PMM evolves to serve market with new name, new content

Welcome to Plastics Machinery & Manufacturing, the new brand for our website and magazine that signals our new strategy for publishing information plastics processors need to be successful in running their businesses. 

We will still be known as PMM and machinery will continue to be a primary focus of our coverage. Our reader surveys show that you depend on the Product Innovations and stories about new processing machinery and equipment to keep up with the latest technologies. 

This magazine has seen great success with readers and advertisers since the first monthly edition was published exactly six years ago, but we can evolve to provide even more value. 

Steps 1 and 2 in that process have already happened. PMM is publishing more content exclusively online, and some stories in the print publication now appear first online and occasionally in longer versions online. Our twice-monthly digital newsletter has a new name, PMM Update, and is now a weekly broadcast with a broader focus. (Sign up at tinyurl.com/PMMUpdate.) 

These changes align our content delivery more closely with the way our readers and subscribers consume content. No matter how busy they are, we know our readers check their email and search for information online far more frequently than they did six years ago. 

Step 3 is the most exciting for the PMM editorial team. We are adding significant content that we previously excluded, with special emphasis on plastics manufacturing. Here are examples of areas that we will now include: 

• Processors
• Sustainability
• Best manufacturing practices 
• End markets and market overviews
• Supply chain
• Current events
• Materials and additives
• Association activities
• People 
• Distribution
• Legislation 
• Training
• Market intelligence 

Stories written by industry experts who work for machinery suppliers have already started appearing on our website and have drawn significant numbers of readers. There will be plenty more of them. 

Our experienced editors and reporters now have assignments outside of the machinery-centric areas they had been covering and bring solid industry knowledge to their new beats. 

Our goal is to provide an equal amount of original information in print and online. We won’t achieve that mix immediately, but we are already making progress. Keep tabs on our website, www.plasticsmachinerymanufacturing.com (note that we have a new URL to match our new brand name) so you won’t miss anything. 

Other goals are to provide vital content faster and in formats that help you digest it quickly.  PMM Update utilizes modern, responsive design to make it easier for readers to use. Our magazine will feature shorter stories, more fact boxes and links to related stories online. 

Recently, I was asked what strengths we bring to our readers. My answers were the deep experience of our editorial team, our well-cultivated network of industry contacts and our focus on processing machinery and equipment. 

I am convinced that our experience and contacts position us perfectly to expand our coverage to other plastics manufacturing topics. 

We are now part of Endeavor Business Media, which has extensive experience in serving online audiences and developing digital advertising products that enable machinery manufacturers to deliver information to our readers. Those new capabilities for PMM will become an important part of the value we bring to the marketplace in 2021. 

Our first new digital offerings were five successful webinars produced during the past few months. Webinars bring great value to our audience, especially during the current period of severely restricted travel. 

News from NPE will fill our pages and website in 2021. The triennial show is an opportunity for machinery suppliers to roll out new offerings and we will cover it aggressively, as we have always done. No other publication will cover the new machinery as extensively as PMM. Send your product information for NPE to [email protected]. 

PMM remains a publishing partner of the Plastics Industry Association.  

Manufacturing today is changing faster than ever. Bringing you the latest in processing machinery, techniques and best practices is an exciting prospect for PMM. Whether the information is in print or online, our aim is to make this publication an essential tool for processors. 

Let us know what you think by emailing us at [email protected]. 

Ron Shinn, editor 

[email protected]