Client Spotlight

'Our Website Is Our Sales Force'

Scott Carter, Vice President, Research and Development, of Tek Pak, Inc. in Batavia, Illinois, says, “Our website is our sales force,” referring to the company’s current website which includes an online catalog - www.tekpak.com - created by the Web Solutions team at ThomasNet.

Prior to working with ThomasNet, Tek Pak, who specializes in thermoform packaging, worked with “a website company that didn’t specialize in manufacturing.” Carter says, “There was a constant struggle to get what I wanted and high costs, and we were constantly dissatisfied with the outcome.”

Expert's Corner

Does Your Website Engage Buyers?

Your website only has an average of five seconds to engage a user.

Shawn Fitzgerald, Product Manager for ThomasNet’s Web Solutions, explains why industrial marketers should evaluate and design their websites from their customers’ perspectives.

Q. ThomasNet recommends that industrial marketers look at their companies’ websites from their customers’ perspectives using the “VSET” model: “Verify. Search. Evaluate. Take Action.” Can you please walk us through each step, explaining how industrial marketers can get real value and return on investment from their website initiatives?

A. At ThomasNet.com we strive to satisfy the following four stages of the user experience for all websites that we create:

Verify – Your website only has an average of five seconds to engage a user. It is important to let the user know, very quickly and easily, exactly what it is your business has to offer. If a user cannot tell what products or services you offer in the first five seconds, they will move on to another website.

Search – Most likely, your business has both very knowledgeable and first-time customers for your products or services.

Take Advantage of Today's Powerful Online PR Tactics

Public relations, commonly referred to as “PR,” can play an important role in your online marketing efforts. Today’s online technologies have drastically changed the way the world of PR works, so identifying and understanding some of the newer PR tools and tactics is the first step to success in adding PR tactics to your online marketing plan.

Newer PR tactics, such as blogs, RSS feeds, podcasts, online video and more, all play important roles in how we communicate with our customers, vendors/suppliers, the media and our other “publics” – audiences who affect our companies’ overall success. As industrial marketers, our “publics” are primarily our potential and current customers, our vendors/suppliers, and the media serving our specific industries.

The objective of public relations is “to build mutually beneficial relationships between the organization and its various publics.”¹

In The New Rules of Marketing & PR, author David Meerman Scott writes, “The Internet has made public relations public again, after years of almost exclusive focus on media. Blogs, online news releases, and other forms of Web content let organizations communicate directly with buyers.” ²

Blogs

Today, blogs play an important role in public relations and, more specifically, in media relations. Add a blog to your company’s website for more overall exposure. Scott says, “If you blog, reporters who cover the space will find you.” He also recommends, “Pitch bloggers, because being covered in important blogs will get you noticed by the mainstream media.” For more information about blogs, read an article in the February 2008 issue of The Industrial Marketer, “Blog Basics”  by Jarad Krywicki, manager of community and content for ThomasNet.

RSS Feeds

Real Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds allow us to select the type of information we want to see on our screens, as well as when we want to see it. People prefer to have information come to them, rather than taking the time to research and look for it themselves. Scott says, “Surprisingly, only a small percentage of organizations deploy RSS for syndicating news and content to the outside world..."

46%

46% of industrial suppliers say their websites lack the tools and functionality buyers expect.

Source: 2008 ThomasNet Buyer-Seller Disconnect Study, Conducted by Outsell, Inc.

News

Add Emotional Appeal to B2B Marketing

Proofread Your Website’s Content

Reach ‘Hyperconnected’ Global Workforce

Stick with Consistent Marketing Messages