We’ve got news on materials and software in today’s 3D Printing News Briefs. Farsoon is offering biocompatible polymer powder materials for medical 3D printing, and ExOne will optimize its sand 3D printers for use with ceramic foundry sand. Finally, Fusion3 and Create it REAL have developed a new white label slicing software together.

Farsoon Offering Biocompatible Polymer Powder for Medical AM

3D Printed surgical guide for spinal surgery. (Image courtesy of Huaxiang Group)

In 2019, China’s Farsoon Technologies unveiled its Flight Technology for the Flight 252P platform, and this summer released two plastic powders for high-temperature 3D printing with the platform, PA12 based FS3201PA-F powder and FS2300PA-F polyamide powder. But the company also uses its plastic laser sintering technology to create parts out of its FS3300PA polyamide powder for medical applications, such as PPE and orthotic devices. The biocompatible material has great mechanical properties, good chemical stability, and received medical-grade evaluation stating that it’s okay to use for intracutaneous reactivity, irritation, and skin sensitization.

The medical division of the Huaxiang Group has been using FS3300PA material and the Farsoon 403P 3D printer to print medical applications, like surgical and operational tools for short-term skin or mucosal membrane contact. Additionally, service bureau customers who participated in beta testing with the Flight 403P systems have intensely investigated the new biocompatible material, and have found it to have a good balance of strength and durability. Flight Technology is now entering its commercial operation phase.

ExOne Optimizing Sand 3D Printers for Cerabeads

ExOne’s S-Print

The ExOne Company (Nasdaq: XONE) announced an agreement with Japanese ceramic products manufacturer ITOCHU Ceratech Corporation to optimize its sand 3D printing systems to be used with ITOCHU’s premium Naigai Cerabeads, a ceramic foundry sand that’s used to create cores and molds for the metal casting of high-value products, like impellers, cylinder blocks, pumps, and hydraulic valves, in the automotive, construction, mining, and oil and gas industries. Cerabeads are used at over 100 foundries around the world with a variety of metals, including aluminum, iron (gray, ductile), and steels (low-alloy, carbon, stainless), and will be used with sand 3D printing as well.

As part of this new agreement, ExOne will develop and optimize the print process settings of its S-Print, S-Max, and S-Max Pro sand printers so they can be used with Naigai Cerabeads. In addition, ExOne will also offer this material together with its 3D printers as part of an optimized package for its North American customers.

Fusion3 and Create it Real Develop 3D Slicing Software

3D printer manufacturer Fusion3 and Danish company Create it REAL partnered up to develop REACTOR, a new white label 3D slicing software. REACTOR is powered by Create it REAL’s REALvision slicing engine, and is meant to be used with Fusion3’s professional FDM 3D printer line. The software offers customers a commercial software experience with many traditional slicing features, along with several new ones, such as a built-in certified materials list, enhanced print quality, both online and offline activation options, a streamlined interface, and “modifiers,” which make it possible to apply unique settings, like strength and weight, to different sections of a print.

“Fusion3 is focused on delivering affordable, high-performance 3D printers to our commercial and high-end education customers,” said Chip Royce, Fusion3 CEO. “The addition of REACTOR takes our printers’ performance to even higher levels. We are proud of our partnership with Create It REAL, and together will continue to develop a long-term roadmap of software features and capabilities to deliver the best end-to-end professional 3D printing experience.”

REACTOR software is now available to Fusion3 customers as a bundle when they purchase one its F410 3D printers, or a standalone package through the company’s online Replacement Parts Store. In addition, Fusion3 is also offering a free upgrade of the slicing software to original owners of its F400 and F410 printers, though some limitations do apply.

3D printing is often viewed as one of the key sustainable technologies, primarily because it can produce complex structures in one single part, facilitates efficient designs, and creates less waste. Even more so, when this technology is combined with resources that are reused instead of being discarded, efficiency skyrockets. Based on this idea, a startup that makes artfully crafted furniture has taken the concept of a circular economy to new levels. By combining sustainably sourced agricultural material waste, California-based Model No. has been creating on-demand custom furnishings using 3D printing technology.

Every item is 3D printed from biopolymers and plant-based resins that provide the flexibility of customization without the need for harmful petrochemicals – commonly used during traditional manufacturing and finishing of furniture products. Model No.’s eco-friendly materials are sourced from the remains of food crops which further reduce waste and allow upcycling of unused resources. Because these biopolymers are made from plants that are continually re-planted, the oxygen produced even helps offset any carbon dioxide emissions in the production process.

