Heat Treat Today publishes eight print magazines a year, and included in each is a letter from the publisher, Doug Glenn. This letter first appeared in Heat Treat Today's May 2021 Induction print edition.
Publisher and Founder
Heat Treat Today
I’m not positive, but it seems to me that it was back in 1992 or 1994 when my former employer launched the heat treating industry’s very first PRINT Buyers Guide. I remember with certainty that it was a HUGE undertaking every July. The excellent team at Industrial Heating in those days (many of whom are still there) did yeoman’s work to get this helpful resource into the industry every year. It was always a great relief when the issue finally hit the street.
Nearly 30 years later, Industrial Heating announced last year that they were no longer going to print a monthly magazine which, I believe, includes their big July Buyers Guide.
In steps Heat Treat Today. We’re big believers in print, and we’re big believers in online and print buyers guides. So, this June (next month), Heat Treat Today will officially launch its very first print and online North American heat treat industry Buyers Guide. Woo hoo!! Let the fun begin.
You can preview the online Buyers Guide at www.HeatTreatBuyersGuide.com (super cool URL, eh?), although we’re not officially launching it until mid- to late- June. But go ahead, take a quick look. The big print edition will come out in late June as well.
We’re really excited about both the online and print versions of this Buyers Guide.
The online version is super-sleek. While we’ll undoubtedly make improvements as we go on, the initial look and functionality is uniquely simple and modern. It is also the very first Buyers Guide that combines both heat treat equipment and related services and commercial heat treating services. If you’re looking for either, you’ll find it at www.HeatTreatBuyersGuide.com.
If you’re an industry supplier, you should search the site for your company. If you’re not there, you should create a listing. If you are there and your listing is “unclaimed,” claim it.
We’re also very excited about the print version. There’s been a lot of talk about the death of print magazines and print directories. In fact, it was the belief that print’s days are limited that prompted the aforementioned thermal processing publication to essentially abandon print. As Mark Twain is reported to have asserted, “The rumors of my death have been vastly exaggerated.” So it is with the rumors of print’s death – vastly exaggerated.
Heat Treat Today's research arm recently conducted two broad based studies – one on batch integral quench furnace systems and another on induction heating technologies and usage – and both returned very similar results to an identical question we asked in each. The question was, “When reading through an industrial trade magazine, which do you prefer?” Here are the combined answers:
Said another way, if you drop print, you’ve lost nearly 40% of your audience. That doesn’t make sense. So, we’re not going to go that route. We’re committed to keeping print a priority and June’s Buyers Guide is no exception.
Watch for it in June, Heat Treat Buyers Guide. Or get a sneak preview now at www.HeatTreatBuyersGuide.com.
