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ThomasNet.com suppliers can now add video to their products and services category listings.  The popularity of video among buyers is well documented.  Buyers are far more likely to retain the information they learn about suppliers and are more likely to buy from suppliers who provide video.  Adding video gives buyers a “true” picture of a company and the products or custom manufacturing capabilities they offer.

This new video experience gives our audience of 1,000,000 professional buyers and specifiers the ability to evaluate and select suppliers with greater speed and confidence.   This extra efficiency aligns perfectly with today’s buyer journey which is 70% complete before the buyer makes contact with a supplier.  Your video on ThomasNet gives your company the chance to tell your story both where and when buyers are evaluating suppliers.  This is a great competitive advantage!

We offer two kinds of video presentations. Suppliers offering custom manufacturing services will provide a factory tour video, while companies offering standard products will highlight their product offering and the qualities that make their products unique or special.

Buyers want to speed their supplier selection process, but not at the expense of selecting the best possible supplier.  Thomas is focused on continually providing the ThomasNet.com audience with a faster and more efficient supplier discovery experience.

Promote Your Company With Video in 3 Easy Steps-
Step One:  Thomas sends a video crew to record important aspects of your manufacturing facility. The team uses this footage to generate a “Factory Tour’’ video containing your value proposition, building footprint, machinery, primary capabilities, secondary services, quality, certifications, industries served, captions, music, and call to action buttons for your video advertising campaign. The video creation is FREE and you own the video! *If you’d like to use a video that you already have – that’s fine too.
STEP Two:  Your video will be promoted in the search results of all of your Thomas categories to differentiate you from your competitors. The video will be included on your Company Profile page for buyers and engineers looking to learn even more about your business.
STEP Three:  Thomas will provide the video to you for use on your own website, YouTube, Social Media, or other platforms.

Get started promoting your facility tour video to the millions of buyers and engineers on the Thomasnet.com® platform for just $200/month. Contact us [email protected] or (610) 519-1830

 

A 70% increase in monthly sales confirmed what Kwipped.com leadership suspected-  The equipment leasing industry was ripe for disruption. 

This is what Kwipped.com management discovered as the data rolled in from their online equipment marketplace showing marked improvements in the close rate on capital equipment.  According to the Equipment Leasing and Financing Association (ELFA), in 2018 approximately 63% of all commercial and industrial equipment was purchased through some method of financing.  Needless to say this is a massive opportunity representing billions of dollars in revenue.  The question Kwipped leadership sought to answer was whether their rate of RFQ-to-sale might be improved by removing the obvious sales friction in the traditional equipment leasing model. Leadership identified three major areas of sales friction in the existing process:

1. Supplier loss of control and visibility
2.  Too many declined applications 
3.  A slow, cumbersome process

These three factors were identified as the culprits behind the industries low RFQ to sales conversion rates and Kwipped “APPROVE” their leasing-quoting platform was their answer.  “Approve” solves these problems by eliminating points of sales friction with technological advancements and a Lending Tree like model designed for industrial equipment.  As a result in the first month “APPROVE” was implemented on Kwipped.com, the company realized a remarkable 70% increase in sales growth.

Management quickly came to see “APPROVE” as a leasing-quoting technology platform in a box and as a possible windfall opportunity for companies selling capital equipment.  They learned “Approve” provides an environment where lenders compete for business, and offering a leasing option integrated into the quoting process creates a powerful new sales incentive.  In addition they witnessed how plain-view transparency of the leasing approval process guarantees improved communication between the buyer and seller.  These improvements remove much of the identifiable sales friction resulting in a quantifiable increase in their RFQ-to sales conversion rate.

Interested in learning more about “Approved”? Contact David Gural at (610) 520-9557 or send an email to [email protected]

Watch as lenders compete for your leasing business!

The “Approve” platform moves the lease option into the quoting process

Attract Design Engineers with your 3D CAD Models!

