The Kula Ring: Recent Episodes
Kula Partners
In this episode of The Kula Ring, we delve into the challenges and opportunities surrounding trade show marketing for manufacturers. Joined by Jim Beretta, founder of Customer Attraction Inc., they explore the importance of developing effective trade show strategies and measuring ROI. Jim shares insights from his own experiences, highlighting the need for a data-driven approach while balancing the often emotional responses to trade show outcomes. The discussion emphasizes how manufacturers can create long-term value through strategic planning and understanding the broader, non-transactional benefits of trade events.
In this episode, we sit down with John Koehler of KK Tool to discuss the unique challenges of managing a family-run manufacturing business. From the pressure of modernizing marketing efforts to the critical role of recruiting and retaining top talent, John shares his insights on navigating industry consolidation and keeping small businesses competitive. Tune in to hear how family enterprises can adapt and thrive in an ever-evolving industrial landscape, and why communication and a sense of purpose are key to long-term success.
This week on The Kula Ring we are joined by Jay Suggs. Jay has spent a considerable amount of time investigating what makes an effective team. He was the head of Johnson Controls’ diversity and inclusion initiative, and he gives us a look at what it takes to create an inclusive work team where everyone feels supported and brings something unique to the table; assembling the Avengers as he calls it. We look at some high-level aspects as well as diving deep into some of the more difficult parts of being a good leader of people.
Defining an ideal customer and sourcing a target account list to match should be easy, but it isn’t. On this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman discuss how to craft an ideal customer profile (ICP), identify tools that can help, and warn about pitfalls along the way.
In a showcase of the Kula Partners team, Floyd Blaikie, VP of Strategy, explains how manufacturing marketers can benefit from developing a strategy with multi-year goals before getting started with ABM. Then with this roadmap, they can better align with sales to gain early wins. Floyd also provides tips on avoiding common ABM missteps.
In this week’s episode, co-hosts and Kula Partners principals, Jeff White and Carman Pirie, talk about niche orientation marketing. They talk about the Niche Navigator, a model and exercise they created to assess and understand where businesses fall ranging from low to high niche market orientation. Listeners can look forward to learning examples of niche market orientation, learn pitfalls that could impact their marketing strategies and tips to enhance their marketing efforts.
Almost everyone agrees that talking to customers is a good idea, but sometimes manufacturers find that one particular department seems to stand in the way: sales. Salespeople functioning as customer gatekeepers can be a real problem. In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman explore how manufacturers can move past a culture of gatekeeper salespeople towards a future where serving customers is a team sport.
In a world where technology is continually reshaping our industries, the line between human intuition and artificial intelligence remains an important topic. Join us as we explore the evolving landscape of manufacturing marketing, looking at how innovation and AI are redefining the way we connect, create, and communicate. This episode of The Kula Ring with Jarid Hockert reflects on the synergy between tradition and technology, and what it means for the future of our craft.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, we delve into the art of bringing personality to B2B manufacturing marketing. Join us as we explore how authenticity and human touches can transform a brand's presence, making it more relatable and engaging. Our guest shares insights on leveraging social media, maintaining a balance between fun and professionalism, and the importance of strategic, consistent content. Tune in to discover how to unbox the full potential of your B2B marketing strategy.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, we welcome David Starck, Senior Director of Corporate Marketing at ProMach. David shares his unique journey from a background in graphic design and copywriting to leading corporate marketing strategies for a company with over 50 brands. They discuss the challenges and opportunities of managing a diverse portfolio, the creative approaches to marketing in the manufacturing sector, and how ProMach successfully integrates new acquisitions while maintaining a strong brand identity. Tune in to hear about innovative campaigns and strategic insights from one of the industry's leading marketers.Hear our other conversations with ProMach here: https://kulapartners.com/thekularing/troubleshooting-time-tips-for-manufacturing-content-success/https://kulapartners.com/thekularing/a-manufacturing-brand-integration-playbook/
This week The Kula Ring is sitting down with Allison Myers from Fives Intralogistics, she shares her unique insights on transforming complex challenges into clear, actionable strategies. Discover the nuances of modern B2B manufacturing marketing and how you can still use some of the methods marketers used before social media overran our lives.
On the Kula Ring podcast this week, we had the opportunity to speak with Jim Cahill, the Chief Blogger and the Head of Social Marketing at Emerson Automation Solutions. Since 2006, Jim has been cultivating Emerson’s social media presence and digital brand. Over his 33-year career at the company, Jim has witnessed a lot of change in marketing, starting with the introduction of internet marketing in the mid-90s, ‘Web 2.0’, and most recently how the pandemic shook up the marketing industry as a whole. Listen to Jim as he shares his industry knowledge on the best social media tactics that manufacturing marketers can implement to build connections with their audience and create social media content that drives sales.
The Kula Ring this week is digging into digital journey optimization with Jon MacDonald, founder of The Good. Jon shares insights from his extensive experience helping brands like Nike and Xerox improve user experiences and conversions. Discover how understanding consumer psychology and optimizing digital touchpoints can transform your approach to marketing and sales in the manufacturing sector.You can find his new book, Behind the Click, here: thegood.com/behind-the-click/
This week, The Kula Ring is diving into transforming marketing operations with Cory Kniepp, Director of Strategic Planning and Marketing Operations at Nidec Motor Corporation. We look at how industrial manufacturers are leveraging data-driven insights and AI to revolutionize marketing strategies, bridging the gap between B2B and B2C marketing approaches. We explore the journey from traditional marketing services to advanced marketing operations and the pivotal role of technology and AI in those efforts.
This week The Kula Ring returns to the world of packaging. We are talking to Stephen Clysdale a self-proclaimed “packaging nerd” and a man who has his pulse on the recent developments in packaging technology. We break down some of the work that is going into packaging sustainability and the innovations that are around the corner. This is a great conversation that any manufacturer that uses packaging can learn something from.
This week on the show we are talking about bringing an organization up to speed with organizational marketing and sales alignment. We met with Matt Lukens who has brought his wealth of experience from working with larger on-demand manufacturers to Flex Interconnect Technologies to revolutionize their marketing prowess. We discuss the technology that he is implementing as well as the changes to framing and thinking about customer retention and increased revenue.
This week The Kula Ring is featuring Thomas Lewis, a marketing expert with 28 years of experience in the semiconductor industry. Thomas chats with Jeff and Carman about his philosophy on what makes an effective, well-aligned marketing team, making sure that transparent communication and cross-organizational buy-in are achieved and fostered. We get into the nitty-gritty of how he creates this atmosphere and the things to avoid when actioning this plan for your organization.
The Kula Ring is joined by Pierre Tannoux this week. Pierre has worked with some incredible B2B and B2C manufacturing organizations in his career and he sits down with us this week to share some of what he has learned. We talk about big bets, those marketing strategy moves where you put all the chips on the line. We also talk about the pitfalls of pilot programs and how to avoid them. This episode is fantastic and includes The Super Bowl and Carman threatening to make the episode three hours long because he is so excited about what our guest brings to the conversation.
This week The Kula Ring is all about Thought Leadership. We are sitting down with Sean O’Brien who has successfully integrated a thought leadership-backed marketing strategy at his highly specialized industrial manufacturing company. We discuss a myriad of ways to distribute this type of work and how to develop the key people within your firm to be excellent examples of thought leaders.
This week on The Kula Ring, we’re exploring how culture influences the marketing strategies of international brands. Sandra Babic joins us to share some of her experience transitioning from Germany to start marketing a German brand here in North America. We discuss the differences in sustainability, messaging and relationship building. Finally, we discuss the regionality that exists here in the U.S. and Canada, these incredibly large nations.
This week The Kula Ring is talking with Jillian Childs of Turntide Technologies. Jillian walks us through the intricacies of marketing a sustainability-driven startup. We discuss how much of the marketing effort comes down to education and its inherently circular nature. We also look at the similarities and differences between a startup of this nature and some of her previous work with luxury brands.
The Kula Ring is turning its focus to internal communications this week. We are sitting down with the great Tom Kehoe. Tom has brought a collection of expertise from his varied career in marketing and production to the internal comms team at his organization which has fostered growth, greater alignment and transparency across the enterprise. Tom walks us through the birth of some of these initiatives and how being proactive in your problem-solving is key to success.
On this episode of our show, we are chatting with Jennifer Sunshine. Jennifer brings her varied and impressive background to The Kula Ring to discuss the imperative need for sales and marketing alignment to produce results. We talk about how these teams see leads and opportunities and bring those visions together to create more effective marketing and greater sales velocity.
Abby Guo joins The Kula Ring this week to discuss how she has created global marketing strategies for highly technical AI-driven products. We talk about setting yourself apart in the world of AI-driven startups. We also chat about staying at the forefront of technological changes and how important that is. This is an illuminating conversation featuring a topic that has everyone buzzing, AI.
Wayne Thompson of Pineberry Manufacturing joins the show this week to discuss the increased engagement they have garnered through closer collaboration and partnerships with their suppliers and adjacent businesses. We break down how to get started with an initiative like this and some of the pitfalls to avoid.
Andy Jensen of Sunstone Engineering joins the show this week to talk about a really interesting marketing case study. Sunstone marketed to almost exclusively engineers in verticals like aerospace and electronics. Then, a couple of years ago, an unheard-of order for small light-duty welders came through from one of their dealers, then another, and another. Overnight Sunstone was thrust into an emerging market. Production and marketing at Sunstone had to pivot and pivot fast. Andy walks us through the changes that have taken place at Sunstone and how they have managed this rapid, unexpected growth.
Herbert Staten Jr. joins The Kula Ring this week to talk about highlighting the beauty of the product you manufacture. Herbert discusses how he considers emotion and personal engagement when developing marketing strategies in industrial manufacturing. We also discuss the potential for vertical differentiation in social media platforms. This fantastic chat offers a refreshing approach to industrial B2B marketing.
In this episode, we sit down with Zak Nelson. Zak talks with us about ArKco Sales’ move to having an in-house marketing asset. ArKco saw that the landscape for manufacturing sales rep companies is changing. Zak is ArKco’s answer to this evolving situation. He walks us through the changes they have implemented and how their sales reps have taken to having new branding and collateral. This is a great episode to see how you can utilize new marketing strategies in any field.
