Manufacturing and industrial suppliers

March 2019

low

A precision machining shop in Sheffield, 18 staff.

Problem

Work came from three long standing customers and whoever they mentioned the shop to, which had been enough for a decade and was no longer. Their only other source was one trade show costing about 20,000 a year that produced four months of work.

Solution

Design engineers at firms already making the kind of part they machine got an email asking for a sample run rather than a contract, and at shops under 20 staff it went to the owner instead, since there is no separate engineer. The first list was buyers and procurement, who forwarded everything and replied to nothing. Moving up to the engineer who specifies the part changed it.

Result

16 positive replies, $32,000 of pipeline at the $2,000 sample run. Every reply was passed over to their team. Engineers replied with drawings attached, which buyers never did.

July 2020

low

A 38 staff plastics manufacturer in Melbourne.

Problem

Plants were on reduced shifts and nobody was approving a new supplier over a video call.

Solution

The list narrowed to firms making essential goods, packaging and medical consumables, that were still running full shifts, and went to the owner, since procurement had stopped answering anything new. The ask dropped to one order. A version offering a site visit was pulled, since nobody was letting visitors in.

Result

12 positive replies, $24,000 at the $2,000 first order. Replies were forwarded to their team. The worst month of the campaign, and it kept the machines running.

May 2021

low

An electrical components supplier in Milwaukee, 40 staff.

Problem

Lead times had blown out across the industry and their quotes were overtaken by shortages before a buyer could act on them.

Solution

We enriched the buyer list against which components each firm was already specifying, then matched that to what was actually in the racks. Procurement got an email naming the part and the quantity on hand. That meant rewriting the campaign weekly as stock moved, which was the real work. An early version quoting lead times was abandoned once they slipped twice.

Result

23 positive replies, $69,000 at the $3,000 minimum order. We forward the reply and stop there. Stock on hand was the only thing anybody cared about that year.

July 2022

average

A metal fabricator in Wolverhampton, 35 staff.

Problem

The owner had bought a sending tool and a list from a data provider, sent 8k emails in a fortnight and got two replies and a domain that no longer delivered. Energy costs had also wrecked the margin on the short run work that filled the gaps between big jobs.

Solution

We started again on new domains with a proper warm up. The list was firms needing runs of 500 to 5,000 units, where price sensitivity is lower, and the email led with turnaround rather than rate. A version quoting their ISO certification was cut for saying nothing a buyer cares about.

Result

28 positive replies, $56,000 at the $2,000 minimum order. Each one was passed across to them. Small tickets, and they filled the machines.

April 2023

average

A 45 staff industrial supplier in Newcastle, Australia.

Problem

They had tried hiring an internal business development person, spent most of a year on salary and tooling, and finished with a CRM full of unqualified names. Buyers were also moving away from overseas suppliers with no idea local capacity existed.

Solution

Import records were the enrichment here. They told us which firms were bringing in the exact category this supplier makes, and how often, so procurement got an email with the lead time difference in the subject line. The first list was built on industry codes and was too broad, so it got rebuilt from import records. A local content angle was tested and dropped for reading political.

Result

38 positive replies, $190,000 at the $5,000 trial order. We hand the reply across and step out. Lead time was the number that got answers, not price.

August 2024

strong

A 25 staff components manufacturer in Cleveland.

Problem

They had used two offshore assistants to run outreach for eight months. Volume was never the issue. Neither could read a technical spec, so the replies came from firms whose parts the shop could not physically make.

Solution

The whole top of the funnel moved into email, on a list enriched for the materials and tolerances each firm actually works in. It went to owners and managing directors at shops under 40 staff, where the owner still signs off a new supplier, with the first ask small enough to need no meeting and no call. A second angle on capacity was held back to keep the message to one thing.

Result

56 positive replies, $112,000 at the $2,000 sample order. Replies go over to them, so we never see the close. Filtering on tolerance killed most of the wasted conversations.

August 2025

great

A 42 staff engineering firm in Wollongong.

Problem

They had bought a new machine and it was sitting idle, with no pipeline built to fill it.

Solution

Engineering and procurement contacts at firms whose parts suited that machine got an email naming the tolerance and the turnaround, and at anything under 30 staff that email went to the owner. The first version described the machine, which nobody outside the trade could parse, so it was rewritten around what it meant for their part. Volume was held flat all month instead of ramping, because the machine could only absorb so much work at once and there was no point filling a queue they could not run.

Result

99 positive replies across August, $297,000 at the $3,000 minimum order. From the reply onward it was their sales team, not us. Naming the tolerance was what separated it from every other supplier email.

Manufacturing and industrial suppliers.

March 2019

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July 2020

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May 2021

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July 2022

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April 2023

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August 2024

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August 2025

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the numbers?

Manufacturing and industrial suppliers.

March 2019

Problem

Solution

Result

July 2020

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Solution

Result

May 2021

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Result

July 2022

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April 2023

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August 2024

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August 2025

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Result

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