Last week I attended a local seminar by ThomasNet, focusing on website conversion. The two hour event featured TN Content Manager Ed Edwards. Experienced with both TN’s website, as well as client sites, he was a good pick to make this presentation. Ultimately, the presentation was a subtle vehicle for expanding TN customers into web design/content clients. Here are some take-aways:
63% of website visitors are looking for shipping info (on top of everyone looking for pricing information, as we have discussed before).
86% of visitors will not return to a website they decide has insufficient content.
One attendee brought up poor follow-through on web-requests. In my notes, I called this mystery meat response—you never know what you get until you try it. This could be a post or two all by itself.
Good content improves the quality of the leads generated by a website. (Or more importantly, the corollary: a poor website generates poor leads, leading managers to think the web doesn’t work to generate business.)
Ed made a very obvious, but valuable example of the benefit of improving conversion, basically assuming all is the same except the number of submitted RFQs goes up 1%, the example company realized 20% increase in sales.
Product search keyword-phrases can consist of the following three elements:
- Product type
- Application
- Product attributes
Overall, good, if seemingly obvious information. Of course, I’m reminded every time I go to a seminar like this how little some marketers understand the web or are simply behind. Hopefully they all got a good kick in the right direction.
Now for those more interested in what ThomasNet product positioning is like these days:
Ed showed how TN’s ‘Quick Links” features allow visitors to ThomasNet.com to drill down to product content quickly. That content comes in the way of a ‘catalog’ hosted by TN. The example he used showed a TN listing that went from 12 actions & average 35 seconds/viewer to 38 actions, 113 catalog pages viewed, with average duration of 3:09.
My take on this example is that this catalog traffic probably would have happened on the clients website if the Quick Links went straight to the customer site (assuming they had the same content there). I do like the Quick Links concept, and that some clients can benefit from the tools TN has to organize products in their Catalog offering.
The classic ‘vertical site’ justification was made, comparing TN aggregation of vendors as similar to Expedia or Travelocity. You don’t go to Google to get plane tickets, it was pointed out. Yea, but…
Also noted that in the search discussion, Ed used examples where TN Catalog pages were ranking high. While you can debate the use of their catalog service, it seems one should not discount TN because they are SEO experts who can get content ranked high. The online catalogs and ‘quick links’ are TN’s entrée into parametric search, but they are vendor specific, unlike GlobalSpec.
Hi Dave – This is Jill from the web team at ThomasNet (speaking unofficially though). Thanks for checking out our seminar! I’m glad you found it helpful. We are dedicated to educating companies on how to succeed online. The more success you all have, the more success we have. I know you have taken a look at our forums before, but I wanted to reach out one more time to say that we are free to answer any questions regarding b2b marketing or ThomasNet that you have at our < HREF="http://forums.thomasnet.com/viewforum.php?f=11" REL="nofollow">B2B Marketing Lounge on ThomasNet<>ThanksJill
ThanksJill
Usually good leads go after great content as opposed to the other way around
Usually good leads go after great content as opposed to the other way around
Jill– Your welcome…and thanks for inviting me back to the forums.Mary– Interesting counterpoint. I guess it goes both ways…and either way, great content is important.
Industrial strength marketing is what ThomasNet is all about. I recently saw Ed Edwards at a ThomasNet function, he’s a great guy and very accessable.Industrial marketer(s) today should all attend these workshops and absorb and apply as much of it as possible. In fact their industral marketer newsletter is a great resource to evaluate ThomasNet
Industrial strength marketing is what ThomasNet is all about. I recently saw Ed Edwards at a ThomasNet function, he’s a great guy and very accessable.Industrial marketer(s) today should all attend these workshops and absorb and apply as much of it as possible. In fact their industral marketer newsletter is a great resource to evaluate ThomasNet