Kimberly Day is on our show this week talking about how she moved Finish Thompson, a family-run company, from advertising in trade publications to more of a brand focus, a decision that has fostered growth and recognition in just seven months. Kimberly brings insights from a broad career in many marketing and communication verticals. Finish Thompson is a highly technical, engineering-focused brand that Kimberly is making accessible to all who may need to employ their pumps and services.
Neelam Kumar joins The Kula Ring to discuss the strength in value selling. Neelam is an advocate and evangelist of value selling and brings a wealth of knowledge to this week's episode of The Kula Ring. We discuss the need for relationship building, both internally, between departments and externally, with our customers. We also look at asking the right questions, and discovering how to dig into what provides value to the customer or prospect.
John Patrin joins us to discuss innovation within your organization. For the last five years, John was the head of innovation at DuPont, where he oversaw continued innovation in a Fortune 100 company already known for innovating. We discuss the incremental product innovations that most companies pursue while also getting a glimpse at larger-scale innovations that can affect business models and service offerings.
Robby Berthume, Head of Marketing at Digitize Designs is on the show this week. Robby shares some of the expertise that he has honed throughout his varied career. We talk about the need for implementing good measurement through strong metrics to ensure your marketing efforts are effective. He also shares some good advice on staying excited and keeping some personality in your corporate brand.
So, you are a rockstar marketer (obviously) and you have increased incoming leads in a major way. What now? How do you manage that growth, that success? Brian Critchfield of Airgain is on the show this week giving us some insight into managing phenomenal growth (like 12x growth). We talk about helping the sales team with new leads at different stages of the funnel. Managing the huge uptick in data to sift through. And, how to keep everyone on the team engaged and driving the common goal forward.
Sherry Chapman the VP of Marketing at Fortera, joins The Kula Ring this week. Sherry illuminates what Fortera, a green cement start-up, is working on; Building partnerships with counterparts in the industry, and drawing new road maps for economic development, for products that are yet to hit the market. This is a fantastic chat about green industry.
Scott Vosburgh joins The Kula Ring this week to discuss how Sierra Olympia Technologies is facing down much larger competition. Through marketing products that the competition isn’t. Ensuring their online presence is as clean and high-performing as possible. While also keeping an eye on where the big guns in the space are ranking and finding success in online markets to capitalize for themselves.
Jim Lauria is here to talk about some strategies that have worked well for him and Mazzei around content creation and marketing. Adding value to not only his own company but to Mazzei’s partners as well. Jim brings a ton of knowledge and experience on what content looks like done right, and how an AI will never replace the human touch.
Jake Jevric joins The Kula Ring this week to discuss how deep relationships and technical know-how are incredibly important in industries where customers have options when it comes to picking suppliers. We get into what it takes to be a leader in technical sales and marketing. We also get into how both a top-down and bottom-up approach can be employed to ensure a unified customer experience.
Many aspects of our lives changed in the COVID era. B2B marketing was no different. This week we sat down with Nick Baranowski from Keystone Technologies to discuss how the pandemic era solutions have fueled huge success with mobile showrooms that now tour the US all year. This is a super cool idea and Nick shares some of the successes and pitfalls to avoid.
Lauren Scott of Acuity Brands and host of The Resilience Report is on the show this week giving us some significant insights into how the landscape of sustainability is evolving. We cover the new regulations and guidelines that are coming into effect as well as the need to ditch greenwashing and get into the real impact that our sustainable practices are having. Plus, Lauren sneaks in a nod to Arnold Schwarzenegger in the episode, not an easy feat! Lauren is immensely knowledgeable in this field, you are going to want a pen and paper close by for this one.
Manufacturing marketers can face a lot of pressure to do more. Include more. Say more. Sometimes it seems like the favourite word in marketing is “and’... there’s always an excuse to add this, and that, and this thing too, and.. well, you get it. In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman discuss why you should often choose to do less.
This week we are going guestless! Jeff and Carman sat down to have a conversation around the B2B effectiveness ladder and how that translates into creating a Big Long Idea. Sorting out how B2B manufacturers with long sales cycles and intricate offerings can build an idea that will inform their marketing for years to come, not quarters. This is a super informative conversation where we dive deep into successes and pitfalls.
Over the Holiday season, The Kula Ring is bringing you a few conversations between Jeff and Carman, the hosts of The Kula Ring and founders at Kula Partners. Agile Project Management is not something that typically comes to mind when discussing marketing. But, when clients discover that is how we manage marketing work at Kula Partners, Jeff and Carman often find themselves answering curious questions about it. In this episode of The Kula Ring, we discuss what Agile is and share how our experience can help manufacturing marketers weigh the benefits and barriers of implementing the project management style. Please enjoy and Happy Holidays!
This week The Kula Ring is looking into something that a lot of manufacturing marketers think is a bad word: commoditization. Matthew Seymour of Hyperion Materials & Technologies is joining us this week to breakdown how he has tackled this issue. We get into a few tactics that have proven fruitful for Hyperion in dealing with a post-commodity world. We look at capitalizing on your value added products while still addressing buyers who are increasingly used to a commodity buying experience.
This week on The Kula Ring, we pulled up a comfy chair with Evan Hargreaves to discuss the changing landscape in the office furniture industry. With so much of the workforce remaining hybrid or at home full time, the B2B furniture space looks a lot different than it has in the past. Evan walks us through how MillerKnoll is handling this new challenge and how they are adopting some inspiration from the sporting goods space to support their efforts. This episode is best enjoyed in a very nice chair.
Adam Fray, the Senior Director of Global Marketing at Packsize, is on the show this week. We had a chat about challenging the status quo. Packsize offers a new way to think about sustainable packaging and packaging efficiencies. That offering means they are combatting the ‘this is how we have always done it’ mentality. Furthermore, Packsize has recently changed how the marketing department exists within the organization. These two ways of challenging ‘the way it is’ mentality, combine to make an enlightening conversation about change. Plus, Carman becomes a therapist for a minute. What more could you ask for?
The Kula Ring has discussed staffing issues in B2B manufacturing quite a few times now. However, this week we are sitting down with Hallie Haupt from IQ Manufacturing, she walks us through what it really looks and feels like to be a young person in the B2B manufacturing space. She shares some insight on how IQ has been able to catch some fresh, young talent on their shop floor and some of the difficulties of dealing with some of that older workforce that is so prevalent in the manufacturing space.
Taylor Smith of PSNERGY is on the show this week having a chat with us about getting the next steps that manufacturing can take. We cover the harmonious nature of how sales and marketing can work together in the future. And also tackle some methods to get the youth of today and beyond invested in manufacturing in general. Taylor is a wonderful voice in the space and is bringing some fresh perspectives to us on The Kula Ring this week. Plus, we talk about bowling! Jeff and Carman tell us just how much they know about bowling, which isn’t a lot.
Jonathan Quinn from Accredo Packaging is on the show this week talking with us about packaging, sustainable packaging. We peel back the layers, as Carman says, on some of the challenges around being sustainable in an industry that is so front and center in the conversation around sustainable practices. Jonathan is a super knowledgeable guy who has been around packaging for, quite literally, his whole life. He has talked to lawmakers and focussed on what consumers truly hold dear. This episode is jam packed with information.
This week on The Kula Ring, we are having a chat with Chris Moody from Demandbase. We talk about a lot of stuff! Chris is very knowledgeable in the ABM space and walks us through some of the tools that we can use to get more out of our ABM efforts. If this episode is something you are into and you want to hear more exactly like it, you can catch these three having another chat on Demandbase’s SunnySide Up podcast!
We are pleased to republish this episode with Allison Wagner. The topic is even more present for a lot of manufacturers.| Video marketing is not new, but many B2B manufacturers are still searching for a strategy. In this episode of The Kula Ring, Allison Wagner, Marketing Communications Manager at Morrison Container Handling Solutions, shares how she helped make video the company’s biggest marketing tool. She talks about the resourcing effort, why video is important for manufacturers to invest in, and how Morrison leverages video content to help prospects envision how to use their solution.
On The Kula Ring we love a niche market. The varied and interesting challenges that marketers face in these highly specialized markets never ceases to amaze. This week we are joined by one such marketer. Mike McCormack is the VP of Marketing and Strategy with the Appleton Group, a division of Emerson. Mike and his team market to customers that are secluded, both physically and technologically; within business infrastructures where internet connectivity may not be allowed for safety. It is an exciting conversation with unique hurdles that Mike and Appleton have had to overcome. You have internet though, because you’re reading this. So get listening, you won’t be disappointed.
This week on The Kula Ring we are joined by Jay Suggs. Jay has spent a considerable amount of time investigating what makes an effective team. He was the head of Johnson Controls’ diversity and inclusion initiative, and he gives us a look at what it takes to create an inclusive work team where everyone feels supported and brings something unique to the table; assembling the Avengers as he calls it. We look at some high level aspects as well as diving deep into some of the more difficult parts of being a good leader of people.
So we do stuff digital now, that probably isn’t news to you. But, what if your ICP isn’t sitting at a screen all day? How do we make sure that the marketing content we are creating is going to get in front of them and be effective when it is? Jon Star of Methods Machine Tools tackles this problem head on. Method’s buyer persona is, more often than not, an operator or technician that isn’t stuck at a desk all day. So Jon has put considerable effort into making sure that their marketing efforts are effective to someone on the move. This is a great chat that covers data backed marketing and eventually the virtues of executive comms. Go ahead, press play.
Like many B2B manufacturers, ARCA sells to a small number of very specific niche markets. Targeting a small list of banks and credit unions who could benefit from ARCA's cash automation and recycling solutions, their marketing team crafted highly personalized one-to-one account-based marketing campaigns and successfully generated awareness and opportunities within key accounts. Learn how ARCA successfully piloted ABM on this week's episode of The Kula Ring podcast.
The Kula Ring is back! This week we have the distinct pleasure of talking with Floyd Blaikie. Floyd is the Director of Strategy here at Kula Partners. She has been working on literally writing the playbook on Google Ads recently and we took this opportunity to sit down with her and pick her brain on the nuance of this ubiquitous medium. We cover some of the pitfalls that B2B Manufacturers face in a PPC system that is biased toward B2C with shorter sales cycles than most manufacturers are accustomed to. You are going to want a notebook for this one.
