While Daemar’s products aren’t typically visible to the end-user, they are essential to the manufacture and maintenance of industrial components the general public often takes for granted, such as airline landing-gear hydraulic systems, automotive braking systems and engines, and heating and air conditioning systems.
Founded by Bill Pirie in 1973, Daemar has grown to 37 full-time employees and built a highly efficient sales and distribution network with regional stocking warehouses in Montreal, Edmonton and Atlanta. Daemar is ISO-9001 certified and the company’s suppliers possess either QS-9000 or ISO-9000 certifications, giving customers peace of mind that the parts they purchase adhere to the most stringent quality standards.
Challenge: Replacing customers lost to a down economy The recent economic slowdown hit the industrial manufacturing market especially hard, creating a turbulent sales environment for Daemar’s customers, and, by extension, Daemar too. Faced with the do-or-die need to develop new customers, the company took stock of its existing sales strategy and determined it was woefully inadequate. At the time, the company’s lead generation relied primarily on word of mouth, print advertising, cold calling and trade shows. And while these sales tools had contributed to the company’s growth for over three decades, they were expensive, lacked a means to efficiently measure effectiveness and often attracted more “tire kickers” than qualified leads.
Daemar’s management believed the Internet held the key to changing that. “The Web would expand our reach to new markets, make our entire sales process more efficient and allow us to measure results and return on investment on our marketing efforts,” said Craig Pirie, Daemar’s Vice President of Corporate Development.
Unfortunately, Daemar’s website, created in 1996, functioned more like a digital brochure than as a robust interactive sales center the company would need to achieve its online goals. “We understood the way customers were searching the Web. If they didn’t find what they were looking for on your site, they would just move on to the next result in their search engine results,” said Mr. Pirie. “We put a PDF version of our catalog online, but that just wasn’t enough. It was clunky and slow. Customers simply weren’t downloading them. That’s when we turned to ThomasNet for its expert help to develop an online strategy with an online catalog that works.”
Solution: An online strategy that attracts qualified sales opportunities Daemar’s objective was clear: Develop and execute an online strategy that both attracts new leads, but also converts its website into a compelling resource that converts those leads into bona fide requests for information (RFIs) and requests for quotes (RFQs). Mr. Pirie tapped ThomasNet for the job because of its intimate knowledge of the industrial market, having developed successful online initiatives for over 2,000 industrial businesses the industry.
Leveraging ThomasNet’s Navigator Platform, the team built an interactive online catalog that provides the information Daemar’s customers are seeking, in a format that’s tailored to how engineers and repair technicians like to search products, request quotes, and complete their orders. ThomasNet began by collecting, organizing and uploading information on hundreds of o-rings, mechanical seals, engineered fasteners and other fluid sealing or precision component products distributed by Daemar. The detail-rich descriptions, photos, part numbers and pricing anticipated the way prospective customers around the globe search online for information, pushing Daemar to the top of the search engine rankings. “The process was quite easy,” Mr. Pirie said. “We simply provided digital data on all our product lines and ThomasNet did the rest.”
The catalog’s design, layout, and linkages make it simple for website visitors to quickly find what they need. Users can browse items sorted by Daemar’s 11 main product categories, ranging from shaft seals, to bushings and bearings, to protective closures. When visitors click on a product category link, such as “Mechanical Seals,” they can continue to get more precise, drilling down to sub-categories, such as “Single Spring Style” and “Type W Axial Shaft.” The online catalog allows them to then browse available sizes, types, and materials to make their selection. For customers who know exactly what they want, they can search by keyword or product number. At any point, customers can request more information, create and submit detailed RFQ’s, or proceed to purchase.
The catalog’s robust back-end technology seamlessly integrates with Daemar’s email marketing programs and customer relationship management (CRM) system and provides Daemar management with the key metrics they need to measure effectiveness of their online initiatives.
When products are added, upgraded or discontinued, another of ThomasNet’s Web Solutions, an easy-to-use content management system, allows Daemar staff to make their own content changes to the catalog in “real time,” without having to depend on an external programmer, ensuring the company’s product information is always up-to-date.
“In many ways, the new online catalog allows us to be a much more efficient organization,” said Mr. Pirie. “It enables our customer service reps to quickly direct customers to where they need to be on the catalog to identify the product for their application. This frees up time for inside sales reps to spend more time problem solving and troubleshooting with customers, as opposed to simply being order takers.”
Results: New leads from around the globe allow company to sign a new customer every 5 days The online catalog exceeded Mr. Pirie’s expectations. In the 10 months since it launched, the catalog generated over 400 RFQ’s and RFI’s, translating to an average of two serious prospects per day. Of those highly qualified leads, approximately 10 percent convert to sales – a rate of one new account every five days. Website traffic has also increased by over 50 percent and continues to trend upward.
Mr. Pirie attributes growth in international business to ThomasNet’s Web Solutions. “It’s brought us customers from Europe, Australia, and South and Central America who’ve found products at our website, order from us, and have it shipped. We’ve never met them face to face,” said Pirie. The success of Daemar’s online catalog has allowed the company to significantly lower its print advertising spending, and the company produces a fraction of hard-copy product catalogs than it used to.
And this is great news for a company in an industry buffeted by a harsh economy. “We’ve certainly had to focus on becoming more efficient and doing more with fewer resources,” said Mr. Pirie. “The ThomasNet online catalog has been a big part of our restructuring to make our organization more efficient -- to handle more RFQ’s and sales leads with fewer people. So, as the economy recovers, we think that the groundwork that we’ve laid with the ThomasNet catalog will provide a solid base for the recovery—and growth—of our company.”
If you are interested in learning about the successes of other ThomasNet clients,
go to www.promoteyourbusiness.thomasnet.com or call (800) 879-6757.
March 30, 2010
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