Does anyone have any information to lend to a company who is spending A LOT with Thomas- and not so much with Google Adwords- yet the Adwords I personally manage- almost always trump the Thomas Net google result.I cannot imagine that those looking for industrial items/companies actually GO right to ThomasNet as opposed to- perhaps 'ending up there' via a Google Search. Thus- we bring up the case/scenarion of 'double-dipping'… where my Thomas money is competing against my Google Adwords money.With fairly vast experience- only the TRUE old-schoolers go RIGHT to ThomasNet to search. And soon- 10 years about I'd say- those 'old-schoolers' and baby boomers are going to be retired. Not to mention how GOOGLE-IZED we have ALL become. The bottom line is- it seems that Thomas is beginning to be and will soon be out-of-date.They are now a cookie-cutter-web-'development' company who simply CANNOT compete against the INTERNET. PERIOD. So, what am I to do? Ever since the massive set of 'GREEN BOOKS' arrived each year and the internet was considered a child's toy- Thomas was the creme de la creme- they had a lock on the 'yellow pages' of industry. No longer.Another thing I don't like is that Thomas puts together fairly pedestrian websites- mostly at a high cost to guys who grew up hacking steel in half with their bare teeth. In otherwoods- your rep (which I am not in that case because I build sites) will tel and tell you and discount and discount until you fold- and agree to a $10-$20 K website that could be accomplished by a 7th grader- but only with graphics and layout that looks the skill-level of a kindygartna!So is ThomasNet on its way down? It seems that for now- they have a good lock on adwords search results (and then, start bidding wars with their point system to see which client will reap the benefits of such good placement). Their lock on Adwords seems to be a direct result of all of the CONTENT THAT THOSE 12 ft. GREEN Encyclopedia books contain(ed) before this thing called… the INTERNET started to be able to find companies just as well- and in my experience BETTER than ThomasNet.As well- there is not much editorial requisites for Thomas either- as far as being ranked high within their catalog with THE catalog (internet). Haven't they learned that quality results to not COME FROM 'the highest bidder wins?' You can't buy your way into Google that way… Even Yahoo (boo yahoo) changed their tune a bit…why- quality results.So- am I completely off base, crazy or do I have valid points- if so- which. thanks all!
Does anyone have any information to lend to a company who is spending A LOT with Thomas- and not so much with Google Adwords- yet the Adwords I personally manage- almost always trump the Thomas Net google result.
I cannot imagine that those looking for industrial items/companies actually GO right to ThomasNet as opposed to- perhaps 'ending up there' via a Google Search. Thus- we bring up the case/scenarion of 'double-dipping'… where my Thomas money is competing against my Google Adwords money.
With fairly vast experience- only the TRUE old-schoolers go RIGHT to ThomasNet to search. And soon- 10 years about I'd say- those 'old-schoolers' and baby boomers are going to be retired. Not to mention how GOOGLE-IZED we have ALL become. The bottom line is- it seems that Thomas is beginning to be and will soon be out-of-date.
They are now a cookie-cutter-web-'development' company who simply CANNOT compete against the INTERNET. PERIOD. So, what am I to do? Ever since the massive set of 'GREEN BOOKS' arrived each year and the internet was considered a child's toy- Thomas was the creme de la creme- they had a lock on the 'yellow pages' of industry. No longer.
Another thing I don't like is that Thomas puts together fairly pedestrian websites- mostly at a high cost to guys who grew up hacking steel in half with their bare teeth. In otherwoods- your rep (which I am not in that case because I build sites) will tel and tell you and discount and discount until you fold- and agree to a $10-$20 K website that could be accomplished by a 7th grader- but only with graphics and layout that looks the skill-level of a kindygartna!
So is ThomasNet on its way down? It seems that for now- they have a good lock on adwords search results (and then, start bidding wars with their point system to see which client will reap the benefits of such good placement). Their lock on Adwords seems to be a direct result of all of the CONTENT THAT THOSE 12 ft. GREEN Encyclopedia books contain(ed) before this thing called… the INTERNET started to be able to find companies just as well- and in my experience BETTER than ThomasNet.
As well- there is not much editorial requisites for Thomas either- as far as being ranked high within their catalog with THE catalog (internet). Haven't they learned that quality results to not COME FROM 'the highest bidder wins?' You can't buy your way into Google that way… Even Yahoo (boo yahoo) changed their tune a bit…why- quality results.
So- am I completely off base, crazy or do I have valid points- if so- which. thanks all!
RE the inquiry "Does anyone have any information to lend to a company who is spending A LOT with Thomas- and not so much with Google Adwords" since I imagine s/he is trying to gain qualified web visitors in the industrial sector I would like to suggest s/he check out http://www.globalspec.com as an alternative to Thomas (…..and yes I do work for GlobalSpec)Susan Loxley
RE the inquiry "Does anyone have any information to lend to a company who is spending A LOT with Thomas- and not so much with Google Adwords" since I imagine s/he is trying to gain qualified web visitors in the industrial sector I would like to suggest s/he check out http://www.globalspec.com as an alternative to Thomas (…..and yes I do work for GlobalSpec)
Susan Loxley
Jill– Your welcome…and thanks for inviting me back to the forums.< />< />Mary– Interesting counterpoint. I guess it goes both ways…and either way, great content is important.