While I prepare for a weekend of bliss before our company moves to our new building next week, let me share some juicy stuff for you. I’ve been sitting on this till our Thomas Register contract is signed.
Our contract is for about 40% less than last year. But we did sign. Our very honest sales rep suggested our money go to ‘points’ for internet ranking, as well as to the CD-ROM. What’s missing? No ad in the books! I said he was honest. In some cost-cutting, we decided to nix the CD-ROM promos, too.
We are seeing increased activity from their websites, so we wanted to maintain the additional visibility. But our decision is that they are a ‘supplement’ to our other promotions and not a central tool.
I had mentioned before that we were executing a prospect survey. I’ve waffled on how much I can share here, but I don’t think there is any great risk in sharing. The basic premise of the survey was how first-time prospects for my products searched for potential vendors for this type of capital purchase. Some bullets:
- Best resource for investigating vendors: 83% say web-search, 5% say other websites, 7% other.
- Use of IQS website: 20% said they used (found via web-search), 40% of these said they found it useful.
- Use of Globalspec: 7% said they used Globalspec (found via web-search), 25% of those aware of Globalspec actually used it to search for vendors.
- General awareness/usage of Globalspec: 23% aware of but don’t use, 8% use occasionally.
General awareness/usage of the Thomas Register Green Books:
Not aware of: 30%
Aware of but don’t use: 52%
Use occassionally: 17% (but according to a previous question, only one used it in his search this time)
Use regularly: 2%
Any questions or insights? Let me know.