The Summer Spotlight Series is back. We are going to be taking a second look at a great chat with David A. Stark: Legacy manufacturers that previously dominated their verticals now have to contend with new entrants who know how to create focused messaging in digital spaces. In this episode of The Kula Ring, David A. Stark, Digital Marketing Transformation Growth Leader, talks about the value of shifting from a tactical to a strategic digital marketing strategy as competition increases, and how to bolster branding with a strong digital presence in order to reach prospects.
In this week’s episode of The Summer Spotlight Series, we look back on our conversation with Ashley Riley. We talked about the power of process and alignment, specifically referencing the RACI setup to keep team members informed and accountable on where they fit into the organization. She dove deeper to talk about how she kept her workforce connected through the power of technology, process automation, and systems to give her team the tools they need to thrive.
Sales and marketing alignment is huge, and historically, sales and marketing haven’t been best friends. Steven Nghe, Head of Marketing and Communications at Kloeckner Metals, discusses when Kloeckner Metals realized that sales and marketing had changed, and they needed to change with it. He discusses the digitalization of more multidimensional and complex marketing practices that need to be enhanced for sales and marketing to make selling manufacturing more efficient. He also discusses how he gained trust from VPs on marketing being a worthwhile investment by exposing what marketing really is.
Using asymmetric marketing can help you stay agile in a highly competitive market, says David Koerner, the VP of Global Marketing for 75F. He and his team have found success by applying an asymmetric lens to their marketing efforts to attract and convert their customers. David believes that marketers need to think outside the box—he talks about examples from Burger King, Five Guys, and Southwest Airlines, where they targeted their audiences in unconventional ways to stay ahead of the competition. Hear more from David Koerner on this episode of The Kula Ring.
This week on the Summer Spotlight Series we are digging into data and exploring technology to undercover insights in your organization. We are featuring Ryan Knox, Co-founder of Bridge Digital explores the use of digital tools to create efficiency in all areas of an organization from IT, Marketing, Sales, and more. He discusses the benefits of extracting data vs. using specific tools to help organizations get results that helps them do their job better and the importance of creating excitement for internal change when implementing new technologies. Give this one a listen, it was great the first time and it is great this time!
This week on the Summer Spotlight Series, We are looking back on our conversation with Paul Dailey. While Paul was at Outback Power he was at the helm of transitioning to new technologies and growing their available market. Paul shares some fantastic insight on marketing in a growing industry and establishing a value proposition as customers' options expand. This was a great chat and we are so pleased to bring it back to our listeners.
Matt Canter, our latest guest on The Kula Ring, dives into the objectives and key results methodology he and his team are applying to their marketing strategies to target and grow Greenfield Global’s four main pillars: customer experience, retention, acquisition, and brand positioning. Matt has a diverse work background with unique experiences in several industries including sports marketing, cannabis, and luxury travel. He’s currently the Director of Marketing at one of America’s largest ethanol producers, packagers, and distributors—Greenfield Global. Listeners will learn how Matt uses automation and efficient systems paired with a deep organizational alignment to achieve Greenfield Globals’s marketing objectives.
When word-of-mouth is how your product is marketed the most, what are the keys to influencing the messaging among peers? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Matt Fiddes, Founder and CMO of Agility Technologies, explains how they develop their products with the specific needs of their rescue worker customer base in mind. With their FIRSTLOOK brand, they build relationships to introduce the product at all levels in the rescue industry including trainers, influencers, users, and the public tax-paying community. He also describes the importance of customer service to gain a competitive advantage in the first responder community.
We got a chance to chat with Ashlei Urwiller from Norland International this week on the show. Which led to a few first on The Kula Ring! Ashlei and Norland are doing some interesting work in their marketing efforts that include broadening what their customers can do. We also talked about how Norland puts their own products to work for themselves, leading to a fantastic understanding of what their customers need in the field. This is a good one folks!
Kicking off the Summer Spotlight Series, we are going to feature Meaghan Ziemba. Her voice and presence is top tier, we loved talking to her then and are so happy to have her leading the charge in the Summer Spotlight Series. | Mavens of Manufacturing host Meaghan Ziemba started the live video broadcast series to help close the gender and skills gap in the manufacturing industry. The show is a place for women in the male-dominated industry to share their stories and support one another, as well as offer mentorship for women at the start of their careers. The Mavens community also works with the education system in the US to better inform young women and girls about manufacturing or engineering career pathways.
Mike Donley of Setco joined us on the show this week. We talked about intensely precise machinery and how He and Setco are developing conversations about keeping them very precise for a very long time. Can education around handling and caring for your parts to get the maximum life out of them create sales opportunities? We conclude, yeah, it can! We also chat about diversifying content through video production. And, Jeff gets to complain about audio quality (his favourite).
This week on the show we are talking to Stephanie Austin from Zentech Manufacturing. She has just begun a journey of illuminating the manufacturing world to those outside of it. Through talking to people on the manufacturing floor she is telling the story of modern manufacturing for prospective employees and customers alike. This is a cool approach and we are lucky enough to be a part of the conversation early.
This week on The Kula Ring we got a chance to sit down with Lori Raymond. Lori is the CEO of Tourmaline Enterprises, a thermal inkjet printer manufacturer in California. We discussed tiered marketing strategies. Creating messaging for process engineers, distributors, and consumers alike. Additionally, Lori shared stories from her experience of being a female CEO in a historically male dominated field. This is an insightful episode, why are you still reading!? Start listening.
Marketers talk about building brand awareness, getting seen, being known. What if your brand is known the world over, but you have the task of introducing it in the Americas? Eric Graham is on the show this week discussing how he is doing that with Seeley. An Australian brand that is ubiquitous everywhere that isn’t the Americas. We discuss how he is leveraging solidified brand and marketing strategies to replicate global success in an emerging market. Plus, we talk about wine, what’s better than that?
Andrew DeDonker is on the show this week sharing how RAM Mounts has developed their marketing team and strategy. They have an in-house agency covering B2B and B2C. We breakdown how they take advantage of their brand recognition on the consumer side to fuel their B2B marketing efforts. Come on by and learn a thing or two about how to synergize your team and your marketing streams, we sure did!
Oh man, this week we cover something near and dear to Kula’s heart. We are discussing ABM and ABX with Jessica Woodside of WIKA this week. We dive deep into the nuts and bolts of embarking on the journey to an account based strategy and how to avoid some of the pitfalls. This episode is so packed with information we suggest taking notes (or reading the full transcript on our website). Don’t miss this one gang!
Personal brand is becoming more ubiquitous in the social media age. But, what if your market is incredibly niche and doesn’t have a lot of public facing content currently? How do you leverage a personal brand in that circumstance? Kyle Kruse of Global Interconnect is on the show this week discussing how to create and leverage a personal brand in just that situation. Developing conversations and excitement around the Medtech industry. Get on your brand game!
The desire to grow and diversify is obviously fairly universal for marketers. The question is how do we break into a new vertical? John Buglino is on the show this week discussing just that. We discuss how he and Optessa are trying to write the stories about new verticals that tell their customers and partners what Optessa can offer them. As well as an ingenious way to use the trust system we have developed with our partners. What are you waiting for? The play button is right there!
This week we are going guest less! Jeff and Carman sat down to have a conversation around the B2B effectiveness ladder and how that translates into creating a Big Long Idea. Sorting out how B2B manufacturers with long sales cycles and intricate offerings can build an idea that will inform their marketing for years to come, not quarters. This is a super informative conversation where we dive deep into successes and pitfalls.
As marketers we are always looking to enable today’s sales. What about the sales of the future? How will the market change? Can we be ready for the next step before it comes? Allen Rozon has put considerable effort into what that looks like for ELTEC. From environmentally sound fluids for their machines to what sales might look like in the high tech future we are all destined for. He is going to share some of his experience and findings with us this week.
Some industries are new, some are old. How do you marry the idea of new and old? John Hays is on The Kula Ring this week discussing just that. John and Banjo are revolutionizing how they communicate with their clients in the AG industry. John is a true professional and a man who thinks outside the box. Enough explanation, get in here and hear it from the man himself.
Too often in life we are told we can choose one. This or that. But what if we could do away with that? Charles Lubecke and Q-Railing are doing just that, with messaging tailored to one area of the market that doesn’t leave the other areas behind. He shares some of his experience in creating messaging that is inclusive of the very different professionals that will engage with it.
Sustainability is high on the agenda for a growing number of companies and individuals. Casey Jefson and PolyCore are doing some exciting work around sustainable practices and marketing. Casey gives us a glimpse and a helping hand on how to capitalize on the environmental work you are already doing.
The title is quite literal. This week The Kula Ring is talking to Ribal Btaddini and Eric Hyland from Legrand. Who have just launched (pun intended) a marketing campaign around sending a rocket space bound. However, who doesn’t get excited about space!? We are diving deep into the value of trackable, tangible ROI’s vs. the emotional, exciting ones. It is a lofty episode, that’s for sure.
Everyone wants that new thing. What we need however, is someone to build the new thing. That is what keeps Mike Nager of Festo Didactic up at night, making sure the manufacturing workforce of tomorrow is bolstered. Mike is on the show this week discussing how he is trying to ensure that manufacturing jobs stay relevant, in a world of so much competition. You may be surprised to find out that the marketing department could and should play a big role in this.
So, you are a rockstar marketer (obviously) and you have increased incoming leads in a major way. What now? How do you manage that growth, that success? Brian Critchfield of Airgain is on the show this week giving us some insight into managing phenomenal growth (like 12x growth). We talk about helping the sales team with new leads at different stages of the funnel. Managing the huge uptick in data to sift through. And, how to keep everyone on the team engaged and driving the common goal forward.
So many marketers are battling behemoth competition in their industries. So how does David arm themselves against Goliath? Amy Cooper of Atlas Carbon has found some particularly excellent stones to put in your sling. Amy works in an industry that is heavily influenced by regulation and legislation, meaning the competition is deeply entrenched. Still she has found a way to ensure her and Atlas Carbon can carve out their fair share (and maybe a little more), this week on The Kula Ring.
This week Lewis Simms extols the virtues of creating a simple message. Finding a pain point in your potential customer’s life and solving it is one thing, finding a way to concisely express that is another one entirely. Lewis walks us through what that looks like in a world known for being intricate and inaccessible to the uninitiated, 3D Printing.
