RLM Industries Inc. Investment Casting Video

Hey, our company did a video on our process that our products go through so I thought I would post it up. If anyone has any suggestions on formatting, content, or would like to suggest areas of improvement or would like to simply comment please do so.

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Marketing to target groups

I would just like to start by stating the basics. Marketing differs from Sales in that marketing generates leads by use of advertising and can really be anything to promote the product, service, or company. Sales are the people who finish and close those leads and turn them into customers.

There are many ways to target your prospects. For instance, you could use NAICS codes, demographics, census data, surveys, racial profiling, age profiling among a multitude of other ways.

No one way will work the best in every case. If there is a company selling clothes that are aimed at being hip, with unique styling then they are probably going to want to do an age profile to find out what ways are best to reach that age. In this case viral marketing and blogging could be two of the best ways to market this product. The best part is that these two forms of marketing are usually very inexpensive and can be done on your own. I wouldn’t suggest it merely because professionals are professionals in this area for a reason and can offer the best and most accurate findings. Accuracy is a key point of target marketing.

For a business to business company like mine, whose the business of cast metals parts, I like to use the NAICS codes. What I actually did was take the sales for the last year of every customer and group them by NAICS number or market segment. Then I made a line graph of the compiled market segments for the last 12 months, in this way we could tell what industries were growing and those that weren’t. After that we launched a marketing campaign aimed at over 40 NAICS numbers or market segments and 250 companies in each segment as a test campaign.

As preliminary method for contact we started a newsletter aimed at not promoting the company but promoting a better lifestyle, health, and general issues that face people. As a rule we knew that the leads we were getting would be in the ages of 30-50yrs. old for the most part so we geared the newsletter to cater to topics that would interest that age group. Also we conducted a survey to find out what issues would be most popular with that age group via email to affiliated customers with their permission first.

We are right now in the midst of analyzing all the data coming back from the preliminary responses from the newsletters effectiveness at which point we will start targeting those specific NAICS numbers that had good returns.

I like the idea of viral marketing when it is applicable, demographics can also be very useful. People from certain areas have specific tendencies that vary from those in another area. The world has this its called culture and the same can be applied to a country’s regions only on a micro scale. However if this data is understood and used correctly it can be highly useful.

A lot of marketers believe that we are beginning to see a change in business from the “Information Age” to the “Conceptual Age.” Not that I disagree with this but I still believe that information is single handedly the most powerful tool still. I love the technologies advances that have made deciphering this mass information easier. On a side note it is always critical to receive accurate data. Having a large amount data also helps to have more accurate numbers because it will offset inaccurate numbers or information.

My introduction letter to participants

Hi,

My name is Tom Bird, I am heading the marketing portion of RLM Industries Inc. It is my personal belief that information can be the most powerful tool out there for marketing efforts. Related with this idea I think leveraging intellectual capital is one of the best means of improving business practices. Under this basis I would like extend an invitation out to you directly.

What we will be doing is conducting market research on a large spectrum of topics, every topic imaginable from personal preferences, to marketing methods, demographics, to best business practices, etc. In return for participating in this research which will include surveys and polls along with general input we will be publishing all of these findings. I found that publishing these findings would be best suited through a blog format where everyone can benefit from the information provided and also provide feedback.

Feedback and input will be highly encouraged, of course we all understand that time is limited and in our fast paced economy, workplace, and general lifestyles time is of the essence. However findings from this research is aimed to inform, educate, and provide for a much better understanding of the market places we serve and provide for much better educated decision making. I greatly appreciate all participation. My goal for this will be to develop this into an online community of professionals dedicated to providing better educated information to assist in better overall business.

As stated before all findings will be published to the public for viewing, I would encourage all of you to actively checkout the findings taking as much away from this as possible. In addition feedback volume will be critical to accuracy of our findings so I encourage you to suggest to us anyone else you may know that would be interested in the information. All surveys will have specific objectives which will be listed along with the data to support the analysis. Some reports of the findings will have graphs when applicable and some will be strictly written reports. I will try to keep these short, simple, to the point, but always include all relevant information supporting the analysis.

All reports will be published on my blog that I have started in order to display these findings publicly. To check out go to www.questionme4.wordpress.com For any other questions, comments, and or suggestions please email me at: tbird@rlmcastings.com, birdmantk@gmail.com. To talk personally with me my direct line is 248 628 5103 ext. 102. I openly accept any input thankyou.

Tom Bird

Executive of Marketing & Sales

What the heck are NAICS Codes?

Lets start with the basics NAICS stands for North American Industry Classification System. So what is this classification system, well it is used by businesses and government to classify and measure economic activity in Canada, Mexico and the United States. It has since replaced the SIC systems known as Standard Industrial Classification.