Model No. uses recycled and bio-resins to print every piece of furniture, as part of its commitment to eco-friendly furniture design. Image courtesy of Model No. 

With the mission to redefine the future of furniture, co-founders Jillian Northrup, Jeffrey McGrew, and Vani Khosla created a company that is operating at the intersection of design, technology, and sustainability. Each one of the artfully crafted pieces is offered with a selection of pre-customized models created by the Model No. design team, which can be ordered just as they are, or can be fully customized to fit a particular style, budget, and home.

3D printed on large, custom-built 3D printers in Model No.’s facility, every furnishing can be produced in house and delivered in two weeks, eliminating long wait times and wasteful inventory. Each can be customized using the company’s computer numerical control (CNC) tools to create truly unique pieces, adjusting everything from the dimensions and contours to the color and finish materials.

Model No. uses customized 3D printers in-house to create its custom furnishings. Image courtesy of Model No.

Having the printing capability right in the manufacturing site also allows the design and manufacturing teams to make small scale models of each idea. Finding the right combination of form and customization options usually requires many iterations of sketches and small scale prototypes. Northrup stated in the Model No. site that making the smaller prototypes is a really good way to quickly and inexpensively make design decisions: “Once we see the small version of the piece in hand, we can do preliminary stress tests and visual proportions analysis, letting us know what changes we need to make for the piece to be truly functional as well as beautiful.”

Model No. design and manufacturing process to create furniture using 3D printing technology and agricultural waste. Image courtesy of Model No.

Along with in-depth planning capabilities, the team relies on its six 3D printing machines to create some intricately complex designs that are inherently possible thanks to the technology. As the company continues to grow, it will continue to constantly develop new technology in-house to improve functionality as well as leverage and contribute to other open-source innovations and technologies from around the world.

Since founding the company in 2018, the team of designers has been working to produce a variety of tables, seating, and décor. With more than 35 product options, ranging from vases to coffee tables, customers have a wide variety of colors, designs, and budgets to choose from, which can result in one-of-a-kind pieces.

Model No. coffee tables are 3D printed using agricultural waste and customizable. Image courtesy of Model No.

Traditional furniture manufacturing continues to have a heavy impact on the environment. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the amount of furniture and furnishings that end up in a landfill rose from 7.6 million tons in 2005 to 9.7 million tons in 2015, and the rate of increase is accelerating. Wood was the largest material category in furniture, and ferrous metals were the second-largest category. Plastics, glass, and other materials were also found.

Furniture also has a significant carbon footprint, which includes everything from the materials used, to the manufacturing process, to the environmental costs of climate-controlled storage, to shipment. In fact, UK-based My Tool Shed reported in 2019 that the average piece of furniture consumes approximately 47kg of carbon dioxide equivalent, which is the same as 5.3 gallons of consumed gasoline or driving some 30 to 60 miles.

Model No.’s manufacturing team makes large furniture pieces using 3D printing and sustainable materials. Image courtesy of Model No.

Instead, Model No. hopes to do things differently. Aside from its biopolymers and plant-based resins, the company uses sustainably harvested wood for some of the larger furniture pieces, like the dining tables and particularly for an ergonomically designed curved chaise lounge – the flagship product of the company. When possible, the designers choose to use local species in all the wood details of its products, which means no deforestation or clear-cutting is involved.

Using local recyclable materials made in the U.S. helps avoid the negative environmental impact of importing materials from overseas, and has proven very practical during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic that has shifted the world and turned global supply chains into a commercial nightmare. Model No.’s reliance on local resources and its proprietary 3D printing technology has proven an ideal solution as the world moves toward better manufacturing structures, systems, and in-house technologies that involve minimizing the amount of inventory held in global supply chains. The results are clear, browsing through the company’s site, the artfully designed pieces evoke clean cuts and minimalist elegance, capable of embellishing any living space, but best of all, they come with the added seal of sustainability and disruptive technology at its core.

There are plenty of unique, and even strange, materials out there that innovative people have figured out how to 3D print with, from a wide variety of food products like chocolate, meat and fake meat, sugar, salt, pancake batter, and even grapes, to nearly every metal imaginable, such as aluminum, titanium, stainless steel, copper, cobalt chromium, and gold. Obviously, we 3D print with a lot of plastic materials, and plenty of biomaterials, and people are 3D printing materials like ceramics, glass, diamonds, fabric, and even cannabis!

Cornwall-based startup Fishy Filaments provides another interesting 3D printing material: it turns recycled nylon fishing nets into engineering-grade filament in an effort to save marine life .