The connection can’t be missed on this one! Funnel, water, see that? Jim Lauria is here to talk about some strategies that have worked well for him and Mazzei around content creation and marketing. Adding value to not only his own company but to Mazzei’s partners as well. Jim brings a ton of knowledge and experience on what content looks like done right, and how an AI will never replace the human touch.
We have all caught ourselves thinking about what the world has become, or what comes next for us. This week we are talking to Peter Hedger, who has put some concerted effort into understanding this conundrum. As a B2B manufacturing marketer he has some key insights into what might be coming next for us marketers. In a world saturated with social media and pandemic fallout Peter thinks community is going to be more important than ever.
As marketers, the conversation invariably comes up: “what do you actually do?” Sometimes, that conversation leads to non-marketers putting in their two-cents on the process. Suzi McNicholas, Director of Marketing and Transformation at Johnson Controls, tells us that this is because everyone is a consumer of something and has been marketed to at some point. In this episode, Suzi helps explain what makes B2B marketing in a manufacturing context unique.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Kevin Summ gives us a peek into marketing a niche, high-value product with a lengthy sales cycle. From multinational hurdles to the ubiquitous love of stickers, we get into the nitty-gritty of how Anguil Environmental stays a partner to their clients. Kevin also discusses the diminishing presence of email and print strategies in their field.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Sylvain Marseille, VP of Marketing and New Product Development at Pelton Shepherd shares why understanding the pain points along a customer’s whole supply chain is essential when innovating a new sustainable product. He discusses the importance of a long term vision when it comes to developing sustainable products and why your actions should be driven by what the customer needs to build a stronger brand.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Justin Rinaldi from Safety Speed Manufacturing discusses the impact of switching from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4, how to help ease that transition, and ways to adapt to increased privacy regulations.
BALYO is a global manufacturer of autonomous robotic forklifts. In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman sit down with BALYO’s Global Marketing Director, Rob Patey, to discuss what makes marketing in manufacturing unique. They also talk about the challenges of digital marketing for manufacturing companies, the best way to find and reach customers online, and what sets BALYO apart.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman talk with Murray Bain, VP of Marketing for Stanpac, about implementing ecommerce to enhance their customer service and effectively manage orders of all sizes. They also discuss how this has resulted in continuous sales growth from online sales.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Ellsworth Adhesives Marketing & Digital Experience Manager Jas Kaur talks about how her background in design thinking has helped her lead her organization toward a more human-centric approach to B2B. Her “business to everything” philosophy is guiding a tightly integrated marketing and digital team’s efforts in making their customers’ buying process fast, efficient, and intuitive.
Jon LaPorta, Vice President, Marketing, describes to Carman and Jeff how he has helped transform the marketing at Pfannenberg USA—the American arm of a German-owned manufacturer. Jon’s team works locally in order to appeal to the US market. Although they continue to align with headquarters on content and branding, this has allowed them to implement marketing automation, create their own website, and simplify their messaging.
Alex Lovdahl, Digital Experience Manager at Brandt, talks with Jeff and Carman on The Kula Ring about getting leadership’s buy-in for digital marketing initiatives by using results to demonstrate their effectiveness.
eCommerce expert, Curt Anderson from B2Btail, discusses common challenges manufacturers face when it comes to launching an online store, how to best overcome those challenges to boost online sales, and why certain manufacturers can gain a competitive advantage by simply selling online.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman talk with Tim Bay, Head of Digital Marketing at Fellowes Brands, about how manufacturers can use customer feedback to improve their marketing, approaches to introducing brand new products to the marketplace, and the benefits of working for a 100 year-old family-owned business.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman chat with Ross Simmonds, Digital Marketer, Speaker, and Entrepreneur who specializes in B2B. They discuss B2B topics including the heartbeat of SEO, the viability of Facebook for B2B, and the threat of Amazon. They also talk about how providing value is key to engaging your B2B prospects online, no matter what the platform.
Sarah Carson from packaging design and manufacturing company, Rohrer, talks about bringing together marketing and sales teams from two organizations, building in-house capabilities, and her approach to creating powerful sales enablement content.
For manufacturers optimizing marketing and sales processes to drive revenue performance, there's one rule that stands out above all others. In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman dissect the Golden Rule of sales and marketing optimization while highlighting several illustrative examples.
Defining an ideal customer and sourcing a target account list to match should be easy, but it isn't. On this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman discuss how to craft an ideal customer profile (ICP), identify tools that can help, and warn about pitfalls along the way.
It doesn’t matter if you call it a niche or a nitch, how big yours is will determine your best next marketing moves. In this episode of the Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman explore examples of B2B manufacturers with large, almost B2C-style niches driving results by getting closer to end user customers.
Mavens of Manufacturing host Meaghan Ziemba started the live video broadcast series to help close the gender and skills gap in the manufacturing industry. The show is a place for women in the male-dominated industry to share their stories and support one another, as well as offer mentorship for women at the start of their careers. The Mavens community also works with the education system in the US to better inform young women and girls about manufacturing or engineering career pathways.
CJ Brey, the Director of Sales and Marketing at CNC Tooling Management and Application firm PF Markey, discusses the merits of the ‘in-person’ or ‘face-to-face’ approach to generating leads and maintaining client relationships in the manufacturing industry. When the push to virtual came alongside the pandemic, the digital approach to lead generation and sales became commonplace; but now, as in-person events are resuming, those same digital-only approaches are falling flat. Listen to CJ explain what can’t be replicated from a purely virtual interaction, why the right approach to customer service may be a combination of both digital and in-person, and why he ultimately thinks there will be a shift toward more in-person sales and marketing for B2B manufacturers.
On this week’s episode of The Kula Ring, Greg Paulsen, Director of Applications Engineering and Marketing at Xometry, gives insight into his formula for success when it comes to creating technical content for a B2B audience. Rather than focusing on the question of ‘what is,’ high-quality technical content that resonates should be centered around the question of ‘why’—why it benefits the customer, or why it matters to the industry at large. Listen to the episode to hear Greg talk about how understanding the ‘why’ comes through having been there himself; or in other words, through having empathy.
Manufacturing marketers can face a lot of pressure to do more. Include more. Say more. Sometimes it seems like the favourite word in marketing is “and’... there’s always an excuse to add this, and that, and this thing too, and.. well, you get it. In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman discuss why you should often choose to do less.
Understand your customers better by humanizing your marketing approach. This is what Cindy Deekitwong, the Global Head of Marketing, Incubator Business, at Henkel Adhesive Technologies believes. In this week’s episode of The Kula Ring, Cindy talks about how she and her team use a customer-first marketing approach, which she calls B4E - Business for Everyone.
Agile Project Management is not something that typically comes to mind when discussing marketing. But, when clients discover that is how we manage marketing work at Kula Partners, Jeff and Carman often find themselves answering curious questions about it. In this episode of The Kula Ring, we discuss what Agile is and share how our experience can help manufacturing marketers weigh the benefits and barriers of implementing the project management style.
What does a marketing world look like where account-based marketing and privacy legislation can co-exist in harmony? We are not sure yet, but we can prepare by delivering high-quality content that target accounts will opt-in to receive. Of course, that is a simplification of the situation. Jeff White and Carman Pirie dive into the details of the imminent collision of these two trends on our 200th episode of The Kula Ring. From cookies to content-gating—learn how you can prepare when you listen to this podcast.
The stats around video consumption grow exponentially each year. To what extent should manufacturing marketers care about that? Everyone seems to agree that producing video content should happen and is easier than ever, but taking the plunge feels overwhelming to the point where it doesn’t get done. On this week’s episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff Long, Owner of True Focus Media, shares his approach to developing and distributing industrial marketing video content.
We don’t have a crystal ball to predict the future, but we can foresee a wave of economic changes. From inflationary pressures and workforce shortages to living with COVID and a looming recession, these factors all have an impact on how manufacturing marketers are approaching their strategy. In this week’s episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman predict how marketers in the manufacturing industry will adapt.
Are personas too popular? In this edition of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman examine the evolution of buyer personas and their usefulness to B2B manufacturers. How helpful are they anyway? How could they be better? What other approaches might manufacturing marketers use instead? All this and more in Episode 197. We think you're going to love it.
Sustainability is a corporate-led initiative, but marketers are often the ones refining the messaging to resonate with customers. In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman discuss the common pitfalls of sustainability messaging that will either get it lost in the competitive shuffle or be ignored by the sales team. We also explore how to overcome those challenges so that internal and external stakeholders understand how your sustainability initiatives impact them.
Almost everyone agrees that talking to customers is a good idea, but sometimes manufacturers find that one particular department seems to stand in the way: sales. Salespeople functioning as customer gatekeepers can be a real problem. In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman explore how manufacturers can move past a culture of gatekeeper salespeople towards a future where serving customers is a team sport.
Thinking outside the box and getting weird is what today’s guest is all about. Eddie Saunders, Marketing Manager for FlexArm, a division of Flex Machine Tools, discusses his cutting-edge marketing strategies to get Flex Machine Tools noticed by the right people. He explains his cross-platform approach and discusses his use of video-based social media platforms including YouTube and TikTok. He dives deep into building relationships with influencers to add value to his products online presence.
In today’s episode, we chatted with Cynthia Kellam, Global Senior Director, Digital, Data and Customer Experience Center of Excellence at TE Connectivity, again to discuss how collecting and using digital data can create better customer experiences. She explains their journey of building a better Voice of Customer system to help all business units in TE Connectivity make customer-focused decisions. Cynthia explains how she avoids survey fatigue, uses automation techniques, and visualizes data for actionable success.
Solving your customers' problems and creating a product they’ll want to purchase is at the forefront of all research and development departments. In today’s episode, Chris Witt, Vice President and General Manager of Portfolio Solutions at Tektronix, sits down with us to review his funnel approach to innovation and how it drives the process of developing the right products for his market. He explores how they understand their customers' problems to approach the launch of their refined disruptive products.
Digging into data and exploring technology to undercover insights in your organization is vital to operations efficiency. Ryan Knox, Co-founder of Bridge Digital explores the use of digital tools to create efficiency in all areas of an organization from IT, Marketing, Sales, and more. He discusses the benefits of extracting data vs. using specific tools to help organizations get results that helps them do their job better and the importance of creating excitement for internal change when implementing new technologies.