So what does all of this really mean? Well for one, the government needed a universal code system to identify each type of industry in order to properly analyze each industry. Some also refer to this as market segments. The SIC code was the first, but as with most things our industries changed requiring for the SIC code system to be revamped. Once this was done in 2002 and then recently in 2007 they made more revisions due to the ever changing industries.

Prior to 2007 the NAICS codes were not used in Mexico and Canada they had their own systems. In joint efforts to support global economy Mexico and Canada were both incorporated into the systems in 2007. The actual code is a six digit number, the first five of which are usually but not always the same in each of the three countries. The last digit is to identify national industries, the first two numbers designate the largest business sector, and the third digit designates the subsector, the fourth digit designates the industry group and the fifth digit designates the paticular industry.

So why is it important that I know any of this? Well because these systems are what was used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau to classify and analyze economic activity. There is a huge number of statistics that are directly linked with the use of this system. Having this kind of information at your fingertips can help you make better more educated business decisions. Having all of this information could potentially be very beneficial for cross referencing and analyzing target markets. In addition it offers a lot of demographical information that combined together with proper analysis could make this data very valuable.

The system can be useful in identifying the markets that you would like to target. It allows you to look more specifically and market to a smaller group allowing you to have a lower marketing budget. It provides a universal for three different countries which allows you to search for new leads in other countries without having to take the time staking effort of individually identifying certain businesses as being from one industry which if you think about it could become a costly venture.

Marketing Events

In the future I would also like to plan and coordinate events in which professionals could go and develop their social networks along with leverage intellectual capital in a informal way. Granted there maybe some sort of structure in order to maximize all possible benefits.

I would also like to see a younger generation as myself become more active in preparing themselves for their careers. If anyone has any suggestions or there are people or organizations that you belong to who would be willing to help assist or coordinate an event such as this please feel free to contact me as well.

Request for data

It is your right to know what information is involved in each report and analysis. Should you find a specific topic that you would like to further investigate please contact me. I will be keeping all supporting data and files on hand forever so if there is some specific information you have seen send me an email and I will be happy to send you the correlating information however I will not be just posting the information other than reports so I am not bogging down the blog or creating a chaotic atmosphere within the blog site.

To reach me click on one of these email links

RLM Email

Leveraging Intellectual Capital

It is my solemn duty to try to bring the most accurate results possible through extensive research and leveraging intellectual capital. I would like to note a saying, “Two heads are always better than one”. I think this especially pertains to businesses. A lot of times we get to afraid to share information that compiled together and properly analyzed could provide huge benefits.

That is what this blog is aimed at, the ability to collect information analyze it and then put it into a simple easy to understand format.

Introduction

Hi,

My names is Tom Bird, I am the Executive of Marketing & Sales for a investment casting foundry. I started for this company a while ago and well basically my objective for this is to gain interest and help businesses solve problems through being educated and having better information.

It is my hopes that this will grow to be very, very large providing the best most accurate information available allowing for smaller businesses to more effective market without having throw outrageous amounts of money into their marketing budgets. Marketing can be done very effective with the right information and getting that information takes initiative. I possess this initiative, the drive and the network of professionals to provide the means to these objectives. With your added help we can make this a truly great blog and not only a truly great marketing tool! Please feel free to invite others. Please make sure to submit a name and contact information so that I can add them to my research pool.

Also if you have an article that you have done that hasn’t been featured or found an article please bring it to my attention and we will feature on this site also!

My idea is to create a place where professionals in the business to business marketplace can come and discuss current problems and have the usefulness of being able to levereage intellectual capital. Now I know this is a hard concept for many, none of us like putting out sensitive information, but it will not be like that.

I will be hosting topics that you the readers will be suggesting. Things that you want answered I will cover, I have a large team of Engineers, Marketers, and professionals who have been doing this type of thing to help assist me in answering questions. All finding will be published here on this site and along with any other additional information we feel would be helpful.

We are looking to create a community of professionals that have dealt with business to business issues. More specifically though we are looking to help and find solutions for Tier I and II suppliers as well as manufacturers mostly in the metal working Industry. I am also personally interested in conversations on marketing also as that is my main job here but we want a well rounded forum dedicated to improving businesses all around.

In addition we will be conducting polls & surveys with topics relevant to you. We encourage everyone to participate, while each pole or survey may not deal directly with you future polls may. Accuracy relies a lot on your input and volume of input. Topics covered will be related with demographics, age profiling, Industry type, effective methods of marketing, etc. All information intake will remain for reference purposes only and all findings will be published so all those involved will be able to access and hopefully benefit from the information. Remember input and feedback is critical so if there are specific issues you want to hear about please let us know and we will address those.

Possible suggestions:

Having a hard time finding the right supplier for a certain part or perhaps the right process?

Need a specific part done but it is to intricate and suppliers don’t want to touch it?

We take all suggestions into consideration, all materials supplied by you will be intended for the purpose of researching only. Any published material is intended for this purpose to educate, evaluation and reference purposes only!