“Fishy Filaments’ recycled nylon (otherwise known as PA6) is unusual, possibly unique, in the world of 3D printing filaments. We can track the polymers we reclaim all the way from their original sources, mostly in Japan, through the global fishing net supply chain, the commercial fishery and ultimately to our doorstep,” the website states.

“This is possible is because the nylon used by commercial fisheries is made to very high standards in order to meet the demands of an extremely tough industry.”

By the time Fishy Filaments receives the nets from its independent third party labs, they’ve been used by Cornish fishers for several months already, but that’s all, since the net surfaces become cloudy and stop catching fish. The nylon from these nets is a little salty, and sometimes even has bits of seaweed clinging to it, but the business says “the underlying high quality polymer is still there.” They aim to keep it that way as well, by not over-processing the material and wrecking its value by adding chemical modifiers.

Since officially releasing its recycled fishing net filament onto the market last year, the Cornish startup says that artists, hobbyists, professional product designers, and even heavy industries have put the material to good use.

“We are already getting enquiries from all over the world despite not having a huge marketing budget, but we only want to hook up with companies which share our values,” explained Fishy Filaments Director Ian Falconer.

“All our polymer blends are 100% recycled. We add no pigments or other modifiers. Instead we work with the nets we receive from fishing fleets, grade them according to colour and wear, and process them separately in order to maximise their potential.

“We then combine the grades to provide customers with a consistent blend that they can add their own uniqueness and value to, through 3D printing.

“If we didn’t take these nets and re-process them into filament, the majority of them would be sent to landfill.”

Another UK company that clearly shares the startup’s values is Telford-based 3D Printz Limited, headquartered in the county of Shropshire, which borders Wales to the west. The two recently signed an eco-friendly distribution deal, which will benefit 3D Printz by helping to grow its 3D printing product range.

“We’re delighted with this partnership,” said 3D Printz Director Peter Roberts. “All business sectors should be doing what they can to help the environment, so we are very pleased to be able to add Fishy Filaments to our growing range.”

Porthcurno

3D printing has the potential to be a more sustainable method of manufacturing, and this factor is often discussed in the industry. There’s less energy usage and wasted material, more sustainable material options, and often reduced shipping needs as well. So a partnership between a 3D printing specialist and supplier like 3D Printz and Fishy Filaments, which is centered on sustainability, is pretty advantageous for both.

You can purchase Fishy Filaments’ premium Porthcurno blend, on 750 g spools, for £59.99 (including VAT) on the sales portal of the 3D Printz website. Named after a spectacular beach in the UK, according to the startup, Porthcurno is good for use in applications where flexibility and translucency are needed, and its light blue-green color means it will take many off-the-shelf dyes pretty well.  3D Printz offers free delivery on orders over £50.

Ian Falconer with the recycled nylon fishing nets into engineering grade filament.

(Source: Shropshire Live / Images: Fishy Filaments)

ParaMatters, the California-based provider of the CogniCAD generative design and multi-material topology optimizing cloud solution, have announced the release of a software upgrade, CogniCAD 4.0.

Image courtesy of Paramatters

The new upgrade caters to both additive and traditional manufacturers, and includes faster, more robust solvers for design constraints, including vibrational considerations, an advanced structural support generator, and improved features such as hollowing, slicing, orientation, and latticing capabilities to enable improved material saving and efficiency in 3D printing parts.

“With ParaMatters 4.0, both digital and traditional manufacturers can take advantage of this powerful agnostic CAD-to-CAD generative design and lightweighting software,” said ParaMatters Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Dr. Michael Bogomolny. “Traditional manufacturers now have access to a one-of-a-kind technology that enables them to create lightweighted and structurally validated parts to meet their design and manufacturing needs. Designers and engineers can automatically generate high-performance designs that consider various manufacturing technologies and make decisions based on a cost, performance and time-to-market basis.”

The software solution automates the development of production-ready generative design and optimized topologies, with built-in finite element analysis, and provides a cloud or Windows desktop-based CAD-agnostic solution for engineers and designers across key industries. The new upgrade now means the software serves  a broad range of additive manufacturing, and traditional manufacturing methods, including 3-axis, 5-axis CNC-milling, investment and die casting.

What’s more, all designs generated by the CogniCAD platform are directly usable for additive systems and transferrable to traditional manufacturing processes, allowing for easy and flexible integration into existing manufacturing and supply chains. Notably, the software accepts all inputs from a broader and more varied potential user base for industrial production, and can then generate ready-for-production STL or STEP designs, in minutes or hours as opposed to weeks and months. The platform’s services are offered as a pay-per-design or on-going subscription service and are cloud and desktop accessible now.

