Finding Tekmos
Tekmos provides replacements for obsolete ASICs and microcontrollers. Our customers are those who manufacture systems that have a long lifetime, and are frequently under regulatory control or have technical reasons for not replacing their design. As a result, they really need our product. The job of our sales team is to find them.
But finding them is tough. Most sales forces call on the design teams, since that is where components are designed in. However, since obsolescence tends to hit the manufacturing side, opportunities are frequently missed by the normal sales channels. If we can't find them, then we have to make it easier for the customer to find us, and that means advertising.
Twenty years ago, advertising was much simpler. There were a number of free trade magazines that were delivered to key individuals. All you had to do was to create a clever ad, and wait for the customer to call you. That was then, and now the internet has killed the magazines. Perhaps a fifth of our incoming calls are from the magazines themselves, begging us to accept a free subscription.
Nowadays, advertising is being listed by a search engine. I just did a search for obsolete ASIC, and out of 8.2M hits, we were number 32. Not bad, considering a number of hits were for ASIC tennis shoes.
Search engine advertising is a two prong effort. The main activity is through web content, the more, the better. And that is the main reason we have this newsletter and our blogs. The second prong involves the purchase of ads that are linked to key words.
Generally, key words are not expensive, and we can usually get top ad placement. But there are two downsides. Read More...
It makes writing this newsletter totally worthwhile.