Get spec’d in with a proprietary network of over 27 million qualified buyers Thomas TraceParts Network

Maximize your CAD development investment and turn your 3D CAD models into high value leads with Thomas TraceParts.  Engineers love 3D CAD models!  CAD models save engineers time because they usually contain all of the information an engineer needs in order to know that a product their evaluating  fits their need.  Thomas TraceParts makes it easy for millions of engineers to find and specify your products!

Our data shows 89% of design engineers buy only from companies who supply CAD.  New contacts who download your CAD file are the highest quality opportunity here’s why:

1. Once your product gets specified it has up to an 88% chance of being purchased.
2. After your product makes its way into your customers supply chain there is a 94% chance that same product will be purchased again for future projects.
3. If you want to attract new engineering contacts, offer them your highest value content.  3D CAD models convert visits to submissions at a rate of 2.5x greater than any other technical asset you can offer.
4. The Thomas TraceParts audience is vast, over 27,000,000 engineers in 44 marketplaces.

To learn more check out the FAQ and Promo Sheet, or contact David Gural (610) 519-1830

Thomas TraceParts Network FAQs  Thomas Network Promotion Sheet

Thomas Connect™ is a licensed technology developed by Thomas Product Data Solutions that seamlessly connects OEM product information with their distributors.  Thomas Connect™ is amazingly effective combining simplicity, elegance and the low price that you expect from Thomas for Industry.

Thomas Connect™ is the ideal way for manufactures to support their distributors and to ensure that your product information is complete, accurate and in full compliance with your branding policy on all of your sales partners websites.  Using Catalog Navigator is not a condition for participating in Thomas Connect™.  Manufacturers who are happy with their catalog solution can use Thomas Connect™ without Catalog Navigator to syndicate your data to your sales partners.   If you are a manufacturer and want to learn how to include your products into the Thomas Connect™ network of manufacturers contact us at the contact information below. Learn how Thomas Connect™   helps OEMs

Thomas Connect™ is great for distributors as it solves the problem of collecting, organizing, maintaining and publishing product information from their multiple suppliers onto your website.  And when distributors use Thomas Connect™ your manufacturers’ product data sits on YOUR website so that you get search engine optimization benefit.  With minor setup on the distributor’s website Thomas Connect™ works seamlessly when combined with Thomas Catalog Navigator, but you can use Thomas Connect™ without Catalog Navigator.  TPDS has already implemented thousands of manufacturer catalogs which are ready for deployment from Thomas Connect™.  If you are a distributor contact our sales office and let us know which manufactures you represent.  If their catalog is already in Thomas Connect™ we can contact them with you to start the process of contacting them and the implementing of your Thomas Connect™ solution. Learn how Thomas Connect™   helps Distributors

Thomas Connect Pricing Guide

Want to learn more? Watch this 2 1/2 min Thomas Connect™  video demonstration to see Thomas Connect™ at work!  Please contact David Gural at (610) 519-1830 or [email protected]

Thomas Connect FAQ.

Q. What is Thomas Connect?

Thomas Connect is an easy way for OEMs to deliver their approved product data across their various sales channels. It enables them to create and maintain that data, publish it online, and syndicate it to their distributors and their Thomasnet.com profile. In doing so, Thomas Connect makes it easy for distributors to populate their websites with real-time, OEM-approved data.

Q.  How does my product data get into the Thomas Connect platform?

Thomas Connect features an easy, intuitive online interface for entering/creating your data; you can also batch upload your data via comma-delimited format.

Q.  What if my product data is not yet digitized?

If you don’t have the resources in house to convert the data in your product catalogs, spec sheets, Excel files, etc., and enter it into the Thomas Connect platform, Thomas can quote a price for converting and uploading all of that data for you.

Q.  I’m an OEM; do my distributors need to be in the Thomas Connect network?

Yes, your distributors must be a part of the Thomas Connect network to receive your syndicated product data. We make it easy for you to invite your distributors to join Thomas Connect.

Q.  I’m a distributor; do my OEMs need to be in the Thomas Connect network?

Yes, only OEMs that are part of the Thomas Connect network can send you their product data via our platform. We make it easy for you to invite your OEMs to join Thomas Connect.

