Whitman Controls Gets Their Business Online and to Their Surprise, They “Go Global”
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When Whitman Controls first met with i-MARK, selling their pressure switches and gauges overseas was the farthest thing from their minds. They had their hands full just holding off their ‘Goliath’ competitors right here in North America. ‘Could we help them take the fight to these bigger manufacturers to secure their base and gain a greater share of domestic business’, asked Mike Horn, Whitman’s Director of Engineering? “And can you help us look bigger and reach more prospects than a small company like Whitman, could otherwise do”, he added?
Whitman knew their website was not working for them. It offered limited product search and the most basic of eCommerce capability. Visitor activity was sparse at best, and they saw table-after-table of pressure switch part numbers in seemingly endless lists. So, most Whitman website visitors exited after less than one minute of page surfing.
Whitman may be small but they offer significant competitive advantage to customers by providing a quality product to customer specification at a competitive price and with flexible delivery options. Being quite savvy about the Internet as a b2b business tool, Horn understood that Whitman could use it to leap-frog competition. He knew that if Whitman’s unique technological advantages could be discovered by global buyers, all in a guided self-service manner, Whitman would make that leap.
It turned out that Horn’s intuition was correct. i-MARK’s 24/7 BUSINESS™ web-self-service eCatalog and eCommerce SaaS service has transformed Whitman’s static website into an Internet-search powerhouse guiding website visitors - old and new - to discover new products and solutions to their design needs – all on auto-pilot. Even more satisfying to Whitman was the pleasant surprise of finding new customers in Europe and Asia. “We have seen a complete transformation of our website activity”, said Horn. “Not only has traffic jumped six fold in just one year (11,000 to 66,000 visits/year), but users remain on our site three times longer per session.”
The improvement to Whitman’s bottom line was the real test, however. As an i-MARK customer, over the last three years not only did Whitman increase market share and acquire nearly fifty (50) new repeat-buying’ customers using their eCatalog, but the number of off-shore customers has sharply increased, opening up profitable new markets. Overall, online sales have increased by a factor of five. Now that the global recession nears an end, Whitman’s new off-shore markets will help to grow that number even faster.
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Whitman's Get It Online Difference:
Whitman’s plan was simple - level the Internet playing field against larger competition. Their online strategy included a strong SEO program to attract new visitors to an interactive eBusiness website running i-MARK’s 24/7 BUSINESS – helping them deliver the most intuitive online ‘explore-and-discover’ user experience in their industry. Today, Whitman Controls is truly a ‘David’, competing head-to-head with ‘Goliath’, becoming a recognized force in their industry - with the results to prove it.
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Visit www.imark.com/demo or call us at: 800.397.7119 |
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