Customer experience can define how your product is sold online. Mike Powers, Director of eCommerce and Digital at Alaska Rubber Group, explains how organizations can identify platforms for B2B functionality to make the customer research and buying experience a positive one. He explains the importance behind product data in online listings and how it correlates with more revenue in distribution channels. Mike Powers reveals how companies can incorporate strategy in eCommerce for their potential customers to discover product information for themselves.
Paying attention to how your product is sold online is only the starting point to creating a positive customer experience for E-commerce shoppers. Jacki Lutz, Head of Communications, Training and E-commerce, Aftermarket, at Sensata Technologies, explores the marketing strategy her team uses to develop messaging that resonates with customers across all E-commerce platforms. She reveals why helping customers sell Sensata products and upholding Sensata’s reputation for customer experience is important to her team.
Getting outside your comfort zone takes strategy and today’s guest is a pro at doing just that. Bob Lennon, Co-owner and President of ThermalWood Canada explains how he uses indirect marketing strategies to connect with people and create a digital footprint. He provides examples of product storytelling and marketing strategies to get your company recognition and its values exposed.
Flexfab is an industrial B2B manufacturer who designs and manufactures highly-engineered products in a wide variety of materials and designs for the aerospace, automotive, rail, and heavy-duty truck industries. In this episode of The Kula Ring, Ryan Knox, Director of Marketing & Innovation at Flexfab, talks about the company’s initiative to connect innovative startups with industrial companies to leverage emerging technologies within their manufacturing processes. Ryan talks about how Flexfab draws on existing relationships and industry connections to establish new revenue streams and foster innovation within industrial industries that are often overlooked.
When word-of-mouth is how your product is marketed the most, what are the keys to influencing the messaging among peers? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Matt Fiddes, Founder and CMO of Agility Technologies, explains how they develop their products with the specific needs of their rescue worker customer base in mind. With their FIRSTLOOK brand, they build relationships to introduce the product at all levels in the rescue industry including trainers, influencers, users, and the public tax-paying community. He also describes the importance of customer service to gain a competitive advantage in the first responder community.
Marketing to solve problems for your customers is the highlight from today’s episode. Kristi Flores, Vice-President and Chief Marketing Officer at Tektronix, explores how she uses marketing strategies to understand her customers' challenges and create customer connections. She explains why customer obsession is one of Tektronik’s core values. By understanding which digital marketing strategies to employ, Kristi is able to create lasting customer relationships and engagement.
Website transformations have helped manufacturers get more products online and seen by potential customers, but how do you form a lasting online presence with customers in 2022? Adam Krumbein, Marketing Director at Outward, shares his marketing expertise with us in today’s episode discussing how manufacturers can benefit from using E-commerce. We explore the advantages of connecting to your customers through E-commerce to elevate your brand and product awareness. Adam shares how E-commerce can help to differentiate your products from the competition and transform your marketing strategy.
Building a storytelling program takes time and patience for an organization to understand their purpose and brand. In today’s episode we welcome back Kristin Fallon, Vice President of Brand and Digital Marketing at GE Healthcare. Kristin walks us through the planning process behind a captivating and long-term storytelling program and her experience working in the healthcare industry during COVID. She provides details on how manufacturers can create their own storytelling program with marketing and strategy tools including templates and a storytelling wrangler.
Growing your marketing team means new strategies and most often, new skills. Mike Zimm, VP of Marketing at Kris-Tech Wire talks about his experience working on both agency and in-house sides of marketing by examining their key differences. He explores how to think through the process of choosing which marketing support will be beneficial to your organization's goals and teams long-term. Explore the top questions and qualities Mike Zimm recommends you ask your team internally before you partner with a marketing agency.
Marketing is critical for your customers to understand the value of choosing your product. In this week’s episode, Syndi Sim, VP of Marketing and Business Development at Diamon-Fusion International, Inc., discusses how she supports her customers with marketing agency services and end-user support to help their customers thrive. Learn the importance of customer marketing, product education, and customer monitoring and engagement to help transform your customer relationships.
As online education becomes the norm and companies like Google no longer require a degree as a job prerequisite, what will educating the manufacturing workforce look like beyond 2020? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Mike Nager, Business Development Manager for the Festo Didactic Solution Center, talks about the role of niche technical education in providing hands-on training for manufacturing technologies and how Festo Didactic is adapting its strategy into the digital space after the pandemic.
How can manufacturers with various product portfolios gained from mergers and acquisitions ensure their products are discoverable both on their website and third party domains? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Cynthia Kellam, Global Head of Digital & Enterprise Customer Experience at TE Connectivity, shares how customer experience research led her team to standardize product data in order to improve organic searchability.
How can manufacturers better serve customers of various sizes? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Melanie Virreira, Director of Global Commercial Enablement at Ball Corporation, talks about how her team created a digital self-service portal for multiple customer segments. She shares lessons learned from mapping customer journeys on the self-service portal, and how her team integrated the portal with sales.
Before diving headfirst into a website redesign project, what are the moving parts a B2B marketer or other internal stakeholders should consider? Christina Wegner, Vice President of Marketing for The Vollrath Company, joins Jeff and Carman on The Kula Ring to talk about building the right foundation for your manufacturing company’s website redesign. She talks about developing a “listen-first” approach by assembling a stakeholder team early on in order to identify redesign objectives from feedback across departments.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman talk with Tina Hart, Vice President of Marketing, Labels and Packaging Materials North America at Avery Dennison Corporation about finding value for marketing initiatives in a conservative, sales-driven manufacturing company.
John Eklund, Vice President of Marketing at ProMach, joins Jeff and Carman on The Kula Ring to discuss his playbook for integrating multiple companies into their house of brands after they are acquired. From collateral updates and cross-selling to websites and a centralized tech stack, learn how ProMach brings their acquired companies into the fold.
Creating a brand made for loyal customers requires passion and high standards to drive continued success. Klein Tools has been manufacturing tools made for trades people for over 165 years. In today’s episode, we sat down with Greg Palese, Vice President of Marketing at Klein Tools, to discuss how they continue to grow engaged customer relationships. By speaking directly with end users, Klein Tools is able to deepen relationships and increase sales. Even more, Greg discusses how they focus on solving end user problems by visiting job sites to see first-hand how Klein Tools can help their customers.
Connecting with your channel partners as a manufacturer is vital for every step of the buyer’s journey. Are you a manufacturer looking for new ways to improve your communication with channel partners and customers? Then this episode is for you. Joshua Rich, President and CEO of Bullseye Software, has been supporting manufacturers with location technology for over twenty years. Learn why location technology is a must have tool for manufacturers to grow their customer base and their relationships with dealers, distributors, and partners.
Sales and marketing alignment is huge, and historically, sales and marketing haven’t been best friends. Steven Nghe, Head of Marketing and Communications at Kloeckner Metals, discusses when Kloeckner Metals realized that sales and marketing has changed, and they needed to change with it. He discusses the digitalization of more multidimensional and complex marketing practices that need to be enhanced for sales and marketing to make selling manufacturing more efficient. He also discusses how he gained trust from VPs on marketing being a worthwhile investment by exposing what marketing really is.
When all the players in the industry are using the same visuals, how do you stand out? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Monique Elliott, SVP of Global Marketing at Schneider Electric, Industrial Automation, discusses their challenger approach to bring industrial automation to life through different visuals that also appeal to the end-user. She also discusses how core campaign pillars are used to guide marketing strategy from visuals to thought leadership to earned media.
In this episode of The Kula Ring podcast, we're joined by marketing leadership expert and organizational psychologist Thomas Barta. He's worked with hundreds of companies over his 20-year career to facilitate and lead organizational transformations. On the podcast, Thomas shares how marketers can build better relationships with the C-suite and achieve buy-in on their ideas. Diving deeper, he shares three core gaps that can limit a marketer's potential: skills, power, and trust. We round out the episode speaking with Thomas about future marketing trends, focusing on the importance of data technology.
Our latest guest on The Kula Ring is Mike Currie, the General Manager of the Desktop Printing Unit at Nexa3D. He works in the 3D modelling business, making industrial 3D printers to bring the next generation of ultra-fast printing to the marketplace. In this episode, Mike talks about how he is creating and setting up his marketing and sales teams for success through leadership, empowerment and collaboration. He shares his strategies on how he’s found success in creating great customer experiences by leveraging the knowledge and expertise of his sales and marketing teams.
This week on the Kula Ring, we talk to Ken Novak, the owner of HATCH quantified. Ken walks us through the HATCH methodology, and how he works with organizations to understand their individual audience’s needs, drivers, motivators, and challenges in order to craft and execute strategies that will help them stand out in the market. We talk to Ken about psychology’s role in digital strategy and dive deeper into how the thinking and feeling side(s) of the brain play a role in how you market and sell to your ideal customers.
In this week’s episode of The Kula Ring, we talk to John Weiler, SDR Manager at Path Robotics. John talks to us about the fast-paced world of growth, experimentation, and innovation in the VC (Venture Capital) world. This episode dives into how Path Robotics has seen shifts and changes in its operations over the pandemic and how they have overcome those challenges, with a particular focus on their marketing and sales departments.
John shares his unique approach to how Path Robotics approaches and builds relationships with prospects and customers using texting and video communication. Dive into this episode and learn how Path Robotics is making waves in the artificial intelligence and the industrial automation sector today.
It’s all about understanding and respecting the nuances between local and global markets to stay agile, shares our latest guest, Ashley Riley, the Director of Global Marketing Campaigns and Content at Nilfisk. In this week’s episode of The Kula Ring, Ashley talks about the power of process and alignment, specifically referencing the RACI setup to keep team members informed and accountable on where they fit into the organization. She dives deeper to talk about how she’s keeping her workforce connected through the power of technology, process automation, and systems to give her team the tools they need to thrive.
Brian Baker, the founder of DoDecaHedron Design is our most recent guest on The Kula Ring podcast. He’s worked in the travel industry, spending time at Travelocity, owned an agency, and now has found his way into the building materials industry. In this episode, Brian shares how manufacturers should integrate digital marketing solutions into their business. He suggests they align their traditional marketing channels with digital strategies to optimize their brand’s reach which will, in turn, expand their customer base and increase their selling opportunities. Listen in as Brian dives deeper with specific examples of how he’s accomplished it in the past.
