How to get known?

We all work with metal in some shape or form (or are reading the group for some other reason). I assume that many of us look for machinery from time to time as proven by the many posts about what (insert generic object title here) to buy.

When looking for specific info, some people ask here... Some people look in trade publications... Some people visit the net / MSC / McMaster / ThomasRegister / etc. eBay is sometimes a viable search area too since many of us look for used or low cost equipment either for kicks or sometimes just for spare parts, etc.

For our company, I hit the trade publications and web sites as often as we can afford to. We also work very hard to have a high page rank and many "doors" to our business via web site(s). We are on Thomas's web "thing" as well as Zycon and a few others. Am I missing some other avenue to advertise metalworking - or in my specialized case, production drilling machinery?

Would love to be able to grow the business... But want to make sure I'm not missing some great opportunity to advertise somewhere just because I don't know about it. Rather than doubling my efforts in the areas we already know are working, I'm seeking for new ideas on where to put my time and effort...

So, I ask the question... Where do YOU look when you need equipment?

I'm going to post this separately on a woodworking group too because we do get leads from that industry as well. However, most of the posts there are low cost items compared to what we buy... Your answers will be more relevant to me in my opinion.

Regards, Joe

(Sigfile removed to make sure nobody mistakes this for spam)

Reply to
Joe AutoDrill
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I would never ever consider buying new machinery, Joe. I think 99% of this NG's audience is home shop guys like me. The entire reason we exist in the numbers that we do is that used industrial machinery can sometimes be had quite cheaply. I have no opinion on your company or any of your products or business practices, but I don't think you will find Usenet to be very productive.

GWE

Joe AutoDrill wrote:

Reply to
Grant Erwin

I agree with Grant. I search the online want ads of newspapers in my area, and the classifieds-only rags, plus the online forsale sites. I also include auxtions, but I can never seem to find an interesting one that fits my scheule. I look for smaller lathes (mostly) in the 12" and under size, that are for sale well below market value. I enjoy the "treasure hunt" aspect a lot. Once I find something interesting and work the right deal on it, I enjoy cleaning/repairing/restoring/learning/documenting a new-to-me machine, then either keeping it for my shop or passing it to someone who will appreciate and use it. The only new machine I have bought is a $400 mini-mill.

- - Rex Burkheimer Fort Worth TX

Grant Erw> I would never ever consider buying new machinery, Joe. I think 99% of this

Reply to
Rex B

I've done well with Google pay-per-click. Any submission service I have used is worthless. I now know your products and they are great! Word of mouth is the best. One happy customer is worth a great deal. I'll watch this post closely to see what ideas come up as I will benefit from this as much as you.

Unfortunately, selling machinery in America is a dog, the US is getting out of the business of making stuff. Open a liquor store, import Chinese stuff, become a lawyer, invest in nursing homes and pharmaceuticals.

Reply to
Tom Gardner

I'm not necessarily looking to sell to folks on Usenet... More of my customers are large companies or small companies doing large runs of the same parts, etc. But I would bet that people here sometimes work for those companies and know how they shop for their machines...

Selling on Usenet is never a good idea IMHO unless you are in a "forsale" or similar group...

I simply want to know where people find their large purchase tools so I can investigate for future advertising, etc.

Regards, Joe

...sigless for this thread

Reply to
Joe AutoDrill

There are a few companies that use eBay as an advertising tool. Every time I am looking for a new or used piece of equipment I research it on eBay and newsgroups first and use the info gleaned from the search to investigate the tools and the companies that make them more thoroughly. I have yet to purchase any machine tools from eBay but I have bought used from online auctions and the new tools from local dealers. I don't consider a link in your signature to be spam. Steve

Reply to
Steve Peterson

Agreed! No argument from me on that one...

Do you mean the sites where you post your job and business post their bids on the job baqck to you through the third party?

If so, those don't work for us since we sell the equipment rather than the service most of the time.

Where do you want your comission check sent?

Oy... I figure we only have a small percentage of the market. I have nowhere to go but up. ...At least that is what I'm counting on for now!

Regards, Joe

...sigless for this thread

Reply to
Joe AutoDrill

Thanks Steve... Either do I. But considering how sensitive some folks are to spam, I'm going to err on the side of caution. If people REALLY want to find my business via my link in the sig, they can look at another thread. :)

Regards, Joe

...sigless for this thread

Reply to
Joe AutoDrill

The only advice I can give you is make your website about more than what you have for sale specifically. Have articles on buying machinery, use of machines, downloadable manuals for the machines you sell, pictures of the use of those products, tips and tricks of the trade. You need to make your site a reference so that you are always on the mind of the potential buyer. This also makes you an "expert" which increases the chance that someone will buy from you over another site that offers nothing.

By focusing on these ideas my website is in a position where a search for "lathe" on google returns my site as the 4th-8th hit, all without even thinking about ranking my site, but about helping customers.

Just my 2c

Reply to
Felice Luftschein and Nicholas

I tried "Traffic Magnet" that does weekly submissions to search engines...worthless!

I'd rather have a warm fuzzy knowing your strong business is there when I need it.