In 2019, the company launched CogniCAD 3.0 at Formnext, with advanced topology optimization features and metal AM simulation capabilities. Now with CogniCAD 4.0, the upgrade has improved on 3.0 and expanded its capabilities to include other manufacturing methods besides AM. The software platform is known for its proprietary functions including its unique mesostructural generative design feature that mimics natural structures to create optimal porous structures and load-optimized designs.

The company, with Co-founder and Board Member Avi Reichental, is backed by venture-firm XponentialWorks. In 2018, soon after the software platform was launched at CES 2018, CTO and Co-Founder Michael Bogomolny outlined the effectiveness of one its features in a Linkedin article – showing how its multi-material topology optimization feature could be used to create a significantly lighter, topology optimized titanium-aluminum composed part compared to an aluminum-only part. Such autonomous and user-friendly features with automated CAD-to-production-ready files provides powerful, cloud-based solutions to engineers and designers particularly in automotive, aerospace, motorvehicle and medical industries.

Earlier this year, another generative design solution provider Additive Flow, introduced its additive awareness feature, with AM-specific intelligence in part design. In July this year, MSC Software, a subsidiary of Hexagon known for their AM simulation software, released a generative design tool that can be used on laptops to create production-ready optimized designs for 3D printing. And indicating the fast-growing potential in additively-intelligent design software in digital manufacturing workflows, nTopology closed a round of funding, led by New York-based Insight Partners, raising its total to $40 million in funding to date. This further points towards the acceleration being made in AM-specific software over the last three years, as observed by SmarTech in its look into the additive manufacturing software landscape 2020.

This summer, Seattle-based additive manufacturing hardware and software solutions provider Dyndrite and HP decided to join forces to license Dyndrite’s geometric kernel technology in order to power next-generation cloud and edge-based digital manufacturing solutions. The goal was for HP, the founding member of the Dyndrite Developer Council, to create a software platform that could power AM factories of the future. This week, the two companies announced the first commercial application built on Dyndrite’s core Accelerated Geometry Engine: HP’s Universal Build Manager Powered by Dyndrite, an advanced AM software solution.

“Additive manufacturing has always had incredible potential to disrupt the global manufacturing market, but has been limited by the focus on adapting traditional manufacturing software to address the problems that are unique to additive manufacturing. We are working with Dyndrite to provide the necessary tools and infrastructure to enable additive at scale,” said Ryan Palmer, Global Head of Software, Data and Automation, HP Personalization & Industrial Business. “HP Universal Build Manager Powered by Dyndrite will deliver a new foundation for the industry through collaboration with other industry OEMs and ISVs.”

As a solution for delivering CAD-to-print workflows for additive, the new Universal Build Manager Powered by Dyndrite will work to bring automation, improved performance, and scalability to the AM industry. It includes strong build preparation tools, such as support generation, slicing, patterning, nesting, labeling, and CAD import. According to a Dyndrite press release, it’s an OEM- and process-agnostic tool, as well as the first GPU-accelerated AM Build Prep and Management solution in the industry. Dyndrite’s plug-in architecture helps to protect important IP, and HP’s Universal Build Manager Powered by Dyndrite offers a process- or machine-specific plugin infrastructure, so 3rd party software and hardware developers don’t miss out.

“Going forward, this moment will be recognized as the point where the additive manufacturing market broke away from the status quo of legacy technologies and file formats. Even before we founded Dyndrite we knew we needed to work with industry leaders like HP centered on pushing digital manufacturing forward,” Dryndrite’s CEO and Founder Harshil Goel said. “We are excited that HP shares our vision for software disruption and look forward to collaborating to push the boundaries of our innovation.”

This solution supports several different production-grade AM technologies: Binder Jetting, Selective Laser Melting (SLM), Powder Bed Fusion/DMLS, Selective Heat Sintering (SHS), Electron Beam Melting (EBM), Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), Fused deposition Modeling (FDM), Stereolithography (SLA), Digital Light Projection (DLP), Laminated Object manufacturing (LOM), Composite-Based Additive Manufacturing (CBAM), and, of course, HP’s Multi Jet Fusion. Because it’s powered by Dyndrite, the software leverages its Engine for integrated Python scripting APIs for automation and workflow integration, and also uses NVIDIA Enterprise GPUs for computation acceleration. This will, according to HP, allow for personalization and end-to-end control.

“Automation, software, and data are key to delivering mass customization of parts and unlocking the full potential of large-scale additive manufacturing. We are committed to relentlessly improving our capabilities and helping customers optimize and automate workflows, enable compelling new applications, and produce sustainable, high quality parts at scale,” said Ramon Pastor, GM and Global Head of 3D Printing and Digital Manufacturing, HP Inc.

