About Industrial Specialties Manufacturing Headquartered in Englewood, Colorado, Industrial Specialties Manufacturing (ISM) is a leading manufacturer and distributor of miniature pneumatic, vacuum and fluid circuitry components. Its products serve a variety of industries: medical/pharmaceutical, industrial, academic research, marine, automotive, technology along with maintenance and repair. Whether a company is making liquor bar guns used to mix cocktails, assembling agricultural sprayers for pest control, or building a high-quality color ink printer, a fluid circuitry part is likely incorporated.

While ISM addresses the needs of companies in a broad range of sectors, its offerings are not commodity products. They represent unique, highly specific and sometimes made-to-order parts that save manufacturers the tremendous expense of custom tooling operations. Indeed, ISM manufactures and distributes 12 different product lines — fittings, couplings, filters, check valves, tubing, and orifices, among others — that altogether comprise over 150,000 individual products.

Founded in 1982, ISM was acquired in 2006 by former technology executive James Davis. As president of the organization today, he leads its 15 full-time employees. Under his leadership, the company received ISO 9001:2008 certification in the manufacture, assembly, partial-design and distribution of its products, something Mr. Davis recognized that his customers value in a provider. ISM sells its products directly to OEMs and through a network of distributors.


Challenge: Overcoming an Old-Fashioned, Expensive Sales ProcessLike many smaller manufacturers, ISM has a modest salesforce. The company long maintained a traditional paper-based direct marketing mindset, using mailers along with the printing and mailing of a 300-page paper catalog, collectively designed to reach over 18,000 prospects. Yet by its very nature, the pricey catalog couldn’t possibly capture, nor keep up with, the company’s comprehensive and fast-changing portfolio of products. This meant ISM’s primary sales tool was almost always out-of-date, leaving some products out and, as a result, leaving potential sales on the table.

With Mr. Davis’ high-tech background, he understood that savvy use of the Internet would help ISM to better service its customers and identify more qualified prospects. The company has dabbled in various on-line marketing strategies to find new prospects, yet Mr. Davis found mixed results as some investments produced a lot of activity, yet delivered few serious inquiries.

“After I acquired the company, it quickly became obvious that we needed to build a new lead-generation business model that reflected the way our customers and prospects were buying: the centerpiece would be an online strategy and presence,” said Mr. Davis. “At the same time, the prospect of migrating all of our products from an enormous paper catalog onto our website was overwhelming. We knew we needed some expert assistance.”


Solution: Tapping the Web to Function as a High Performing Sales Person In 2008, while the global economy was still humming, Mr. Davis determined the avenue for success: “Our top-line objectives were simple: we needed a website that would pull business toward our company, and we needed to move our catalog online to make us more efficient and profitable,” said Mr. Davis. The new web-based combination would in effect create a virtual sales force for ISM that would be “always-on,” working to develop leads 24/7.

He also knew the work had to be outsourced. “Effective management involves identifying what you’re good at, and what you cannot do alone,” he observed about the process that led to choosing ThomasNet. “I have a background in ERP systems, not Internet sales and marketing. I had to listen and learn. I was confident ThomasNet could help us evolve.”

Creating the online catalog was a complex job, and ThomasNet was up to the task of providing key assistance to help organize and upload ISM’s full product line of 150,000+ items complete with new SKUs, custom part numbers, item photos, diagrams and more. Quickly, the presentation of each product in the online catalog leap-frogged the quality of product information found in the old print version.

Because it is interactive, the new online catalog incorporates the kind of technology that allows customers to easily navigate the site, so for the first time they can easily search for and quickly find exactly what they need. Customers and prospects can browse among items sorted by ISM’s 12 main product categories that range from plastic fittings, metal fittings, filters, miniature valves or quick connect fittings. They can drill down through sub-categories (including clearance items) to specify material composition, size, shape or function. For those who know specifically what they’re looking for, they can search by key words and even by stock numbers – old or new.

The online catalog is arranged to anticipate and answer a customer’s questions. At any point during a search customers can request more information, compare up to five items side-by-side, request a quote or proceed straight to checkout to request a quotation.

“We consider innovation to be a core sales and marketing initiative, and now we use our website and online catalog as the centerpiece of that,” said Mr. Davis. “Perhaps best of all, the catalog is set up to direct a customer to not just find, but efficiently request information or pricing for what they need from us.”

Internally, at ISM the online catalog has helped staff to save time and be more efficient too. The technology includes easy-to-use tools that lets ISM make content changes to the catalog in real time whenever a product has been added, adapted or discontinued - keeping on-line ISM product information accurate all the time.


Results: Web Activity Skyrockets, Delivers Qualified Prospects from New Markets Measuring results is practically a part of the corporate culture at ISM. “I believe you can't move forward in business without setting objectives and measuring your actions against them,” said Mr. Davis. “When we measure the results of our investment in the new online catalog, it has more than paid for itself.”

A dramatic illustration of the online catalog’s success can be measured in a 25-fold increase in conversion actions on the ISM site from 2007 to 2008. (A conversion action is an online step that brings a visitor closer to making a purchase, such as requesting a quote or information, registering for emails or in some cases, even the purchase itself.) Such actions collectively soared from year to year.

Other measures of lead-generating online activity also exploded since ISM’s online catalog went live too. They include external references by way of links to the catalog from other websites (up nearly 1,000%, from 470 in 2007 to 4,532 in 2008) and more than doubled the user sessions (from 4,870 to 10,676). Search engine referrals rose by about 12 percent as a result of the website being peppered with key terms that customers and prospects look for.

“We refer to certain prospects as ‘bona fide contacts’ — those who submit an inquiry, request a quote, complete a contact registration form, and the like,” said Mr. Davis, who reported that, of the legitimate inquiries received over a 12-month period, 14 percent, placed orders. “Ever since ThomasNet created our online catalog, this type of highly qualified prospect has surfaced much more regularly and, as you’d expect, our sales have grown commensurately. We enjoyed 15% growth in sales during 2008, and the online catalog was the single largest contributor.”

But then, the economy softened. Many long-time customers of ISM began to experience difficult business conditions, and as a result, the legacy business at ISM started to show signs of weakening. At the start of 2009, the forecast for the supply industry was bleak, and Mr. Davis girded for a possible slowdown. “During the worst of the economic downturn in early 2009 we were holding our own. While most businesses saw their sales drop along with the economy, our sales stayed very solid. We attribute this to the fact that the catalog lets us reach out to so many diverse industries, enabling us to cover the deficits from the suffering sectors with greater gains in the stronger ones, like health care and research and development. The online catalog definitely helped us navigate the recession successfully.”

For Mr. Davis, ThomasNet combined the right blend of industrial experience and technical expertise with the reputation for industry innovation. “Our online presence is at the very core of our ability to work smarter – an essential in today’s marketplace.”

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