Jerry Bernhart, the Principal of Bernhart Associates Executive Search, is our latest guest on The Kula Ring Podcast. Jerry started recruiting in the marketing space in the late ’80s, but when the internet interrupted and changed the world, Jerry knew there would be a huge need for marketers so he jumped all-in and focused more on recruiting, working with organizations like HotJobs, and Monster.
Listen in to our conversation with Jerry, as he shares this 30+ years of knowledge and advice on the best recruiting practices for attracting and retaining top talent, his opinions on remote/hybrid work, and his point of view on the future evolution of the marketing industry.
Matt Canter, our latest guest on The Kula Ring, dives into the objectives and key results methodology he and his team are applying to their marketing strategies to target and grow Greenfield Global’s four main pillars: customer experience, retention, acquisition, and brand positioning. Matt has a diverse work background with unique experiences in several industries including sports marketing, cannabis, and luxury travel. He’s currently the Director of Marketing at one of America’s largest ethanol producers, packagers, and distributors—Greenfield Global. Listeners will learn how Matt uses automation and efficient systems paired with a deep organizational alignment to achieve Greenfield Globals’s marketing objectives.
Joseph Lewin, the Marketing Manager at CADENAS PARTsolutions, the latest guest on The Kula Ring, shares that niching down is a necessity for manufacturing marketers. He describes his unique process called The Brand Compass, which helps companies align their brand messaging company-wide. Learn from Joseph as he shares his knowledge on brand positioning and his success using highly targeted niche marketing strategies.
This week on the Kula Ring podcast we sat down with return guest Sangram Vajre, the co-founder of Terminus. He chats us through his latest book, ‘MOVE: The 4-question Go-to-Market Framework,’ which was created to propel businesses forward in their go-to-market process. Sangram pulls excerpts from this book and shares his knowledge with Jeff and Carman on how marketers can approach their go-to-market to be more intentional and make better decisions for their companies.
In this episode, Liz Shovlin, the Director of Sales & Marketing for Americas at Nicomatic talks about how niche marketing and traditional sales have helped her build and expand the Nicomatic brand in the Americas. She goes into detail describing the multi-faceted marketing approach she uses that incorporates a mix of social media, content, and traditional sales to deliver the right messages to specific companies and people at the right time. Hear more from Liz on her team’s focused approach to helping customers to discover, buy, and find solutions with Nicomatic’s products.
Hello, manufacturing marketers! Today, I’m pleased to present you with another fine episode from the Kula Ring vault. This conversation with Sander Arts, founder of Orange Tulip Consulting, author, and former VP/CMO with NXP semiconductors gets to the heart of how to tell a better narrative and stay away from the ‘speeds and feeds’ style of marketing that plagues so many B2B industrial organizations. Sander also shares how listening to customers sometimes illuminates a hinge that can be used by salespeople in telling a product’s story in a way that truly differentiates. I hope you enjoy the episode.
Hello, manufacturing marketers! We’re excited to bring you a fresh episode from the Kula Ring vault today with a 2019 interview we conducted with Brittney Zeller, formerly the Marketing Technology and Analytics Manager at American Air Filter. Brittney is now the Director of Marketing and Communications for the Americas, and the lessons she shared are no less relevant today. Learn how AAF chooses marketing technology, how the CRM drives most of their technology selection, not the CMS platform. We’ll also dive into the important symbiotic relationship IT and Marketing need to have given that marketing and sales drive some of the most significant technology spends in most modern B2B manufacturing organizations. Please enjoy Brittney’s episode, I’m certain you will be able to relate no matter where you are in the marketing tech stack continuum.
Hi everyone! Thanks for joining us for another episode from The Kula Ring archives. Today, we’re excited to bring you a conversation with Augie Ray, Senior Research Analyst & Executive Advisor of Customer Experience at Gartner, Inc.
Augie talks to us about CX or Customer Experience and why it’s of such a massive importance for manufacturing marketers. You’ll learn about how understanding the overall experience of the people that buy from you can help to innovate and shape a program that improves customer satisfaction, increases referrals and ultimately results in a higher lifetime value of your customers. I hope you enjoy the episode, there’s a lot of great learning to unlock.
Hi everyone! With the Kula Ring audience growing so much over the past while, chances are Dear Listener that you might be new here! With that in mind, we are going to be periodically sharing with you some brilliant insights manufacturing marketers need now that come from Kula Ring episodes you probably haven't heard yet.
So let's get right to it - here's a fabulous episode on why Products, not Projects are the future for marketing featuring Monique Elliott ... formerly of ABB and now SVP Global Marketing, Industrial Automation at Schneider Electric. Enjoy the episode!
On the Kula Ring podcast this week, we had the opportunity to speak with Jim Cahill, the Chief Blogger and the Head of Social Marketing at Emerson Automation Solutions. Since 2006, Jim has been cultivating Emerson’s social media presence and digital brand. Over his 33-year career at the company, Jim has witnessed a lot of change in marketing, starting with the introduction of internet marketing in the mid-90s, ‘Web 2.0’, and most recently how the pandemic shook up the marketing industry as a whole. Listen to Jim as he shares his industry knowledge on the best social media tactics that manufacturing marketers can implement to build connections with their audience and create social media content that drives sales.
Using asymmetric marketing can help you stay agile in a highly competitive market, says David Koerner, the VP of Global Marketing for 75F. He and his team have found success by applying an asymmetric lens to their marketing efforts to attract and convert their customers. David believes that marketers need to think outside the box—he talks about examples from Burger King, Five Guys, and Southwest Airlines, where they targeted their audiences in unconventional ways to stay ahead of the competition. Hear more from David Koerner on this episode of The Kula Ring.
“You have to talk to engineers to get the right information,” says Sannah Vinding, the Executive Director of Product Development and Marketing at VCC, our latest guest on this week’s episode of The Kula Ring podcast. Sannah has a unique mix of skills with a background in mechanical engineering, and a passion for marketing, she shares her tips and advice on how to better engage and target engineers to get them looking at your products and service offerings online. This episode also dives into the impact the pandemic has had on the manufacturing industry. Learn from Sannah how she believes organisations can rethink their marketing strategy to pivot to this new way of working.
‘Video is the strongest tool to build a brand,’ says our latest guest Vern Oakley, the CEO and Creative Director of Tribe Pictures. Vern is a video marketing expert with over 30 years in the industry creating films, videos, and commercials. Vern talks about why he believes video content is a powerful tool for your marketing strategy. He shares tips on being authentic on camera and how to work with CEOs when filming videos. Learn from Vern’s three decades of industry knowledge on how you can incorporate video into your organization’s marketing strategy.
Staying agile in a competitive market can be a challenge, says our latest guest Paul Dailey, the Director of Product and Market Strategy at Outback Power. Over the past five years, Paul has been focused on transitioning to new technologies and growing Outback’s available market. Paul talks about marketing in a growing industry and the importance of establishing a value proposition as customers’ options expand in the solar panel and equipment industry.
David Roberge, the Marketing Manager at Industrial Packaging, takes a different approach to sales by using video. In this week’s episode, David dives into how he and his team have seen positive sales and engagement growth using video as part of their sales content marketing strategy. Learn from David how he uses customer feedback and queries to create targeted video content his customers want.
Among the manufacturing marketers we talk to, developing technical content that is engaging and meets engineers at their level is a significant challenge. In this week's episode, Adam Kimmel—a technical content writer for engineers and founder of ASK Consulting Solutions—shares the tricks of the trade. Learn from Adam how to translate engineering knowledge into engaging content people actually want to read.
It’s all about being customer-centric, says our latest guest, Kevin Must, Corporate Marketing & Communication Manager for Cold Jet. In this week’s episode of The Kula Ring, Kevin talks with Jeff and Carman about how data segmentation is helping him and his team understand their customers and their ideal audience better.
Understand your customers better by humanizing your marketing approach. This is what Cindy Deekitwong, the Global Head of Marketing, Incubator Business, at Henkel Adhesive Technologies believes. In this week’s episode of The Kula Ring, Cindy talks about how she and her team use a customer-first marketing approach, which she calls B4E - Business for Everyone.
In this week’s episode, co-hosts and Kula Partners principals, Jeff White and Carman Pirie, talk about niche orientation marketing. They talk about the Niche Navigator, a model and exercise they created to assess and understand where businesses fall ranging from low to high niche market orientation. Listeners can look forward to learning examples of niche market orientation, learn pitfalls that could impact their marketing strategies and tips to enhance their marketing efforts.
In this week’s episode, we have guest Jeff Norgord, the Marketing and Creative Director at Gardner Business Media. Jeff talks about the value that media solutions can bring to industrial manufacturing—including increasing brand awareness through a multi-channel approach and helping manufacturers tell more impactful, visual stories. Jeff talks about the importance of print and how it connects with people in a way that digital marketing sometimes can’t. Jeff also touches on the future of the manufacturing marketing trade show industry and its importance to growing and maintaining your network.
How is selling into science different than your typical B2B approach? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jarett (Jay) Nickerson, VP of Sales and Marketing at C-Therm Technologies, discusses how they use problem-specific content and product-specific content for marketing and selling into science within different industries. He also describes the impact of the pandemic on how virtual demos are conducted.
Wade Prue, Kula’s Director of Operations, discusses the importance of fostering a culture of quality assurance testing for marketing teams within manufacturers. Learn how to apply QA thinking to any marketing initiative in the manufacturing organization.
Kula’s Director of Strategy, Laura Hawkins explains the benefits of archetypes for manufacturing brands. While the cohesive messaging and marketing models may seem obvious to those familiar with the application of Jungian archetypes, it’s the additional brand power and bottom line impact that truly makes them useful for standing out in a sea of competitors with increasingly consistent brand pillars.
Continuing our showcase of the Kula Partners team, Craig Edis, Creative Director, discusses the central role of design in modern marketing for manufacturers. Drawing on more than 17 years of experience, Craig shares insights about what goes into developing outstanding brands, why user testing and visitor analysis is so valuable, and how to always design with the end-user in mind.