To learn more, check out Dyndrite’s case study, or log on to its Dyndrite Day event at 11 am EST, October 29th, for a sneak peek at the new HP Universal Build Manager Powered By Dyndrite.

HP has even more news to share—together with its long-time partner, chemical company Evonik, it has developed a new co-branded elastomer, which has been optimized for HP’s Multi Jet Fusion (MJF) technology and will be sold exclusively through HP. This new specialty powder is a flexible, high-performance 3D printing material based on a thermoplastic amide grade (TPA), and will be presented virtually at formnext connect, November 10-12th.

“Open collaboration with materials leaders like Evonik continues to be so important as we push the boundaries of additive manufacturing and accelerate the industry. We are excited to continue building on our long-standing partnership with Evonik to deliver another compelling material for customers and expect to see innovative new applications that take advantage of TPA’s flexible, lightweight properties,” said Tim Weber, global head of materials, HP 3D Printing and Digital Manufacturing.

The newly released thermoplastic elastomer is a lightweight-construction material with a Shore A hardness of 91 and a very low density of 1.01 g/cm³. According to Evonik, TPA has high fatigue resistance and durability, and is well-suited for prototypes, and even functional end-use products, that require high energy return and extensibility, like automobile components, sporting equipment, end-of-arm tooling, and ducting and bellows. Additionally, it’s a perfect match for efficiently creating high-quality parts on HP’s Jet Fusion 4200 3D printers.

Evonik’s TPA ready-to-use material is excellently suited for production of functional high-tech 3D plastic parts—prototypes as well as series products—that call for high extensibility and energy return, such as sports equipment or automobile components.

“The development of new ready-to-use specialty materials tailored to customer requirements belongs to Evonik’s DNA: The company is a leading producer of innovative high-performance powders, filaments, and liquid resins for all important 3D-printing technologies. The new TPA is a perfect example of successful collaboration between Evonik and HP—that is, between the materials and the technology aspects of 3D printing—to develop the perfect printing parameters in close conjunction, so as to finally allow a smooth and trouble-free printing process,” stated Sylvia Monsheimer, Head of the New 3D Printing Technologies market segment at Evonik.

Several Evonik customers, such as GoProto, a rapid manufacturing company that specializes in quick-turn, on-demand, custom manufacturing, have already put Evonik and HP’s new TPA to the test.

“We researched this elastomer from Evonik and instantly recognized the massive market potential and its ability to help us provide customers with production-grade parts with no tooling and all of the benefits of 3D printing. We’re not going after parts we can already produce with conventional methods inexpensively; we are going for the things that haven’t been addressed well before,” said GoProto’s President and CEO Jesse Lea.

“The combination of production quality material properties like high wear resistance, energy return, longevity and light weight continues to impress at every application,” says Jesse Lea, President & CEO at GoProto. (Image: GoProto)

Enabled by the new elastomeric TPA, GoProto has just introduced 3DElastoPrint, a 3D printing parts service that makes rubber-like parts for customers that traditional manufacturing methods would not be able to achieve.

“We at GoProto are extremely excited about the incredible value this brings to our clients developing new products in a fast-paced and ever-changing environment,” Lea said.

(Images courtesy of HP unless otherwise noted)

3D printer manufacturer Markforged will have a new CEO, as Shai Terem takes over, replacing company founder Gregory Mark, who transitions to the role of Chairman. The company said the change in leadership is the result of a planned succession, designed to position the company for continued success in its next phase of growth. Particularly as the additive manufacturing (AM) industry experiences rapid adoption amid supply chain disruptions and ongoing evolution.

Terem, who previously served as President and Chief Operating Officer (COO), will now take on the development and execution of short- and long-term strategies and day-to-day operations. His main goal is to continue delivering value to key stakeholders as the company continues to scale. In his previous capability, Terem had reorganized the go-to-market strategy to have a channel-first approach and built a strong infrastructure for rapid, efficient, and scalable growth.

Markforged’s new President and CEO Shai Terem. Image courtesy of Markforged

Joining Markforged in December 2019, Terem already had significant operational and leadership experience in the industrial 3D printing sector, having served as President of the Americas region at Kornit Digital, a worldwide market leader in 2D digital printing for textiles. Before that, Terem spent four years with Stratasys, where he had roles in increasing leadership in product marketing, channel enablement, finance, and operations. The Israeli-born executive served for 11 years in the Israeli Navy (IDF) before going on to lead several teams in banking institutions and founding companies, and describes himself as a “proven team builder” who “always finds a way to get things done.”

