Hey Industrial Company - Your Web Site Design Forces Your Online Marketing Plan

For almost two decades I've planned, designed, created, and deployed hundreds of web sites.

Many, because of my background, are for industrial distributors, reps, and manufacturers. One of the more "interesting" aspects of this process is the "forced marketing plan" that comes out of the web design process.

By "forced marketing plan" I mean the physical documentation, visual structure (i.e. the web site), and mental awareness of the business's unique position in the marketplace, competitive advantage, and core competencies.

Think about it. Many small industrial businesses were started by an Entrepreneur who wanted to leave their "factory job" and strike out on their own. An opportunity for a new territory or product arose and the entrepreneur jumped on it - pretty much "ready-fire-aim." Market planning wasn't something these Founders cared much about (or even knew much about). Product Lines + Customers = Orders - that's the only formula the Entrepreneur needed.

Through the 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's these businesses flourished. Sales increased, more employees were hired, and new buildings were bought - signs of success for the hard work and dedication of the Founder.

Along comes the 2000's and this thing called the Internet really takes off.  The Entrepreneur is told they need a web site, so they hire a techie without any understanding of the business or market. The Founder ends up directing the design and content with an eye for what they've always done. As a result, the new web site turns out to be an online "line card".

No thought about viewer appeal. No thought about message. No thought about market. No thought about strategic or competitive advantage. No value proposition. No consideration for brand. No mission statement. Pretty much just a list of manufacturers they represent or products they sell.

A proper web design project must consider, identify and address these criteria first. But unfortunately, that's where the blank expressions and confused looks begin with many Entrepreneur-led companies.

Today, a web site is a business's number one marketing asset. As such, it needs to define the core business virtues. The emphasis on content marketing underscores this. Businesses must "tell their story" in a way that defines the business and provides visitors with a clear, honest, and easy way to know what the business does. Its imperative.

A good web development team will sort those items out in the beginning. Even if it means taking the extra time consulting, and even"forcing", the entrepreneur to confront and identify the uniqueness of their company and finally realize that marketing counts, more so now than ever before.

We're Going to Need a Bigger Boat

This post title is taken from Jaws and that famous scene (above) where Roy Scheider is at the stern of the Orca and gets his first glimpse of the worlds most famous movie shark.

The job Scheider was relegated to you was "chumming". For anyone who has never fished, this is the process of spreading cut-up and ground-up chunks of bait fish over the sea to attract game fish (sharks in many cases). Its not a very glamorous job - it smells bad and there's lots of blood and guts - but its quite effective for catching fish.

Whenever I explain to a client the why's and how's of content marketing, it can get pretty wordy and maybe even confusing. Worse yet, it can sound like more Internet "black magic".

Then just this morning, it dawned on me content marketing might be more easily understood by using the chumming metaphor where the sharks are prospective customers, the "chum" is the quality content, and your blog, social media outlets and press releases are your "chum slick". The bigger the slick, the more sharks you'll attract.

There's a whole lot more to it - and we all know the magic is in the uniqueness, relevance and quality of the content. But it's nice to sometimes use a simple picture to explain a complicated process.

Are You Really Thinking About Your Brand?

Branding is the process of differentiating your company from all other companies in the industry. Branding takes into account the "look and feel" of your office, you and your staff, your materials, and every other detail that gives your customers clues as to who you are and what you value. The following are strategies that go into building your own solid brand so your existing customers, as as well as prospective ones, are attracted and loyal to you and your brand.

Is your company unique and special? Everyone believes that they are members of a truly unique company or organization, but how do you convey that to your existing customers and to potential new customers?

Branding is an opportunity to create a name, term, symbol, or design that identifies and defines your company and will differentiate your company from all others.

The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers." But branding is actually more than that. It's everything you do to attract and maintain customers. Branding is a way of appealing emotionally to and attracting the type of customer you want, and one who chooses you over your competition. Your brand is who you are, what you do, and your leading attribute in the eyes of your preferred target market.

Branding is more critical than marketing or sales. Branding involves influencing and changing the way people think. Branding appeals to desire and touches emotions. The goal is to emotionally predispose potential customers into entering into a relationship with you because they believe you are the best choice for them.

With more information at their fingertips, today's consumers are too sophisticated and skeptical to be "sold." They want to arrive at their own decision on their own terms. Branding helps them get there. Branding "pre-sells" your expertise, or you, before the customers even meet you.

Just as successful companies have a mission statement that serves as motivation to the staff and a guarantee to the customers, a brand is your opportunity to declare your promise to your customers about the outstanding service that you will provide them.