In another showcase of the Kula Partners team, Floyd Blaikie, Senior Strategist, explains how manufacturing marketers can benefit from developing a strategy with multi-year goals before getting started with ABM. Then with this roadmap, they can better align with sales to gain early wins. Floyd also provides tips on avoiding common ABM missteps.
Jeff and Carman have invited members of the Kula Partners team to showcase their capabilities and provide some tips and tricks to The Kula Ring audience.
In this episode, Luke Desroches, Frontend Architect, describes how continuous learning is a large part of steering the team’s frontend development in the right direction. He also explains the importance of SEO and how Google’s 3 Core Web Vitals impact website performance.
How can manufacturing marketers apply inbound methodology to the point where multiple departments rely on it? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Yazz Krdzalic, VP of Marketing at Trenton Systems, who is a self-described Hubspot fanatic, talks about how HubSpot has helped align the marketing, sales, and service teams at his organization to grow their customer pipeline, and serve customers better.
How do you inform customers what makes your company special in a way that they will actually care about? In this episode of The Kula Ring, David Gerson, Director of Marketing for TK Elevator, talks about how storytelling in manufacturing can create content that connects with customers, and shows them why your solution personally makes sense for them compared to the competition.
In order to understand the needs of B2B prospects and reach them through marketing, how can you provide a helpful experience? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Tracy Swartzendruber, the Marketing Leader of the Power Generation and Oil & Gas division at GE Digital, talks about how UX, cultural language, and feedback can help align your marketing with the ever-evolving needs of customers.
How can B2B manufacturers scale their account-based marketing (ABM) campaigns? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Gladys Fernandez, the Director of Marketing and Demand Generation at Hitachi ABB Power Grids, talks about how she helped establish ABM at the manufacturer, from initial pilot campaigns to having every marketing campaign designed with an account-based approach. She shares best practices for creating pilot ABM campaigns and scaling efforts to larger accounts.
Should B2B manufacturers sell on Amazon, or do the challenges of maintaining control over branding and pricing outweigh the benefits? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Melissa Monteith, the former Channel Marketing Leader, Retail Channel Lead for Fluke Corporation, shares how the company successfully sells on Amazon. She talks about leveraging product content and integrating it with the Amazon experience and shares advice for maintaining brand control and meeting other common challenges that arise when hosting a B2B channel on Amazon.
Manufacturing marketers are skilled translators, often facilitating conversations between a buyer or engineer for another company. In this episode of The Kula Ring, Joana Rodrigues, Marketing Manager at Times Microwave Systems, talks about how her engineering background has helped her create successful marketing content that bridges the gap between the internal engineering team and the end customer. She provides advice for how to create content from engineering expertise and how to approach engineers, who are typically skeptical of marketers, with your strategy.
For many manufacturers, the drive to build out their organization internally has been strong for the last five or more years in response to a rapidly-changing marketing and sales landscape. In this episode of The Kula Ring, Dan Ricklefs, Vice President of Marketing at Precision Pulley & Idler (PPI), talks about how the organization is expanding its marketing infrastructure after a series of successful acquisitions. He discusses his playbook for creating marketing strategies, how the company is evolving its marketing tech stack, and the significance of adopting marketing technology as a tool for knowledge transfer to address upcoming retirements.
How can manufacturers participate in podcasting in a valuable way? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Chris Grainger, Engineering and Services Manager at Electrical Equipment Company (EECO) and host of the EECO Asks Why Podcast, reflects on how the success of the podcast has impacted the organization. He talks about how the podcast has helped integrate the organization’s marketing, sales, and service teams and how the podcast has led to more content marketing initiatives.
Some manufacturing marketers need to help customers envision how to use their solution while also learning how customers use their products. This week on The Kula Ring, Fin Watterson, Director of Product Marketing at Stratasys, talks about the role of a product marketer in a manufacturing organization, translating product information from the engineers and builders for customers. Additionally, he discusses how Stratasys worked with one customer to develop marketing messaging around their application use case.
How can manufacturers use customer trends to inform their marketing decisions during critical changes in the marketplace? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Mike Kazmierczak, Vice President of Marketing, Digital Energy & Buildings End Market at Schneider Electric, shares how he’s using data and voice of the customer to optimize new marketing initiatives. Additionally, he discusses how Schneider Electric is changing roles across the company to cater to customer types and personas and how this structure impacts the marketing content they produce.
As trade shows and conferences continue in virtual forms for the foreseeable future, manufacturers must identify ways to optimize relationship selling. In this week’s episode of The Kula Ring, Ryan Carley, Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Mason Controls, talks about how relationship selling has changed for his team during the pandemic, how they are adapting the sales process with new remote tactics, and where he thinks relationship selling is going as virtual connections continue to be the norm.
How do you cut through the noise on LinkedIn? Robert Johnson, General Manager and Business Development at MAC Prefab has close to 45,000 contacts on LinkedIn and has discovered how to keep them engaged. Building relationships on the business-focused social media platform has led to several successful business opportunities for Robert and MAC Prefab—especially since he started spreading positivity on a daily basis.
As manufacturers adapt to a digital-first product experience, how can industrial distribution channels evolve to add value to the chain? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Sean Donovan, Digital Channel Manager for the Americas at MSA – The Safety Company, says most manufacturers are interested in investing in distribution channels that want to grow their brand versus commoditize their products. He shares examples of how distribution channels can help manufacturing brands come to life and provide value beyond the spec sheet.
During an ERP rollout, manufacturing marketers in small and medium- sized enterprises often find themselves on the outside looking in. Sam Gupta, Principal Consultant at ElevatIQ, says marketers should be integrated into ERP initiatives because of their unique ability to identify new products and new markets. In this week’s episode of The Kula Ring, Sam talks about what marketers bring to the table that service personnel might miss, and how providing all team members with access to real-time ERP data can improve customer experience.
Manufacturers who offer a broad range of solutions rely on face-to-face conversations with prospects in order to find the best fit, but the pandemic has reshaped the sales relationship into a virtual experience. In this week’s episode of The Kula Ring, Brian Wellhouse, Supplier Marketing Manager for Sensor Products at TTI, talks about how virtual prospecting drives the conversation to be more action-oriented sooner. He talks about how his company conducts virtual prospecting with engineering teams, how they use LinkedIn to find new prospects, and what kind of marketing materials they develop to find engineers on LinkedIn.
Flexfab is an industrial B2B manufacturer who designs and manufactures highly-engineered products in a wide variety of materials and designs for the aerospace, automotive, rail, and heavy-duty truck industries. In this episode of The Kula Ring, Ryan Knox, Director of Marketing & Innovation at Flexfab, talks about the company’s initiative to connect innovative startups with industrial companies to leverage emerging technologies within their manufacturing processes. Ryan talks about how Flexfab draws on existing relationships and industry connections to establish new revenue streams and foster innovation within industrial industries that are often overlooked.
Video marketing is not new, but many B2B manufacturers are still searching for a strategy. In this episode of The Kula Ring, Allison Wagner, Marketing Communications Manager at Morrison Container Handling Solutions, shares how she helped make video the company’s biggest marketing tool. She talks about the resourcing effort, why video is important for manufacturers to invest in, and how Morrison leverages video content to help prospects envision how to use their solution.
Like many B2B manufacturers, ARCA sells to a small number of very specific niche markets. Targeting a small list of banks and credit unions who could benefit from ARCA's cash automation and recycling solutions, their marketing team crafted highly personalized one-to-one account-based marketing campaigns and successfully generated awareness and opportunities within key accounts. Learn how ARCA successfully piloted ABM on this week's episode of The Kula Ring podcast.
Career development planning and performance assessment can be a challenge for internal marketing teams. In this episode of The Kula Ring, Ryan Benbo, Senior Director of Marketing at Vermeer, talks about the framework they have developed to coach and grow their marketing team's capabilities. Additionally, he discusses how Vermeer has been able to attract more than 70 talented team members to establish a cross-functional team that acts as an internal agency.
As younger prospects prioritize digital spaces for information-gathering and networking, how can manufacturers create influential, opportunity-generating content? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Adam Peek, Business Development and Channel Partnership Manager at Fortis Solutions Group and Host and Founder of the People of Packaging Podcast, talks about using social platforms to build a personal brand and how he translated visibility gained from the podcast into new business opportunities. Additionally, he talks about how his experience as a former pastor and full-time packaging industry expert plays into his podcast content and he shares tips for how to create and own content that no one else is talking about.
How can manufacturers leverage their distributor relationships through ecommerce? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff Bercume, Director of CX Marketing at Berry Global, shares how the company’s subsidiary brand, Laddawn.com, operates as an ecommerce site with a distributor-first model. He talks about how the website’s workflow is geared towards distributors, and how this ecommerce configuration can address capacity issues across manufacturing.
How can manufacturing marketers repurpose existing content for Account-Based Marketing (ABM) campaigns? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Renee Tarnutzer, Marketing Director for Digital at Kerry for North America, talks about reviewing the company’s bank of content marketing in order to make it fit an ABM model. Additionally, she shares their process for compiling target accounts and optimizing content to serve different verticals.
How can Lean methodologies and processes, which require iteration and imperfection, generate a robust marketing strategy? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jason Grizzi, Global Director of Marketing at Corning Inc, In-Building Networks, talks about how his team has applied Lean practices to shape their marketing operations. He shares tips for a successful Lean deployment and talks about why cultural transformation is key to Lean processes running smoothly.
As buyers continue to use multiple online channels to purchase, how can manufacturers optimize and manage product information? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Sherry Foster, Co-founder & Partner at AscendX Digital, discusses how manufacturers can effectively customize product information to support the customer journey on their own websites and third-party marketplaces. She also discusses the technologies that enable success as brands get into more marketplaces.
How can manufacturers overcome channel conflict when setting up an ecommerce platform? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Kris Harrington, President and COO for GenAlpha Technologies, talks about how manufacturers and their networks can leverage the data-sharing and visibility into the customer relationship that ecommerce provides and shares solutions to common channel conflict issues.
How can manufacturers better serve customers of various sizes? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Melanie Virreira, Director of Global Commercial Enablement at Ball Corporation, talks about how her team created a digital self-service portal for multiple customer segments. She shares lessons learned from mapping customer journeys on the self-service portal, and how her team integrated the portal with sales.
