Many people in the industry have asked the question, “Why are we losing mold construction business to offshore suppliers?”

The answer is simple: Most North American moldbuilders “stand on their reputation.” This is freely translated as:
1. They will not or don’t know how to market their services
2. They rely on referrals
3. New business only comes in by way of a sales rep

What do the offshore companies do? The one thing U.S. moldmakers won’t. They take out ads in trade magazines. It’s also interesting what doesn’t happen:
1. They don’t do customer visits.
2. Their customers don’t visit them.
3. It seems that whatever’s posted on their website is not cross-checked or confirmed, and in many cases, what you see on the website isn’t real. But buyers fall for them (just like thinking you’ll get true love from match.com).

Face-to-face meetings with customers and vendors are good. There’s no denying it. However, they are also very expensive. In addition, U.S. moldbuilders are faced with resistance from customers getting bottom-basement prices offered from some offshore suppliers.

Look at any trade magazine in the molding business. The offshore shops are out-advertising the onshore shops by almost 20:1! Your e-mail inbox is flooded with “Hi! I’m Robert from XYZ molds in China ... ” Your inbox is not flooded with “Hi, I’d like to make you aware of the moldbuilding opportunities in ZZZ, USA.” It’s a matter of statistics: Send out a lot of e-mails, and the odds are in your favor that somebody will give you business. Don’t send out any or only send to your existing customers, and there’s very little chance you’ll get any business.

Here what molders and moldbuilders should do:
1. Go to your local college and hunt up the School of Journalism or something similar where the students are making television newscasts, commercials, and so forth for their projects.
2. Talk with a professor and get some students assigned to help you market your company for their semester project.
3. A professional video company will cost you between $500 and $1000 per edited minute. A student project will go for less than $100 per edited minute.
4. Your/their project is to make a video showing a virtual tour, the capabilities of your shop, examples of your work, how you work with customers, your “partnering” abilities, and so on. You’ll never beat the offshore folks on price, but your marketing advantages include English-speaking customer service, technical know-how, and your ability to build quality on a consistent basis.
5. Once the students have met with you and generated a script, you’ll find it’s easy to say everything in less than 30 minutes. (The usual is about 15 minutes.)
6. Give them artistic freedom to shoot this mini-movie as they see fit. Remember, their grade will hinge on the how well they sell the message you want to the pros at the university. Naturally, the end of the video should be a tagline like, “We look forward to working with you.”

At the end of it all, they’ll get their grade and you’ll get a DVD master for only a few thousand dollars. Utilize this video by incorporating it into your website. If you don’t know how, either a teenager in high school or someone at your local college can do this inexpensively. You can also use this master to generate DVDs for less than $2 each (replicated, four-color printing on the disk, in a jewel case in very low volumes), to mail out to potential customers if necessary.

Now go to the trade magazines that sell targeted e-mail lists. Because most trade magazines qualify their readership, you can specify who will get your e-mail (managers, buyers, and so on). Look at the mailing lists for The Society of Manufacturing Engineers, American Purchasing Assn., American Management Assn., and all the associated trade magazines. Send out a short, professional e-mail inviting the reader to take a Virtual Tour through your shop. Issue press releases referring to your website and your plant’s virtual tour to every professional publication you can find.

U.S. moldbuilders and molders don’t advertise. Offshore folks do. That’s why they get the business and you don’t. If you advertise, you’ll get business. If you don’t do this, eventually somebody in China will put a crew on an airplane with a briefcase full of DVDs of their operation and they will clean up.

Consultant Bill Tobin [[email protected]] is a regular contributor to IMM. You can sign up for his e-newsletter at www.wjtassociates.com.