“I have been fortunate to spend the majority of my career in this industry – experience that gives me a profound appreciation for the immense value that Markforged brings to organizations around the world,” said Terem. “Our tools are designed to allow manufacturers to go from design to a functional part with unmatched efficiency to truly optimize the supply chain. It is an honor to take the helm of such a pioneering company, and I’m eager to play my part in our mission to reinvent manufacturing.”

Gregory Mark in his new role as Markforged’s Chairman. Image courtesy of Markforged

In his new role as chairman, Mark will focus on evangelizing the adoption of AM platforms among engineers, designers, and manufacturing professionals. As Markforged’s leader for the past seven years, Mark, an MIT alum at the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, has helped democratize metal and carbon fiber 3D printing. He also considered that before he founded the company, access to strong 3D printed parts was limited only to those who could afford million-dollar machines.

Today, however, there are thousands of parts in just about every industry: “We have parts flying in space, and on commercial and military jets; we have hundreds of thousands of parts used by frontline workers to fight COVID.” All of them are printed on a platform that is robust enough for end-use aerospace, but even affordable to high schools and colleges.

“We believe Shai will continue this progression and grow into more factories, schools, and design shops around the world,” Mark indicated. “With his operator chops and considerable additive manufacturing experience, Shai has the right combination of skills to continue our rapid growth.”

The Metal X 3Dprinter enables job shops to deliver parts to customers faster and at lower cost by quickly tooling up a production line. Image courtesy of Markforged

Since its foundation, Markforged has transformed manufacturing with 3D metal and carbon fiber printers, capable of producing parts tough enough for the factory floor. Created in 2013 and based in Watertown, Massachusetts, Markforged now has about 300 employees globally, with $137 million in both strategic and venture capital. The company’s range of end-to-end processing systems has steadily become the go-to platforms for many users that want to improve the production of parts, like the US Department of Energy (DoE)’s national science laboratory Sandia National Labs, Škoda Motor, and the Dubai Electricity & Water Authority (DEWA), just to name the most recent ones.

According to the company, AM is approaching a tipping point. While 3D printing technologies have been available since the late 1980s, considerable advancements in technology and unprecedented supply chain disruption driven by the ongoing global pandemic are supporting mainstream adoption. A 2020 Wohlers Report projects the AM industry will grow eleven times over the next decade to become a $640 billion industry, offering a wider market for Markforged.

The X7 by Markforged is the turnkey industrial 3Dprinter for every type of functional part. Image courtesy of Markforged

“Markforged has been solving some of the more challenging real-world industrial manufacturing problems for years, and we believe the pandemic has shown just how essential additive manufacturing will be in a world where supply chains need to more nimble, adaptable, and resilient,” explained Michael Medici, a managing director at the global investment firm Summit Partners and member of Markforged’s board of directors. “Greg has built a strong foundation for innovation that he will continue to develop as Shai works to scale the organization from a successful startup to a pillar technology company of our time.”

With one of the largest connected install base and fastest growth in its category worldwide, Markforged continues to build a leadership team to position the company, its customers, and partners to take full advantage of the innovations supporting the latest significant wave of manufacturing disruption.

WASHINGTON, DC — With less than one week until the November election, new U.S. Postal Service data show an exceedingly high-volume of mail moving through the system and a focus on delivery of ballots.

“With increased volume in both mail and packages and external challenges, mail is moving,” said Kristin Seaver, Chief Retail and Delivery Officer of the Postal Service. “The Postal Service continues to implement extraordinary measures to advance and expedite the delivery of the nation’s ballots. These efforts include extra pick-ups, extra deliveries, and delivery units running regular collections on Sunday. From today through Sunday, local carriers will be stopping at and checking every residential mailbox for outbound mail, including ballots.”

Key Facts

• 2.5 Days Average Delivery Time. Since October 1, the average time of delivery for First-Class Mail, including ballots, was 2.5 days with 97.5 percent of all measured First-Class Mail delivered within five days across the country.
• 4.5 Billion Political and Election Mail Mailpieces. Total mail volume surpassed 4.5 billion mailpieces for both Political Mail and Election Mail tracked, representing an increase of 114 percent compared to the 2016 election cycle.
• 122 Million Ballots Processed and Delivered. Since Sept. 4, the Postal Service has processed and delivered more than 122 million ballots, including both blank ballots delivered from election officials to voters and completed ballots from voters to election officials.¹

Due to an increase in overall mail volume of all types, COVID-19 impacts, the Oct. 12 federal holiday and ongoing efforts to prioritize and advance the nation’s ballots, First-Class Mail service performance was 80.85 percent for the week of Oct. 17 through Oct. 23.

