Turn Your Website into a Powerful Marketing Tool

When Virgil DeLay, president of Chicagoland metalforming company Diemasters Manufacturing Inc., sat down a couple of years ago to begin in earnest a website redesign, he never envisioned becoming so passionate about the site’s direction and content as he eventually did. The goal of the redesign was to focus on marketing the company’s unique areas of expertise.

“Our existing website at the time,” DeLay says, “looked like

that of every other stamper. We displayed parts we made, and explained the manufacturing processes we were using. But from a true marketing perspective, we did not differentiate ourselves. We didn’t touch on our niches, nor did we do a good job explaining why we’re better at some types of work than at others.

“Early in the redesign process, working with a website-development vendor, I was skeptical that we’d be able to develop a new approach that would make a difference and generate leads that would turn into real revenue,” DeLay shares. “So, I decided to manage and champion the redesign process myself, rather than delegate it, so that if it failed I’d fully understand why.”

Today, nearly two years after that first brainstorming session, DeLay has no such concerns. The firm’s new site is a clear revenue generator, and DeLay took some time to explain to me exactly how it works.

All Metalformers are Not the Same

While a lot of stampers can make the same parts, to the same delivery schedule, at the same level of quality and for relatively the same price, why is it that some companies out-earn others, grow and prosper, while some struggle or disappear altogether? That’s precisely the question DeLay and the development team he formed pondered when it began conceiving the new site, working with local developer Killian Branding.

“Everyone makes a cool part or two and is proud of its processes,” DeLay says. “And after we began thinking of our cool parts and processes, I looked at dozens of other metalforming-company websites and I couldn’t identify anything that we brought up that I didn’t see on those other sites.”

Becoming skeptical that a new website design would help differentiate Diemasters in the marketplace, DeLay and his project team then set out to answer a more deeply thought-provoking question:

Answering that question honestly and openly led to a discussion of the most proprietary and “secretive” processes that the company had developed over years and years of process-management focus. “We talked about our system and the special things we do to keep inventories down, which keeps capital in the company,” DeLay says. “We came up with about 10 core competencies in all, most of them related to lean processes, that contribute to our success formula.”

Now we’re getting somewhere, the folks at Killean said, and were prepared to dive into site development based on Diemasters’ once-guarded proprietary strategies.

“Opening the door to our proprietary processes might seem risky,” says DeLay, “but we know from experience that just because someone learns how we do things doesn’t mean they can easily copy what we’ve done and implement it in their own shop. It’s easy to buy new equipment, but not so easy to reengineer a process.”

The Proprietary Product Flow Process

What was proprietary and is no longer? For starters, visit the website (www.thediemasters.com) and link to the product flow system. Diemasters says that it designed its proprietary product-flow system to ensure everything moves through the plant as efficiently as possible, in line with the Theory of Constraints. The system proves to prospects that “we can stop on a dime if there is a change in product design, or if order volumes suddenly drop off,” says DeLay. “Customers want to know that if they call tomorrow and stop production, that we can quickly stop and, at the same time, limit their liability. Then they want to know how quickly we can get back up to speed when we need to.

“We used to hold that process very close to the vest,” DeLay adds, “but now realize what a huge mistake that was. Putting it out there on our website has helped the new site gain traction and has raised our search score. We find that as more and more OEMs are looking to dual-source their critical products, they’re considering only the top 10 or so companies that might come up on an Internet search.”