Here are several tips to think about:

• Be sure your customers know the things that make you unique, such as advanced engineering support, manufacturing capability or local inventory.
• Tell your customers what you offer that most of your competitors don't.
• Do things differently to standout.
• Clearly convey your uniqueness and differentiation in your marketing tools.
• Specialize.
• Be where your prospective customers are by having offices in various parts of the territory or region where your preferred customers are located.
• Build rapport and trust with every customer.
• Stay in contact with your customers throughout the year. Send them a company newsletter, new product announcements, press releases, maybe even birthday cards!

Discoverability is the New Marketing

If you have a website, you have probably heard about SEO. Broadly speaking, SEO refers to the way you market yourself or your company on the Internet so that you show up high in search results for either your name, the name of your company, or keywords describing your expertise (e.g., control systems in Baltimore). Most keywords will be picked up from content on your website. In fact, much of SEO strategy centers on content marketing and maximizing the effectiveness of your website.

GCS Partners with CMS4i for Online Presence

Global Chem-Feed Solutions (GCS) designs and fabricates custom; skid mounted Chemical Dosing Systems for a wide variety of applications. CMS4i was selected to redesign their web site to include mobile and a more modern design.

After the job was done, this is what GCS had to say:

"CMS4i has provided GCS reliable design and hosting for years. They have understood our needs, been patient with our process and both prompt and flexible in responses. CMS4i has advised us towards improved services that have made my work simpler and more adaptive to our ongoing needs. It's been a pleasure to work with Steve and his team, right from the start."

Social Media is Not a Passing Fad

What is social media? According to Wikipedia, “social media includes web-based and mobile-based technologies which are used to turn communication into interactive dialogue among organizations, communities, and individuals.”

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines social media as “forms of electronic communication through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content.”

Social media consists of websites or mobile apps that facilitate the creation and exchange of user-generated content. Examples include: a picture on Flickr, a video on YouTube, a blog post, or a status update on Facebook or Twitter. Social media’s defining characteristic is that it encourages two-way communication, or in other words, conversation.

ROTEX Controls Chooses CMS4i for New Web Site

ROTEX Controls, the USA sales, service and support arm for an overseas manufacturer of valve actuators, solenoid valves and limit switches has a new, easy to navigate and mobile friendly site thanks to CMS4i.

As a manufacturer of these industrial items, its important this site is design so that finding information is easy and fast. The ROTEX layout and tabbed menuing system assures easy access to all the product information.

Beacon Facility Group Launches with CMS4i

Beacon Facility Group, a Baltimore/Washington/Philadelphia based property management company selected CMS4i as their Web vendor.

"From vision to concept to implementation, the team at CMS4I was efficient and effective with the design of our web site. Taking the time to fully understand our business and designing the site around the needs of our clients truly distinguished CMS4I from the other companies we interviewed. We are thrilled with the final product and as importantly, the value their team presented to us."

Control Equipment Company Gets Current with Great New Look and Improved SEO

Control Equipment Company (CEC) is a long time client of CMS4i. Their former site needed an upgrade to benefit from a CSS/XHTML layout and better search engine optimization. They asked CMS4i to provide them with a streamlined development process on an aggressive time-frame.

In a few short weeks CMS4i worked out the design with CEC and then "dropped" it on top of the existing product, vendor and capability database. With a few adjustments here and a few tweaks there, the new site was launched in record time.

Some nice comments by CEC:

"The development of our website was done quickly and professionally. Steve, Greg and their team are a pleasure to work with and will continue to be our web site development resource."

Flow-Tech Knows it Pays to Use the Process Industry's Leading Web Developer

Flow-Tech, a Hunt Valley, MD industrial Rep company selected CMS4i because of their market understanding and experience in process control.

CMS4i won out in a last minute, "Hail Mary", bid for the job because Flow-Tech saw the value a CMS4i site delivers. Most importantly, unlimited pages, having a true content management system at their disposal, and that CMS4i's background would save time and effort in launching the new site.

Check out the testimonial by Flow-Tech's President:

"We originally chose a well-known, local website company, thinking their experience would expedite our new site's development. Turned out they knew little about our industry and we never had the time to educate them. CMS4i approached us mid-project and convinced us to cut our losses and go with them. We did and it was a great move.

With their background in industrial controls and automation, CMS4i knew exactly how things should be organized and presented. In just a few weeks we had a beautifully designed, well-organized and intelligently structured site. Just about everything was in place. All we had to do was review and make a few small changes. Aside from their industry knowledge, the CMS4i team were very cooperative, eager to make us happy and priced very competitively.

I strongly endorse Greg, Steve and their team for any web development job, particularly if you're in the industrial market."