Email from www.globalspec.com

How much of this is true and how much is a sales pitch? I think I’m starting to believe what she says is true.

Traditional marketing tactics – like print advertising and trade shows – are on the decline. Why? They don’t reach your target audience. Now engineers are searching online for the components they need during their product discovery phase.

Many leading product and component suppliers already know this . . .

FACT:

Advertising spending and ad pages in engineering trade publications are significantly down. Ad spending in Design News was down 55% year over year. In ENR was down 38.43%. That’s just two examples in the trend among leading publications. (See others.)

FACT:

Trade show attendance is down. National Manufacturing Week 2002 drew 35,784 attendees this year, only 56% of the 63,510 that registered to attend. The number of companies attending dropped 5%. That means fewer prospects to see your products.

FACT:

Engineers aren’t going to trade shows and reading magazines as much. Instead, they’re embracing the Internet as their preferred way to search for products and components. 85% of engineers go online to search for products and 74% say it has shortened their design cycles (Design News 2001). GlobalSpec’s own experience supports these facts: our visitor traffic increased 1,000 percent in 2001.

BOTTOM LINE:

If you change your marketing mix to maximize the use of the Internet, you’ll reach more of your target audience faster, more cost-effectively and at the moment they are looking to buy.