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COME AND SEE THE SHOW! 

Once again, September will see the machine tool and related industries gather at McCormick Place, on the lakefront in my kinda town, Chicago.  This the premier event in the industry, attracting nearly 2000 exhibitors and 100,000 attendees.  Be sure you bring your team!  Our agency will have three clients exhibiting: 

*Platinum Tooling-the leader in live tools and other machining accessories

*Zimmermann-the leader in portal milling machines

*Siemens-a leading supplier of CNC plus digital twin and virtual factory software

We can assist you media moguls in connecting with our clients. Watch for details coming. 

A recent trend and a flood of social media postings claim trade shows and trade magazines are no long viable ways to attract new business.  This is categorically false and we can prove it.  Call me anytime to talk.  Our 50 years in industrial marketing, coupled with rigorous studies we’ve conducted with trade associations and trade media, have revealed seven avenues engineers and others use to gather information to do their jobs more efficiently and effectively.  The runaway winners are consistently trade magazines and trade shows, followed at a distance by social media, influencer podcasts, blasts, blogs and other e-media. 

Why? 

In a word, validation.  The magazine publishers have spent decades identifying and verifying the players in an industry, whether by job function or industry focus.  As a result, the messages that will benefit your companies most are put in front of the eyeballs of qualified people in your target market.  Likewise, trade shows attract people who are working daily in your world, either running companies and shops, designing products, exploring better ways to manufacture leaner, greener and, in our connected global economy, meaner to stay ahead of the competition.  Again, these are provable facts. 

As I drive to work every morning, I pass the rapid transit stations along the highway and see 90%+ of the people on their phones.  There is no doubt we live in a new chapter of the information age.  Our PR can literally appear minutes after it’s drafted and released nowadays.  Our ads can (and do) generate quality inquiries instantly, plus they drive those quality eyeballs to your websites.  Our podcasts, webinars, lunch ‘n learns and other forms of online engagement between sender and receiver are solid and growing methods of communication. 

At several shows I attended recently, the crowds were drawn to the same companies who advertise and promote themselves in the “traditional” (not a bad word, youngsters) ways.  In the case of print media, that’s because a company’s ad presence in the publications read in someone’s industry or related to their job function have other forces at work, accomplishing branding, product advantage demonstration, market positioning and the rediscovered function of lead gen.  (That’s another column completely, amusing to those of us who grew up in the bingo card generation!)

The most recent study we did asked just one question…

How do you get information to do your job?

The runaway winners were still trade magazines and trade shows, followed by the other methods listed above. 

We create ad and PR content, the latter including product PR, people announcements, application notes, white papers and the most successful form of PR by a mile, the success story, where we use the time-tested problem-solution-results formula.  We recently did a story on the integration of a robot and machine tool, both controlled by a CNC.  The story in a dozen publications and generated new business for all the parties involved.  Another story featured the use of our client’s portal milling machines in the production of automotive body molds.  Same result. 

Do come to Chicago and see the future of your shop, production department or system integrator operations.  I would be remiss not to mention Chicago is still a major manufacturing hub in North America and beyond.  Plus, it’s one dynamic, beautiful city in a garden, as our motto says. “Urbs in Horto” for you fellow Latin scholars!  As Dorothy said, there’s no place like home! 

See you in September! 

Tim Daro
President
Bernard & Company
847-934-4500
tdaro@bernardandcompany.com
www.bernardandcompany.com

Helping Industry Communicate for 50 Years!