big thanks to Miller

[fun4now]

one of the best part about this site is that they alow us to recomend other's products without ofending them.. gota give miller credit for that, after all this is being done on there dime. its nice to know that befor you buy you can get an opinion that is from real users that tell it like it is.gives validity to the recomendations given, even though it some times makes the choices harder rather than easyer at least you know the recomendations are not just adds being threwn at you, real people put the stuff to work and give ya the strait scoop. even though this is millers site, it's nice to know you can get an anser not byast to the owners of the site. i just wanted to give miller a big thanks for that, i dont think its said enough how nice it is to have a place to ask and receve information on welding products that isen just the company add line speowing out "oure stuff is the best". big koowdoes to miller for that one, and a big thanks to thouse that give there opinions.

[Rvannatta]

one of the best part about this site is that they alow us to recomend other's products without ofending them.. gota give miller credit for that, after all this is being done on there dime. its nice to know that befor you buy you can get an opinion that is from real users that tell it like it is.gives validity to the recomendations given, even though it some times makes the choices harder rather than easyer at least you know the recomendations are not just adds being threwn at you, real people put the stuff to work and give ya the strait scoop. even though this is millers site, it's nice to know you can get an anser not byast to the owners of the site. i just wanted to give miller a big thanks for that, i dont think its said enough how nice it is to have a place to ask and receve information on welding products that isen just the company add line speowing out "oure stuff is the best". big koowdoes to miller for that one, and a big thanks to thouse that give there opinions.

it's what you call smart marketing. the out of pocket cost is very little compared to saw super bowl ads. Presently buyers are very resistive to Madison Ave. slick sales promotions, and that you can as a seller send a lot of $$$ to Madison ave and not much happens.

Here they have a collection of people, whether they buy blue or not
are familar with blue, know the company esists, and knows what their product line looks like.

For those that don't buy their products they get feed back as to why not such as "not the right features, not the right price, not the right market channel" etc.

For example right now it is pretty easy to see that they are being klobbered in the plasma cutter market by brand X machines at Home depot and Lowes based on a perception that the brand x machines there are radically cheaper.
I say 'perception' because I suspect the true price spread is less than most buyers think because there is a tendency to compare the 'list price' of the blue products to the 'advertized price' at Home Depot, and most of the Blue stuff is really sold 'off list'.

Still you don't have to read this hlist very long to understand that they are leaking a lot of potential sales to home depot, and making a 'better mousetrap' probably won't solve the problem--it's a perceived price issue.

Understanding a problem is 3/4 of the solution and that information is available to them here for almost free, and would have cost them millions to discover through a market research firm, and if they blasted off the forum any one who mentioned a brand x product the entire usefulness of the site would be destroyed for them---and us. If no one will say what they think, then you will never know what they think......

[drscotch]

it's what you call smart marketing. the out of pocket cost is very little compared to saw super bowl ads.

Bang on!

Here's another example of forum power. For anyone unfortunate enough to buy a 2003 6.0L diesel from Ford the forums were a big help. I followed the discussions at dieselstop.com for quite a while before I bought my '04. When the problems first surfaced with the engine there was an insider "leak" on the board. In other words, some anonymous ford employee was confirming (quite fairly I thought) the fact that there were problems while Ford was publicly denying everything. Then the "leak" was shut down, "stop or be fired" something like that. I have a friend that worked for Ford at the time and this person confirmed that they had more than one employee that was always lurking on the forum. Did they learn something? You bet, these forums have power.

I give major kudos to Miller for 1. hosting the site, 2. not deleting posts about other products or problems with their products and 3. having an official representative who gives honest answers to questions. I've never seen Ford publicly admit any problems with the 6.0L engine but Andy has suggested that the MM250, for example, wasn't their best work (partly why I decided to upgrade to a MM251). Wow, that's honesty in this day and age.