The Thomas Blog

Industrial Trade Show Canceled? You Can Still Generate Leads With Digital Marketing Efforts

As the cancellation of trade show events this year causes a ripple across industries, manufacturers and industrial companies who were planning on attending or exhibiting at the events are left with extra budget. Despite the cancellations, there are still opportunities for manufacturers to make meaningful business connections. With digital marketing, businesses can still push toward the lead generation and networking goals they made prior to cancellations. 

6 Risks Of Exporting Manufactured Goods — And How To Avoid Them

With the economic downturn, tariffs, and trade impacting the supply chain, a lot of the discussion has focused on the importing of goods and services. However, U.S. exporters must recognize the risks that may occur when attempting to seize the trade potential in foreign clients and customers. From leaving the port to cracking into a new market, the trade of manufactured goods faces both logistical and abstract challenges at every step along the way. 

The Manufacturing Leader's Step By Step Guide To Website Testing For Increased Conversions And Marketing Automation

Ready to take your website performance to the next level? As you’ve already learned from our previous blogs, you need a mix of content marketing, SEO, and advertising campaigns to help improve your website. In particular, if you’ve been keeping up with our Manufacturing Leader’s Step By Step Guide series, by now you’ve learned how to:

The Manufacturing Leader’s Step By Step Guide To Driving Website Traffic

Driving qualified buyers to your website is critical to increase interest, drive leads, and grow your business. As you probably know, a page-one result on Google doesn’t happen right away — just because the content is online doesn’t mean traffic will immediately visit the page. There needs to be a strategy behind each content piece for effective promotion. If you want quality website traffic to bring you better business opportunities, there are several cost-effective ways to supplement your ongoing strategy of getting your business found online. 

6 Tips For Industrial Companies To Improve Their Reputation Online

The prevalence of information and connectivity on the internet has been tremendously advantageous for both consumers and industrial buyers. Search engines and social media make it easy to find reviews about products, services and companies within a few clicks.

But what happens if that information is both negative and untrue? Worse, what if it's about your company?

How To Build Stronger Supply Chain Relationships With SMBs

Small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are an essential and valuable part of the supply chain, offering levels of flexibility, cost competitiveness and responsiveness that some larger suppliers often can't match. SMBs are typically more flexible and responsive than their larger counterparts, and they allow you to take advantage of the benefits of local sourcing.

However, while procurement teams want to engage SMBs, the feeling isn't always mutual. That's because larger buying organizations make it onerous for these smaller companies to participate in the bidding process. As a result, SMBs believe it takes too much time, effort and guesswork to respond to large buyers, all for a very slim chance of winning business.

The Manufacturer’s Playbook for Shifting to Direct to Customer Selling

How Manufacturers Can Build a Strong Direct to Customer Sales Model

For many manufacturers, leveraging a network of distributors and resellers has historically been the simplest way to get their products to the end-users.

Working with third-party distributor groups has provided logistical support & warehousing, sales support, and existing relationships with regional end-users to allow manufacturers to focus on other pressing matters like product design, process development, and quality control.

However, in the face of COVID-19, the shift toward direct-to-consumer sales has accelerated.

The Importance of Marketing and Advertising for Manufacturers During Economic Downtimes

Almost without notice, COVID-19 changed the way businesses operate and how individuals live. The manufacturing industry has shown inspirational resilience throughout historical times, yet the continuous effects of COVID-19 on the economy have pushed the manufacturing industry to reimagine the way they do business. 

5 Steps To Get High-Quality Leads With CAD Assets

If you're keeping up with the latest manufacturing lead generation strategies, you may have already heard that up to 88% of businesses ultimately buy the part after downloading a CAD model. CAD files are proven to generate high-quality sales leads. But are you fully embracing them as a marketing asset or are you only sending them by request from sales? Not sure? Let's walk through the basic model of using CAD files for high-quality lead generation.