll notice there are different groups of leads that may come through. There’s a difference between marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) and sales-qualified leads (SQLs) and you need more of the former in order to get more of the latter.

How Manufacturing Quality Certifications Help Win Business

For manufacturing companies, attaining and maintaining quality certifications can take a lot of time and effort, but it's important to have these qualifications for a number of reasons—including winning new business.

Whether it's a well-known standard like ISO or ANSI or a more niche accreditation like QS 9000 or IRIS, quality certifications let buyers know that you can meet their specific standards.

This can be a powerful sales and marketing tool because most buyers specifically search out suppliers with these acronyms attached to their names, and if you have them, it's an immediate sign of trust over one of your competitors without them.

How To Become A Top Manufacturing Supplier (7 Tips)

Most of us know that supplying a quality product or service on time and at a fair price is critical to achieving customer satisfaction.

But what if you're not the only one that can do this for your customer?

Competition is more fierce than ever — with getting new business and maintaining current relationships — so we want to help you become your customer's first choice for their next order and rank as a top supplier.

Read below for our tips on how to become a top manufacturing supplier.

How To Sell Industrial Products Online In A B2C World

The online product sourcing landscape has changed.

B2B consumers are no longer satisfied with data buried in poorly organized catalogs and PDFs. Instead, like their B2C online experience, consumers expect a dynamic, user-friendly experience filled with compelling data.

This movement drives companies to invest in digitized catalogs and create a complete digital customer experience for online prospects, and if you're not on top of it, you're already behind.

Now's the time for B2B businesses, manufacturers, and industrial companies to shift their current online strategies and elevate their existing lead generation efforts to sell their industrial products effectively online. Need help doing so? We'll break it down for you in this post.

Green Manufacturing: The Business Benefits Of Sustainability

By 2050, the U.S. Energy Administration estimates the manufacturing process will see a 26% increase in emissions, but other high-producing sectors will decrease or remain at their current output. 

It's a shocking figure given that more major players are driving toward a sustainability goal — like McDonald's, who plans to have 100% of their guest packaging come from renewable, recycled, or certified sources by 2025 —but we need to continue seeing this trend moving through supply chain.

If anything, this figure and what's needed for our future presents the opportunity to produce new product options, tap into new markets, and modernize your business.

Let's unpack this together, shall we?

How To Become A Supplier For Big Companies

Becoming an approved supplier for a large global company can change your business dramatically, but landing a big customer takes far more than a hello and a handshake.

If you want your company get selected in the buying process, we have insights and tips to share — below, we'll talk about how big companies choose new suppliers, along with what manufacturers and industrial companies can do to increase their chances of earning new business from them.