“While our ongoing commitment is to maintain the highest level of service performance for all mail, we acknowledge that our full focus and prioritization on election ballots is having a near-term impact on the overall on-time performance of other products throughout the network,” continued Seaver. “Additionally, we are actively engaging with our management teams and union leadership to ensure we have the right level of staffing and oversight given the increased impacts of COVID-19, and our unwavering commitment to keeping employees and customers safe.”

“In the final push through the election, our entire team remains laser focused on advancing ballots to local boards and election officials as quickly as possible,” said Seaver.

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Your audience keeps your brand relevant. 

You may know this already but without them, your brand is as good as dead. That’s why audience development is critical for every business. It focuses on a key element of your business — your customer base.

It also helps you stay aware of their needs and maintain a lifetime connection with them so they keep coming back.

So what does ‘audience development’ mean?

Remember how you feel when someone gets you a very expensive gift… 

Happy, right?

Now imagine someone goes out of their way to get you a box of your favorite brand of chocolate and a bottle of your favorite wine? It’ll make you feel special and loved. 

It’s the same with your audience — they feel special and important when they see content that’s tailor-made for them. Or when you send them a short email wishing them a happy birthday. 

It’s the little things you do consistently that help you build your audience and lead to a boost in revenue, and an increase in your customer base and repeat customers.

This is what audience development is all about: building and nurturing a crowd of loyal people and customers around your brand who constantly engage with you and keep coming back for more. 

It’s about getting to know your customer base to understand the kind of content they like to see. This way, you can anticipate their needs and create content and campaigns that resonate with them. 

It’s more effective than aggressive and mindless marketing. Because the more you connect with your audience, the better you can create content that’s carefully personalized for them; research even shows that 63% of consumers prefer personalized content. 

Your audience development plan in 4 steps:

As a business owner, you need to prioritize audience development. But this isn’t an easy feat especially if you’re a new business owner without any experience with it.

So how do you build an audience of raving fans? Strategic content marketing, that’s how. 

Because content marketing focuses on creating and sharing valuable content to attract your target audience.

And in this blog post, you’ll be learning how to build your audience from scratch with a 4-step strategy:

Step 1. Build a compelling brand story

Your brand story is simply the story of the values, ideas, and experiences that shape your brand. 

For example, HEY.com’s brand story is completely ingenious — a perfect example of a compelling brand story. 

The company was born after the co-founders, Jason and David, wanted to change and improve how people use email. So they built HEY.com.

Their brand story, featured on their homepage (as shown in the screenshot above), is a written representation of what they’re really about, why they exist, and what sets them apart from their competitors — and yours should too. A compelling brand story is the foundation for creating relevant content to attract your audience without trying too hard. 

So how do you build a compelling brand story?

• Write from your heart, telling your audience why your brand is unique and why they should choose you. It could even be a personal story detailing the reason you started your business.

• Make sure your brand voice matches your brand story, and be consistent with it.

• Come up with a tagline that describes your brand’s purpose, but keep it simple and concise. Story Sprints, a company dedicated to helping businesses clarify their story, perfectly describes what they’re about in their tagline, “Your story, clearly told.” It’s a catchy tagline that sticks and tells you what they do at first glance.

Step 2. Choose your audience development channel(s) 

To build your audience, choose content marketing channels to help you engage and connect with your customer base.

There are different channels you can use for effective audience development. 

You can create a blog on your website and engage with your audience there. You can also use social media outreach platforms like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. 

Lastly, you can build an email list and engage your customer base through email. 

And research by Databox reveals that 44% of marketers say that email and social media marketing were effective for reaching their target audience. 

But remember to stick to actively using 1-3 channels to begin with so you don’t get overwhelmed. 

Ideally, there are two key channels that need to be part of your audience building strategy:

1. Social media interactions
2. Email marketing

Let’s take them one after the other:

Key channel A: Social media interactions — while being focused on your audience’s needs

Social media helps you make your brand more accessible to your audience. So when coming up with a social media strategy, be aware of these two things:

1. Where your audience hangs out. You can’t be a photographer and not have a Pinterest or Instagram account, or a business consultant without a LinkedIn account where you can connect with prospective clients. 

2. Every social media platform works differently. So carefully study each social media platform — their purpose, demographics, level of engagement and interaction, major features, and how active your audience is on each platform before choosing the best one for your business.

This infographic from Accion highlights the features of various social media platforms to help you choose the best one for your business: 

Key channel B: Email marketing with a personal touch

Email marketing is a digital marketing strategy that lets you connect with your audience through email.