Q.  How do I invite my OEM or distributor partners to join Thomas Connect?

Inviting someone to join Thomas Connect is similar to sending an invitation to connect with you on LinkedIn. You can search for your existing partners from within Thomas Connect’s huge database of OEMs and distributors, or you can create a new business listing for them in our database. Once you’ve identified all of your target partners, one click sends them all an automated email invitation to join Thomas Connect.

Q.  How much does Thomas Connect cost?

Thomas Connect is free for your first connection with the partner OEM or distributor of your choice. Adding subsequent OEM or distributor partners triggers an annual $850 base license fee, plus a fee of $600 per every additional OEM or distributor you connect with (beyond your first free initial connection).  Distributors have a one time integration fee of no less than $1500. OEMs have a one time data production fee that is quoted.

You know you want more new customers, and you know your website is key to getting them to your company, so how can you connect the dots? When you do a Google search, you’re likely to click on a link from one of the first five results. Have you ever given any thought to exactly how one of those sites gets to a top slot? It’s a lead generation tactic fueled by organic search and search engine optimization (SEO) to drive your target audience to your website. If you’re new to the marketing world for manufacturers, let’s take a step back to the basics of SEO and how it all started.

What Is SEO?

SEO stands for search engine optimization and how the search engines — Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc., — use a formula to determine the results for a user’s search. This is called a search engine algorithm (“algorithms” are the formulas used by search engines to determine the search results). Google updates it’s SEO algorithm every day. While this can be difficult to keep up with, the SEO algorithm updates keep marketers focused on creating quality website content. SEO isn’t about “quick fixes” or “tricks” to get a handful of your pages to rank. Good SEO is about fundamental, sustainable and proven best practices, implemented and refined over time.

What Does SEO Have To Do With Marketing?

Quality content relevant to your industrial buyers keeps them engaged on your website and increases the chance of converting them to a sale. When search engines are crawling websites to bring relevant web pages up for users, they’re looking for a number of key factors: content, keywords, site usability, backlinks, and page authority. So think about it this way: Your e-books, site copy and company information are all part of effective content marketing and are likely to have relevant keywords. The usability is all about website user experience and design — how easy it is to navigate through your website. Backlinks look to social media and all the other website pages that are referring back to your site. And page authority is everything tied together — basically, how relevant is your website to your specific industrial products or services. How did all this marketing get so complicated?

What Does SEO Mean For Manufacturers Today?

In the 20th century, manufacturing was a roller coaster, with the majority of industrial companies coming out on top of their game. New clients rolled in with help from word-of-mouth referrals, direct mailings, and directories like our own Thomas Register. As years went on and the “big green books” went out of print, prospective customers moved online, opening a floodgate of possible business opportunities — if you knew how to get found. With an increasingly large amount of data available on the internet in the past twenty years, buyers and purchasing managers began to turn there, as opposed to business acquaintances, for supplier and product information. In the early 2000s, companies were rushing to build websites, stuff them with keywords, buy backlinks from cheap, overseas SEO agencies, and cross their fingers that they’d get found. Getting to the first page of Google became, and still is, a key priority for manufacturers and industrial companies. However, some industries tend to lag behind other companies in the B2B space — especially when it comes to marketing. For example, other sectors have already mastered using virtual reality and newer social media platforms, which are great for SEO, but not everyone in our industry prioritizes having an updated responsive website. As the tail end of the millennial generation ages, graduates from college, and enters the workforce, these trends in internet usage continue to intensify. Millennials (roughly aged 20 to 36) in engineering and purchasing roles throughout the industrial industry rely on the internet, particularly search engines, to find the information they need to make informed specification and purchase decisions. The internet spurned a period of intense, rapid change in the way businesses operate. Specifics have changed in the past 25 years, but the environment of constant change remains, especially in the SEO field. The best way to manage and stay ahead of all this constant change is to stay informed on marketing trends and understanding your target audience so you can be where your buyers are and adjust your strategies based on their behaviors. Did you find this useful?

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