CNC Machine Shops: Don’t Hide Your Star Power

As a member of the Okuma marketing department, I get (ridiculously) excited when I can personally meet customers in their CNC machine shop environments. So when I had the chance recently to go on a field trip to see shops in action, this was pure marketing-geek heaven. What jumped out at me the most? First, I’m always stunned at the levels of innovation, extreme pride in workmanship, and intense drive of all the people I meet. Inspired to learn more, I immediately go online to check out these companies’ websites. But often I find…yikes, no website! Or maybe there is a website, but it’s not telling their story compellingly. I have to say, you guys ROCK, but why are you “in hiding”, in your own special corner of the world?

If No One’s Heard Your Hit Songs, It Doesn’t Matter if You Rock

I can hear some of you now. “I have plenty of business. I don’t need a website. My customers know who I am and how to find me.” For many of us baby boomers, that may be a valid assumption. However, as younger fresh troops join your customers’ companies, having a presence on the web becomes vital. If you watch your kids (or grandkids), you‘ll notice that whenever they want to learn something, find something, or buy something, they hop on the Internet. And if they don’t find you there…sorry, you DON’T EXIST. No matter how good you are.

So let’s say I’ve made a believer out of you and you decide to create a website for your CNC machine shop, or update your current site. What’s next? Here are some tips to make your website content strike a chord with visitors and potential customers.

Websites for CNC Machine Shops: Your Hit List

• What Makes You Special?
  Of course you’ll list your capabilities and all the great CNC machines you have in your shop, but is there a particular industry where you really shine? Do you have a particular area of expertise or capability (something that sets you apart from your competition)? Go ahead and put that on your home page. Tell your potential customers why they should do business with YOU.
• Help Visitors Find What They Need
  Make sure your menu buttons are easy to navigate. Is the content easy to find? Planning in advance will help, and you might want to have a few people take it for a test drive to see if they easily find the information they need.
• Be Seen on Any Device
  With the increase in smartphone and tablet use, more and more people are searching the web from mobile devices. Make sure your site can be easily navigated from both desktop and mobile devices. The best option is to use a “responsive design” that detects the device and adjusts how the website is displayed accordingly. To see an example of this, visit www.okuma.com/ from your computer, your tablet and your smartphone. Note that while the menus, photos and text are displayed differently, the content remains the same for all three versions.
• Social Media Sizzles
  Facebook is not just for cute photos of our kids and kittens; every business should have a presence here. This is a great place for relationship building because it personalizes your company. How about YouTube? Have you cut some cool parts or created an interesting process? YouTube is the second most used search engine, and the perfect forum to visually prove to customers that you understand THEIR challenges. And don’t forget LinkedIn and Twitter. 
• Call to Action: Get Prospects Moving in Your Direction
  “Call to Action” is marketing-ese for getting site visitors to start interacting with your company. Of course, the eventual goal is for them to give you their business, but responding to an online call to action is the first step in this process. Here are some examples of calls to action you might use: 
• Click here to read our latest white paper 
• Download a list of our equipment 
• Share this page with a friend 
• Click here to email us a question 
• Call now to discuss your part/application
• Email Me! Call Me!
  Your contact information should be on every page. If a potential customer finds your website via a web search, they may not land directly on your home page. Now that they’ve found you, make it easy for them to call or email, so you can get their business. Check out the bottom of the page you’re on right now to see how we do it.

This is just some basic information to get you thinking and to help you get started. The bottom line is, you’re already a star at what you do. But amazing things will happen when you start growing your fan base.

Got any website tips to share? Successes? Pitfalls to avoid? Comment below, we’d love to hear your experiences.

Mindy Mikami is Marketing Coordinator, Okuma America Corporation.

[If you want some more tips, Okuma distributor, Gosiger, has written an excellent white paper called “12 Ways a Better Website Can Bring More Customers to CNC Machine Shops.”