A Lancashire manufacturing company is cleaning up since discovering the key to cracking developing markets....Picture shows Cobble's Blackburn sampling centre...
Cobble Blackburn Ltd, a leading manufacturer of carpet tufting machinery for export, has been receiving enquiries from as far afield as India, Iran, Pakistan and Turkey since investing in an online marketing strategy.
And the company is now calling on other manufacturers to boost their profitability by fully exploiting the worldwide web.
Alan Barton, commercial manager at Cobble, said: "Dedicating resources to online marketing has allowed us to improve our competitive position by introducing us to new and previously untapped markets across the world.
"Like most companies, we had a website, but this was gaining very few hits. We knew it had the potential to be effective, but only if people knew it was out there.
"As it was, none of the major search engines had us listed on their first few pages, under any of our main keywords and phrases, and the company name itself did not fare much better."
So Cobble teamed up with Blackburn-based eBusiness UK to research the tufting industry as a whole and to learn how to attract global buyers to their site.
And Cobble's website now features within the top three listings on Google, MSN and Yahoo, for each of its main keywords and phrases.
Alan Barton said: "In terms of reaching more customers, the internet offers fantastic opportunities and has allowed us to save both time and money."
Nasir Kothia, business development director at eBusiness UK, said: "Recent studies show that over 90 per cent of manufacturing companies have a website, but less than one-third employ an effective website marketing strategy.
"Too many businesses give up on the internet after paying out for a website only to experience no benefits, but the important thing is to find a way of letting people know you're out there.
"Time and again, independent studies show that those companies enjoying the highest return on their investment use Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)."