And when you’re creating email campaigns and newsletters, remember this:

• Don’t overwhelm your email subscribers with too many emails
• Connect with them on a personal level 
• Don’t waste words in your emails, get straight to the point
• Use short clips, GIFs and pictures to spice up your newsletter

Step 3. Create meaningful, hyper-relevant content 

Once you’ve selected your favorite channels to build an audience on, you need to prioritize sharing only relevant content.

Relevant content will always resonate with your audience.

So make sure you’re creating content that they find relevant (useful), not just creating content to fill up your page or tick a checklist in your marketing strategy.

When your content inspires your audience to take actions that better their lives, they’ll keep coming back. Besides that, relevant content gives them something to share with their followers and connections that will attract new customers. 

Tools for creating content

To create content that will wow your audience, there are several tools you can leverage to help with your design, research, writing, and editing process.

Here’s a list of some great tools (based on their function) that will help you create well-structured, accurate, and visually appealing content:

How to create hyper-relevant content

The only way to create content that resonates with your audience is to first carry out audience research and come up with topics that will attract them. Then come up with an attractive headline optimized for search engines. 

Your content should be well researched, accurate, thought-provoking, and informative for your audience.

Mom and Dad Money is a great example of a business that’s creating content to attract their audience. They’re a financial service company that helps new parents make financial decisions that will keep them financially secure.

The company has a great blog with good financial advice for parents in every area of life from health insurance and investments, to budgeting and saving for college. 

This content hooks their audience because they learn from these blog posts and apply them in real life. Take a look at the amount of traffic their website got this month:

And while 17k visitors may not look like much to you, it’s a pretty good number for a niche website that has content specifically targeted at an audience.

Step 4. Promote content that will reach your audience 

With the huge amount of content created on a daily basis, you need to promote your content so your audience actually sees it. 

Promoting your content helps you make the most of it, so instead of creating multiple pieces of content every day, you can focus on developing one good piece of content and then repurpose it through promotion.

Remember to use the best promotion tactics for the audience development channel you’ve chosen. Here are different ways you can promote your content to reach your target audience:

I. Hold online contests

Holding online contests where customers can win freebies is another way to get people talking about your brand and grow your audience.

An example of a brand doing this is The Souled Store. 

They held a giveaway with some of their products on Instagram. To enter, users had to like the picture, follow their Instagram page, and tag their friends who remind them of iron man.

This is a free content promotion tactic for them as they got lots of engagement on that post with over 5000 likes, and over 600 comments.

II. Network on social media

You can comment on posts and network with prospective clients using your preferred audience development channels. 

Connecting with your target audience will get you noticed and will drive traffic to your page and website. No wonder 73% of marketers believe in the power of social media.

You can also use paid promotion channels; each social platform has options for sponsored ads, sponsored posts, and targeted or customized ads. 

III. Offer existing customers freebies when they refer your business to others.

When you offer loyal clients freebies for referrals, it makes them a lot more motivated to tell others about you because they know there’s something in it for them.

For example, Scribe Writing, a book publishing company, offers their published authors $2,000 dollars for referring other authors to them. They get the money in cash when the new author signs up to get published with them. 

IV. Google and Facebook ads

Facebook and Google have great ad campaigns your business can take advantage of. 

There are various Facebook ads, but creating a custom audience and targeting lookalike audiences is best for audience development. 

You can upload your email list to Facebook and target them or target lookalike audiences that have the same interests or are of the same age bracket as your customer base.

Erika Volk, a fitness expert, created a Facebook ad advertising her free email course. Her goal was to build her email list, so clicking on the ad took leads to a landing page to register for the email course. The results were amazing — they got 1,892 email subscribers and 11,850 visitors in one month.

V. Create lead magnets to build your email list 

When you promote content and get the attention of your target audience, you need to offer them lead magnets to build your list.

You can create lead magnets like webinars, ebooks, toolkits, YouTube videos, and more to attract new customers to join your email list.

A lead magnet is an incentive or value proposition you offer prospective customers in exchange for their email addresses. It’s a win-win situation because your prospective customer gets value while you get to build your customer base.

For example, MuleSoft — a Salesforce company — offers prospective customers an ebook to help improve their apps. With this, they’re able to get more potential clients to their email list.

Conclusion

Now that you know all about audience development, you can start building your own clique.

Having a brand community will help you build your business, so pay attention and stay connected to them. A large customer base means more profit for you and return customers who stay loyal to your brand and refer you to their network. 

Remember, you can only be remembered when you keep reaching out.