The online directories update 2012: ThomasNet

Back in January, I promised a review of major online directories for 2012. Well, based on my in-attention, it must be a pretty boring subject. I’ll have to make a separate post about why the subject is boring. Let’s get on with it:

I’ll start by using ThomasNet’s own words in their New Year email to let you know where their mind is at:

“In 2011, we were excited to bring you City Pages as part of our continuing mission to improve local sourcing. Include a city with your keyword and you’ll now be provided with a list of suppliers in or within 50 miles of that location, helping you discover new vendors where you need them most.

In addition, we released our ground breaking application for sourcing millions of parts, components, materials and more, which some of you had the opportunity to explore. To start the New Year off, we’d like to extend this same invitation to you. Take our Product Search Beta for a test drive now.

Looking ahead, we’ll be rolling out a new toolbar and an engineering job board in early 2012. Later, we’ll be introducing enhanced company profiles that will offer more robust supplier information in rich content format further aiding supplier evaluation and selection.”

My additional comments and info:

I will give credit to ThomasNet for not being shy about investing in improving their search tools, and it shows. Check out the links above to try them out.

From what I can tell, their sales structure and offers also continue to evolve, which from an advertiser’s view, is bewildering. I imagine just as many advertisers sign TN contracts without knowing what they are buying as did 20 years ago.

And TN continues to morph (or is it expand) into a website marketing/development service. It would be interesting to know how successful this has been.

They continue to crank out regular informational newsletters, but I’m unaware of any that with advertising content to their audience. There is the fire-hose of product-releases at news.thomasnet.com , however.

The last question, and most important is effectiveness and audience.

Wow I haven’t used Alexa.com in a long time, but it had some interesting analysis of thomasnet.com. Like it is popular with India, Pakistan, and Nigeria (along with the US). And about half their visitors AREN’T in the directory side of things.

UPDATE: ThomasNet just announced they are offering email marketing services