The Thomas Blog

Takeaways from IMPACT Live 2017

The punchline of every presentation at the first annual IMPACT Live, a two-day conference for sales and marketing executives, this week seemed to be "If there's one thing you can takeaway from this to bring back to your own company..." Which, of course, means I have more than 15 "one things" as action items in my brain — in addition to the dozens of ideas I tweeted about and my boss logged in Trello.

Ineffective Marketing Results? Try Inbound Marketing

According to HubSpot, just 67% of companies in North America believe that their marketing strategy is effective. Even worse, 61% of marketing professionals — the very people responsible for implementing and executing these strategies — agree. 

4 Steps To Get Started With Social Selling

Looking to generate leads and connect with more customers? Of course you are!

All manufacturing and industrial companies want to grow. Unfortunately, many of them are missing out on an amazing resource that can make this goal a reality — social media.

If you don't have any social media profiles, or if you're just using them to share updates about the company softball team, then it's time to get started with social selling.

At Thomas Marketing Services, we've helped hundreds of companies just like yours turn social profiles into sales generators. Based on our experience, here are some first steps that can put you on the path to social success:

An Investment In Marketing Is An Investment For Your Whole Business

Producing results without the right resources is a huge challenge, especially when you’re under extreme pressure to do so. When budgets get tight, it’s even more important to be able to prove your worth.

Luckily for industrial marketers, when it comes time for budget evaluations, we can produce quantifiable results demonstrating the value of our efforts. In fact, a 2017 ENGINEERING.com market research report found a direct connection between digital marketing investment and company revenue. As a result, the majority of respondents reported being rewarded with a boost in resources.

If you find that your marketing team is still fighting for funding, here are a few things you can take to your department heads to make the business case for it.

Insight on the Top Marketing Challenges in 2017 for Manufacturing Companies

While most industries jumped into using social media, email marketing, SEO and other digital marketing tactics almost a decade ago, manufacturing is finally coming around.

Unlike traditional print placement and ads, we all know that creating an online presence isn't a "one and done" mentality. More and more companies in the industrial space are building up their websites and traffic — the marketplace is quickly getting crowded, so marketing is now more important than ever.

How Much of Your Industrial Marketing Budget Should You Allocate to Print Media?

Maybe you’ve been buying print advertisements for years and you are trying to decide how much budget to allocate this year. Or perhaps you have seen your competitors running print advertisements and wonder whether you should try it. Both are common in the industrial marketing space.

In recent research, we found that for 2017, 46% of all engineering marketers plan to dedicate zero budget to print.

Top Tools For Sales & Marketing Collaboration

Love versus hate. Good versus evil. Heaven versus hell. Sales versus marketing?

If you’ve ever worked in or with a sales or marketing department, you know that the statement above might not be as ridiculous as it first seems.

Make 2017 Your Best Year For Industrial Marketing Yet

Throughout the holiday season, you probably saw a handful of end-of-year wrap-up blogs as well as some start-of-the-year prediction posts.

Well, now that 2017 is finally upon us and it’s time to get back to work, we wanted to bring you some actionable tips you could use to get a jump on turning it into your company’s biggest year yet.

Let’s take a look at some steps you can take right now to start generating better leads for your business.

2016 Industrial Marketing Year in Review

In the world of marketing, things are constantly changing.

From amorphous Google algorithms and updated UX designs to effective emailing and retargeting methods, there is no shortage of strategies to try — especially as the industrial space continues to catch up with the rest of the B2B marketing space.

As we begin preparing for what’s to come in 2017, we wanted to take a look back at some of the biggest trends we’ve seen over the past 12 months and their impact on your business.

Without further ado, here’s our 2016 year in review.