The Ultimate Inbound Marketing Content for Industrial Manufacturers

Design Engineers: Take note!

You may not realize you’ve created unexpected hidden wealth for your organization. This wealth resides in the 3D CAD models that specify the design of your component parts and products. Traditionally, companies have produced catalogs in an effort to sell those components to others. There is a far better way to convert those design specs into revenue.

Let’s Graduate from the “Old School”

If you’ve ever participated in the laborious process of creating a printed catalog for your components, you know it’s a tedious journey from concept to hard copy. Hundreds or thousands of engineering drawings need to be made camera-ready. Specifications need to be written for each item. Graphic designers and technical writers work endlessly to lay out the catalog, only to find that the day it’s published, it’s already out of date. You’ve released new components that didn’t make it in time to be included. You’ve made engineering changes to some components that are already committed to ink and paper. Even more, you face the distribution costs of sending your bulky catalogs through the mail, and of loading up your sales reps’ briefcases so they can hand them out on sales calls and tote them to trade shows.

Face it. The days of an “engineering library” filled with scores of catalogs from a multitude of vendors are a thing of the past. It’s the 21st century.

Not only that, your sales reps are experts at what they do. Some are “hunters” looking for new business, others are “farmers” managing a major account or two. They’re all key in driving your company’s outbound marketing strategy. Yet there’s another powerful strategy that can convert that hidden wealth in your 3D CAD models into revenue. It’s an inbound marketing strategy that’s been shown to result in orders over 80 percent of the time.

eCATALOG: The Secret Sauce

Over 600 companies have turned their internal 3D CAD models into an online eCATALOG and product configurator that:

• Gives customers around-the-clock access to your products world-wide.
• Allows them to easily find, preview, download and configure the exact product they need in any of 150 different file formats.
• Gives your sales people a real “leg up” against the competition. You can expect measurable impact on your traditional outbound marketing efforts as well as tremendous gains on the inbound.
• Gives you the email address of your next new prospect. Each person downloading a 3D CAD models provides his or her contact information. What better way to painlessly build a list of new prospects?

eCATALOG can increase sales revenue and improve your customers’ experience with your company. Who knows? It may even set you up to become the preferred supplier in your marketplace.

The Hard Facts

In a survey of design engineers from more than 500 companies, we learned what eCATALOG can do for an engineering and manufacturing company.

• 91 percent of engineers who download CAD models prefer them in their own native format. With over 150 formats available, you’ll satisfy that first critical need.
• 69 percent report they purchase multiples of a downloaded component for production. One CAD file download can translate to significant sales volume.
• 77 percent who download a CAD file ultimately purchase the component. Some companies report download-to-purchase ratios as high as 85 percent.

Do any of your outbound marketing programs deliver those metrics today?

Download the Complete Survey

Inbound Marketing for the 21st Century

Why not call or click today to supercharge your inbound marketing program. Your customers, outbound sales people, and executives in your front office will be glad you did.