The digital commerce wave is, well and truly, upon manufacturing companies, distributors, and all manner of B2B and B2B2C organizations. In its wake, as B2B organizations across the world invest in modern PIM and MDM solutions, one obstacle that prevents them from deriving additional value is differentiation. How to catch the eye of the target customer? How to communicate the unique value of their product offerings and the utility in the context the customer can relate to?
Product information can play a role. But with every company – irrespective of their size, type, location or industry – complementing products with rich descriptions, high-quality images, demo videos, manufacturer and warranty information and more, the struggle of standing out from the crowd is real. So, what is that one aspect of product content that can draw the line between successful companies and the not-so-successful ones? Let’s find out!
The importance of product content differentiation
When it comes to purchasing products, the modern B2B customer is spoilt for choice. Millions of companies across the world today are focusing on offering a portfolio of products that perfectly meets the needs of the modern customer. One way to empower your customers to choose your products over your competitors is through differentiated product content. By investing in content that is engaging and informative, you can help customers in their purchase journey by helping them make the right purchasing decision.
Product content differentiation not only improves product discovery across search engines but it also enables customers to clearly understand the usage of the products being sold as well as the contextual value they can drive. Through product content differentiation, you can improve the customer experience and boost conversion rates and revenue. Differentiation also helps in maintaining brand consistency across all channels while building customer trust and sustaining customer loyalty towards your brand.
Engineering drawing: the missing piece of the puzzle
When it comes to improving the customer experience, engineering drawing can play a great role in conveying aspects of products that can’t be conveyed with words. Visually specifying the details of a component or assembly can otherwise be difficult. This is especially the case for products that are sold globally and viewed through eyes clouded by local conventions and measures. Drawings can set standardized rules for product specification and interpretation – making it easy for customers from different countries who speak different languages to understand and interpret information in the same way.
Engineering drawing provides a robust means of visual communication for customers to learn how a system works or how it is constructed. In a world where the number of products that are being conceptualized and manufactured is increasing, engineering drawing focuses on international standards to make product dimensions and geometry easier to understand. By using a standard set of familiar symbols, perspectives, measuring units, notation systems, and visual style, it enhances the customers’ ability to understand what the product is – without having to imagine how the product might look in reality.
What engineering drawing offers
Engineering drawing can have a great impact on providing critical design information as well as helping customers progress in the decision-making process. With engineering drawing, B2B companies can convey important context, process, structural, material, and functional information about their products. The drawing can be presented in a variety of ways to provide greater context, for instance slicing the part to show the interiors. They can also choose from a range of formats including sketches, isometric drawings, projections, and more.
Using engineering drawing, companies can clearly and accurately describe:
- The size and shape of a part of the product or the entire assembly with multiple views for detailed understanding.
- The detailed dimensions of the product using familiar symbols, perspectives, visual styles, and units of measurement.
- The geometry necessary for the construction of a component, including how it looks in a 3D space.
- Key information such as scale dimensions to avoid errors and inconsistency.
- The suitable variations or allowable tolerances across physical dimensions, physical properties as well as other measures values of the product. This could include measures such as temperature and humidity.
- How the different parts of the product are constructed and how they function – in isolation and in association with each other.
- The material the product is made of and the surface quality of the product in question.
In addition, they are a great way to project auxiliary views for products that have inclined planes in their design. This is also an apt way to project them in their true size and shape as well as isometric views that show products from angles in which the scales along each axis are equal.
The road ahead
For B2B manufacturers looking to differentiate themselves, including engineering drawing into the product content is a great way to inform and educate modern customers. Providing details across size, shape, dimension, geometry, and product construction and design aids customers in understanding the aspects of the product that can help them in making the right purchasing decisions.
Today, computer-aided design methodologies are increasingly being used for the purpose of engineering drawing. By using such modern technology, B2B companies can create, modify, analyze, and optimize product views and provide detailed and contextual information to the customers on the site. This could become a powerful weapon in driving up conversion and sales.