Form Cut Industries, a manufacturer of specialized terminal pins and formed wire parts, wanted a new website.
The sales and marketing team, headed jointly by Bruce Ballard and Phil Kudler, wanted the new website to better communicate the company’s capabilities.
Engineers were finding the website through search, but only when they searched for the very specialized materials listed on Form Cut’s material list.
Form Cut specializes in extremely tiny parts
On the surface, the formed wire parts Form Cut manufactures look straight-forward. Many of the parts are straight or bent, made of stainless steel, copper or one of several alloys, and include machined threads, hooks, cutouts, flat ends, or other standard treatments.
One of their parts is so small, 32,000 of them fit into a thimble. These small parts feature intricate details, such as machined grooves, knurling, and other features, not often visible to the naked eye.
The challenge then, was how to communicate Form Cut’s capabilities.
Words such as, “We make parts as small as the thickness of a human hair,” while dramatic and descriptive, are easily missed when skimming a web page.
They also don’t readily create a picture in the reader’s mind. How often do people look at single strands of hair?
The solution: Professional photography and photo captions
To address this challenge, Form Cut hired Al Ferreira of Al Ferreira Photography, to shoot high definition photos of their very small and intricate parts.
Instead of simply creating a photo gallery, which is what many manufacturers do, the Form Cut team divided the photos by product type, and used them on the new Products pages to illustrate exactly the types of parts they could produce.
Most importantly, they added photo captions to explain exactly what engineers were seeing in the photo – right down to dimensions, specialized machining, and materials used (Figure 1 above and Figure 2).
Helping engineers find the info they need
This kind of information is especially important when an engineer, working on a new application, is looking for a company that can help solve his or her application challenge – versus making an off-the-shelf part.
Effective website messaging combines words and images to tell a story – in this case, the story of Form Cut’s specialized wire forming capabilities.
Words or photos by themselves have less impact on the reader and tell an incomplete story.
When combined, however, they help buyers and engineers understand what a company offers, as well as build authority and trust – thus leading to more inquiries and sales.
Filed under: Our Thinking
