Small and medium sized manufacturers need to diversify their reaching to the customers. Traditionally, there are few ways: trade shows, yellow pages, etc. And many ones put their eggs in just one basket. Trade shows have been very useful and for a quite long time before new media through which manufacturers reach their customers was invented. However, with connections between buyers and sellers created and tightened, trade shows become just shows and no trade. People are just roaming amongst redundant manufacturers and traders to see big shows being on stage. And that is why you get hundreds of name cards but can not even build relationships with more than 10. Actually the majority of them will not answer your e-mail/call/fax. However, I’m not here saying that trade shows are not good or they are very bad. We need to find new ways to count on. We need to diversify our reaching to the targets. Below are my suggestions. 1. Website. A well designed, SEOed and marketed official website will be very useful for a small and medium business. With such a site you may, drive internet attentions to your company, give confidence to your buyers and keep them coming back to you. 2. Newsletters. A routinely issued promotional material will help reminding people to remember you and get new customers. 3. Search engine advertisements. You may choose one or all from Google’s Adwords or Yahoo’s Search Marketing or other products of major search providers. 4. Ads on general and industrial websites. Ads on industrial (niche) websites will drive more targeted traffics to your company websites and hence higher possibility to generate sales. 5. Yellow pages. Traditional but useful. 6. Forums. Attend as much forums as possible. There are a lot of industrial buyers and sellers and experts in the forum. 7. Posts. They need to be placed at proper sites. For example, if you are selling industrial tools or machines, putting posts at public parks will not help. Instead, you should put them at sites such as industrial markets, forums, etc. Currently, a lot of posts can be seen in China by the sides of high ways. 8. POP, or Point of Purchase ads. Industrial goods will also need POP ads to help impress end users and assist them in their buying decision. 9. Packaging. Packaging itself is also a form of advertisement telling people what you do and how you are doing. 10. Promotional e-mails. You must pay attention to such e-mails and do not let them be junk. 11. Phone call. 12. Fax. This is the least cost effective, however, I’m still listing it here. 13. Word of mouth. Yes, industrial goods can be promoted via word of mouth ad. 14. Articles. Industrial buyers tend to go to niche websites to get idea of the currency in the industry. Good articles may draw their attentions to your company and your product offerings. 15. Blogs. Useful blogs will drive traffic as well as draw attention from the web to your company. 16. Trade shows. The reason why I still list it here is that the shows are becoming an ad media rather than a trade market. It is still very important for small and medium businesses to get into vision or more exposure to the industry. There might be a lot more to be added into the above list. And you may not want to use all of the above. You must consider the goods you are marketing, the costs and your target markets.