How about a targeted push by looking at the SIC numbers of your top ten customers and hitting those SICs? Come to think of it, just about every brush maker would use your heads if they knew about them. I never knew about multi-spindle heads other than our 60 fixed hole Zagar, untill one of my techs saw one at a used machinery place and the wheels started turning...figurativly speaking. We are just starting to set-up the Clausing with the Commander, BTW.

Reply to
Tom Gardner

Joe, get on the mailing lists of major auction houses that cater to industial liquidations. The have by far the greatest bargains on machinery. The downside is that you have to travel to the auction site to view the equipment in person and bid, plus carry cash or have your credit approved in advance of the auction.

In past years when I operated a small electronics manufacturing firm, I picked up a year old $10,000 Excellon Quad Drill for $900, 2 500-Amp electroplating power supplied for $200 each, and a Forslund automatic circuit board screening machine for $250.

A one-way truck rental from Cleveland to Rochester, NY was another $250, plus add $100 to grease the grunts at the auction house to load my purchases on the truck using their fork lift, plus $90 to fly one-way from Rochester to Cleveland and an overnight hotel stay.

The bottom line is that on just this one auction, I was able to save about $19,000 over dealer prices at a total expenditure of less than $2,000. All in all, not a bad 2 days work.

Most of these liquidation auctions take place at a failed specialty firm, so you know in advance it they would have the type of equipment on the block that you need in advance, and most of the bidders will come from the same situation as yourself (I've never seen a large firm put in a bid). Your other competition will likely come from the used equipment dealers, who rarely want to bid more than 20% of what they can re-sell the equipment for.

My almost new Bridgeport, lathe and sheet metal shear (which we used for cutting PCB laminates) came from an auction in Memphis, where my purchased totalled around $2,600, but shipping added another $1,100. Beware of shipping costs on heavy equipment over significant distances! Still, a savings of over $3,500 over local sources.

Then too, I have traveled to auctions where I didn't win anything. The were at major hi-tech locations on both the east and west coast, where usually a newly formed hi-tech firm is ready to purchase all the assets of a defunct firm in the same line of business.

Just offered as a suggestion.

Harry C.

Reply to
hhc314

Joe, whoops...

I read you post too quickly and concluded that you were more interested in buying machine tools for your own use, rather than selling them. My error.

Perhaps someone else can benefit from the content of my previous post.

Harry C.

Reply to
hhc314

I liked it anyhow for what that's worth.

Reply to
Joe AutoDrill
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Reply to
Ignoramus32374

The next time you need something done in Cleveland, let me know.

Reply to
Tom Gardner

Are there any LISTSERV type email distribution lists that cater to that segment? Although specific product pushing is not allowed, professional lists allow contributors to post their contact information at the bottom of their message. There are quite a few such lists and the discussions are usually pretty industry specific and often quite technical. Another possibility might be writing articles for trade magazines, although that would probably be pretty time consuming.

Reply to
ATP*

Joe I'm a bit surprised that you waited so long in this string to put our your website in your signature. I'm also a bit curious as to why you have two web sites, and why they are so different. As a big user of the web to find stuff I perceive a good website as the front door to a business. If I can't get what I want in two or three clicks or there is to much "flash" I'm gone. What little I looked at your sites they are ok, at least didn't piss me off. I followed a link to "technical" (I think) and found information on drill bits, not what I expected. This was on the multi spindle site, looked for the same link in the single spindle site and didn't find it. As Nick said above it about getting hits on the search engines. It would seem to me that you would have one site and then split if the business's are different, at least get the layout to look the same so that people know that they are dealing with the same person. Iggey's note about e-bay is not to far off. Ya pay a few bucks for a listing and direct them off to your site or phone for more information. Look up one of Wells-Index's sales for an example. I work for a fortune 500 company and have used e-bay to find stuff and used that information to get to the mfg of what I want.

I realize that this is a bit fragmented but ideas come faster than I can type. Hopefully one of the ideas help a small bit. lg no neat sig line

Reply to
larry g

I thought someone would suggest this, but no one has.

I would make up a questionair asking your customers how they look for machine tools and how they found you. I would send it out with a brand new dollar bill and suggest that the person responding give the crisp dollar bill to some deserving boy or girl. I would also include a self adressed stamed envelope.

Dan

Reply to
dcaster

I'm relatively sure I know how most of my customers found me because we have decently long discussions about their application before I sell them a single piece of equipment... Mostly.

Usually, towards the end of the conversation - after I've promised to send literature, a quotation with CAD drawings, etc. I ask the question of where they found us.

Your idea is pretty interesting. If I had a base of customers I didn't know much about, I'd seriously consider something along those lines. Right now, I'm sur what is working, but always seeking new ideas too. Thus the thread.

Reply to
Joe AutoDrill

We are halfway there with many of those items already on the site. I hesitate to add the articles though because people searching for drill teams, drill instructors, military drill exercises, etc. all seem to migrate towards articles since they have such a high word content... But as I've said before, bandwidth is dirt cheap.

$0.02 worth of info is always received gladly here! I'm impressed with your search engine results with such a broad keyword. I get top 10 almost always (sometimes 6 of 10) with specialized terms... But a search like "production drilling" or even just "drill" is hard to come out on top of... In fact, for "production drilling" we come out as result #10 only through a recent press release...

Reply to
Joe AutoDrill

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