Time to Super Charge your Marketing Efforts with an Online CAD Catalog

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Let’s face it…who doesn’t get a buzz from a satisfied client?

What if you could fortify yourself with some juice to keep that buzz going time and time again? I’m not prescribing coffee or energy drinks (yet)…I’m talking about focusing your marketing budget and energy to efficiently fill your sales funnel with highly promising prospects.

My focus is to help manufacturers of industrial components (pumps, coils, magnets, pipe fittings etc.) get the most value out of their marketing budget by using an online CAD catalog.

eCommerce is inarguably a valuable extension of your business. It’s also like owning a shop in a mall  that’s filled with all your competitors’ and virtually all other products too. Add to that a mass of shoppers and lookers–all of which makes distinguishing your most probable client very difficult. The online shopping marketplace can be a daunting place to do meaningful business. Not only do you need to stand out, but you need to qualify and spend your energy on converting the most likely prospects to make eCommerce work best for you.

While there are many online marketing methods to use to optimize your reach, I’m going to focus on online advertising methods and eCatalogs on 3D ContentCentral.

SMC Corporation of America
SMC Corporation of America’s Online Catalog on 3D ContentCentral

 

Let’s put some dollars and sense behind 3D ContentCentral:

  • High-priority indexing and SEO with an average visits to download ratio of 1:1
  • That means qualification is close to 100% with up to 80% of downloaded models ending up being purchased
  • The current limited time offer for 3D ContentCentral Supplier Services Professional (which is the version that enables lead collection) is $400 USD/month.
  • In summary, this highly targeted form of advertising can be as little as about 1/10th of a cent per lead ranging to $0.40 per lead resulting in an investment of $3.50 to $1,400 per sale. That’s significantly more value than traditional advertising (2x – 200X to give one estimate).

Let’s put some dollars and sense behind ads:

  • The average click through to most web sites is roughly 2 to 5 percent.
  • That means a banner ad on a reputable high-traffic site would likely cost you anywhere between $2,000 to $5,000 per month!
  • For ads on sites with highly targeted capabilities, the cost per thousand (CPM) to purchase a minimum number of impressions (which is usually 100,000) will be approximately from $35 – $85 CPM or $3,500 to $8,500 per month!
  • Based on the average click through rate (let’s say 3.5%) you’d be spending from $1 to $2.43 per click through of which MAYBE 1 in 100 results in a conversion/sale.
  • In summary, this form of advertising could potentially cost you $1000 to $2,430 per sale. That’s significant.

You can find more info on these averages here: https://www.bmcommunications.com/int_ad.htm

Online advertising may appear to be a trivial expense, but it’s wasted if not done effectively. The modern cost and effectiveness of click-through marketing (website advertisements) can also be compared to advertising in a small-circulation trade publication which by today’s standards and expectations doesn’t have a big enough reach and doesn’t exactly knock anyone’s socks off. With a big enough investment, online advertising is a numbers game and can be an efficient use of your budget.

…If only there was a more efficient and cost effective technique for getting your components in-front of the designers and engineers who will ultimately be the influencers or clients of your products….hmmmm

This is where an online catalog on 3D ContentCentral comes in! 3D ContentCentral is the only service available that melds the single largest community of 1.5 million and growing CAD designers and engineers with suppliers harmoniously – making it one of the most qualified audiences for your components.

“Availability of 3D CAD that is highly visible as well as indexed by search engines is now business critical while advertising is less important.” – 3D ContentCentral Supplier Services Professional Customer

It should now be obvious where the more valuable investment for advertising should lean (highly targeted methods such as eCatalogs vs. online advertising). 3D ContentCentral Supplier Services Professional is truly a necessary marketing channel for any industrial component supplier and includes:

  1. The ability to save designers and engineers time while increasing accuracy by granting them free versions of your CAD models instead of having them model them themselves
  2. Being able to show your own products complete with 2D/3D views so customers can evaluate the product before downloading
  3. Use of Web Syndication to categorize your products and configurations both on 3D ContentCentral and on your own website
  4. Lead collection (of course)

To find out more about your options on 3D ContentCentral, click HERE

To enquire about catalog creation as a service (including model making or cataloging), click HERE

For additional reading on the value and mechanisms in place behind advertising check out these links:

The 1.5 Million future clients are waiting for your products! We hope to see you on 3D ContentCentral soon.

David Randle

David Randle

David is a Senior Business Development Manager at Dassault Systemes SolidWorks Corp