How are trailblazing manufacturers successfully implementing smart factories? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Paul Wellener, Vice Chairman of U.S. Industrial Products for Deloitte, shares insights into Deloitte and the Manufacturers Alliance’s collaborative research on digital transformation in manufacturing. He shares how leveraging ecosystems is key to developing smart capabilities, and discusses how manufacturers are prioritizing different digital practices and relationships.
How can manufacturers with various product portfolios gained from mergers and acquisitions ensure their products are discoverable both on their website and third party domains? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Cynthia Kellam, Global Senior Director of Digital Customer Experience at TE Connectivity, shares how customer experience research led her team to standardize product data in order to improve organic searchability.
In-person tradeshows and conferences are cancelled for the foreseeable future due to the pandemic, and the exclusive, time-boxed structure of virtual events has presented problems for interactivity. In this episode of The Kula Ring, Christopher Barger, Senior Director of Communications for SME, shares how his team has adapted SMX with virtual networking components and shares why networking should be prioritized in virtual environments.
Legacy manufacturers that previously dominated their verticals now have to contend with new entrants who know how to create focused messaging in digital spaces. In this episode of The Kula Ring, David A. Stark, Digital Marketing Transformation Growth Leader, talks about the value of shifting from a tactical to a strategic digital marketing strategy as competition increases, and how to bolster branding with a strong digital presence in order to reach prospects.
As online education becomes the norm and companies like Google no longer require a degree as a job prerequisite, what will educating the manufacturing workforce look like beyond 2020? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Mike Nager, Business Development Manager for the Festo Didactic Solution Center, talks about the role of niche technical education in providing hands-on training for manufacturing technologies and how Festo Didactic is adapting its strategy into the digital space after the pandemic.
Marketing plans developed last year for 2020 look drastically different now because of the pandemic—not just in the tradeshow arena, but also how new markets are identified. In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jaclyn Wallace, Director of Marketing for Nederman Division North America, covers a variety of topics including how the pandemic is forcing marketing and sales to effectively adapt into the digital space, how customers are driving new business, and the importance of knowledge extraction.
In lean manufacturing environments that focus on product development, how can organizations prevent marketing from becoming an afterthought? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Heather Smriga, Marketing Communications Manager of EaglePicher Technologies, shares how the company’s Voice of the Customer research is fueled by feedback across the enterprise and provides insights on how leveraging different talents in the organization improves their approach to marketing strategy.
Customer demand for real-time data is driving manufacturers to build web-enabled systems to share information more efficiently across channels. In this episode of The Kula Ring, John Joyce, Global Marketing Director of Brennan Industries, talks about how he helped his organization make data more accessible to their distribution channels and partners. He shares insights on how leveraging data improves customer experience and the role of the marketing department in implementing customer-facing technology.
Leading up to the ManufacturED Summit on October 21, 2020, Jeff and Carman talk to Rob Atkinson, Founder and President of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), on how U.S.-China relations are affecting manufacturers, particularly North American firms with supply chains in China. Rob shares insights on how manufacturers are economically decoupling from China while participating in a global supply chain that supports U.S. interests.
Leading up to the ManufacturED Summit on October 21, 2020, Jeff and Carman talk with Stephen Gold, President and CEO of the Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation (MAPI). MAPI is the organization behind the ManufacturED Summit. Topics that will be covered in depth at the Summit are previewed on the podcast, including 5G’s impact on manufacturing, the future of the U.S.-China supply chain, and AI as a puzzle piece for Industry 4.0.
In celebration of the first 100 episodes of The Kula Ring, co-hosts Jeff White and Carman Pirie reflect on three game-changing lessons shared by podcast guests over the years. First, reconsidering marketing projects—apps, Ecommerce builds—as iterative, evolving “products”; a conversation with Monique Elliott, former Chief Marketing Officer at ABB Electrification Products, Industrial Solutions. Second, they highlight Greg Palese, VP of Marketing for Klein Tools, and his interview on connecting your brand to higher-tier issues, not just “quality” broadly. Finally, the co-hosts touch on Lisa Butters, GM of GoDirect Trade at Honeywell, and how a legacy manufacturer can drive innovation.
To celebrate 100 episodes of The Kula Ring, co-hosts Jeff White and Carman Pirie share lessons from remarkable podcast guests on customer feedback across the manufacturing enterprise. They reflect on insights from Greg Palmer, Director of Marketing at National Nail, on how to develop a customer-centric approach to product development and marketing. They share thoughts from Tim Bay, Head of Digital Marketing at Fellowes Brands, on how his team leveraged customer feedback to introduce new products. Finally, the co-hosts talk about digital transformation in light of comments from Augie Ray, Senior Research Analyst & Executive Advisor of Customer Experience at Gartner, Inc., on how marketers should focus on CX and customers’ unmet needs.
To celebrate The Kula Ring’s 100th episode, co-hosts Jeff White and Carman Pirie reflect on account-based marketing insights from exceptional guests. They share lessons from Sangram Vajre, Co-Founder of Terminus, on the strategic nature of ABM; Daniel Englebretson’s 100% win rate using ABM with Phononic; and Fabio Luz’s pilot ABM campaign success at Schneider Electric.
While some manufacturing organizations are reeling from trade show and conference cancellations, others are finding new ways to connect exhibitors, peers, and prospects. This week on The Kula Ring, Michelle Edmonson, Senior Director, Exhibitions Operations and Marketing at The Association for Manufacturing Technology (AMT), talks about transforming The International Manufacturing Technology Show’s (IMTS) 6-day, in-person trade show into a 7-month virtual destination. She talks about bringing new content to the IMTS audience, including live broadcasts, and why the IMTS created a digital platform instead of a virtual trade show booth.
Is the key to being a successful manufacturing brand actually getting out of manufacturing? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Carl Breau, the CEO of contract manufacturer Saimen, and Jean-Luc Hébert, Vice President, International Sales & Marketing, discuss how manufacturers are handing over production to contract manufacturers so they can shift their core competency to marketing and product development. They talk about how COVID-19 has accelerated the need for supply chain transparency and the role contract manufacturers play in marketing the manufacturing of authentic products.
Manufacturing marketers rely on trade shows, but many have been cancelled since the pandemic began. How can marketers replace an in-person trade show presence, at least in the short term, and connect with prospects remotely? Jim Cermak, host of the Trade Show University podcast, talks to Jeff and Carman about how manufacturers are adapting to trade show cancellations and how to translate the elements of a good trade show booth into other kinds of wins.
Industrial marketers eager to provide useful content to prospects can only get so far with lunch-and-learns and coffee mugs. This week on The Kula Ring, Adam Beck, Director of Marketing at CADENAS PARTsolutions shares how the company’s tool for creating 3D CAD models enables engineers and other stakeholders to create content marketing assets that improve lead generation.
Aaron Lichtig, Vice President of Growth Marketing shares how Xometry uses a digital approach on going to market as a network-based manufacturing platform. The two-sided network uses content marketing to attract customer demand, and partner acquisition marketing activities to secure the supplier side of the business. Xometry’s overall marketing is based on Google’s See, Think, Do, Care model, which is discussed more on this episode of The Kula Ring. Aaron also has some great stories to share as a former Jeopardy champion and the host of the podcast, OK Xoomer.
What is the role of a B2B2C marketer? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Dirk Mortensen, Marketing Manager for ARB 4x4 Accessories, North America, talks about his move from B2B to B2B2C marketing. He talks about making the shift from a heavy metrics-driven B2B background in business equipment to creating B2B2C marketing programs for consumer goods where success is more dependent on emotional connection and empathy.
The last decade has seen a dramatic change in the way manufacturers, marketers, and agencies approach the web. In this episode of The Kula Ring, Eoin Vincent, Senior Global Marketing Technology Manager at Olympus, shares his experience creating successful manufacturing marketing content over the last 11 years. He talks about how he manages his team as the work becomes increasingly digital and the evolution of marketing organizations from generalists to specialists.
While other industries are overloaded with content, manufacturers operating in niche verticals have the unique opportunity to own the content space. In this episode of The Kula Ring, Trout River Industries Owner Darrin Mitchell talks about how the company’s 6-million-view YouTube channel and content marketing strategy have transformed the manufacturer from the “underdog” to industry authority.
Digital marketing enables manufacturers to fine-tune their tactics down to their best-fit accounts, but it can also create a false expectation that each marketing engagement can provide a guaranteed ROI. In this episode of The Kula Ring, Ahsan Javed, manufacturing marketer veteran, talks about his customer collaboration framework and how his background in engineering and marketing guides his iterative approach to co-creating products and solutions.
How can manufacturers optimize their ecommerce presence and avoid conflict with their sales channels? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Kevin O’Boyle, InterMetro Industries’ Director of Marketing and Digital Business Solutions, talks about guiding the manufacturer’s channel conflict strategy during a recent ecommerce launch.
B2B manufacturers launching ecommerce environments need to shift how they sell and interact with customers in the marketplace. Chris Rice, Director of eCommerce, Sales, and Marketing, shares his top 5 must-do tips for getting an ecommerce operation underway at a B2B company.
B2B manufacturers with limited addressable markets are expanding their reach by translating best practices from sales relationships into automated environments. Andrew Vocaire, Director of Digital Strategy at Ravago, a global plastic production and distribution company, shares insights into the company’s experimentation with digital tools and processes to acquire market share.
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is designed to reach your best-fit accounts with highly focused and relevant messages. But what happens when your target accounts don’t convert on the products or actions you serve them? Sergio Lemus, Senior Manager, Demand Generation at Cooper Lighting Solutions, shares conversion challenges from the company’s first ABM campaign, and how they turned things around to benefit from 100% engagement on target accounts.
A secure supply chain enables consumers to authenticate products at point of purchase, which adds value. Mark Manning, Founder & CEO of iTRACE Technologies, talks about creating a “digital twin” of a product in a blockchain ledger and using the iTRACE app to deter counterfeit production in a manufacturer’s own supply chain.
More than most industries, manufacturers know that innovation is key to survival. But what value is placed on marketing efforts during this transition? James Soto, Founder & CEO of Industrial Strength Marketing, talks to Jeff and Carman about how B2B industrial marketers are leading the digital transformation charge and why they need to bring executive leadership on side to foster innovation and explore different brand positions in order to evolve legacy businesses.
COVID-19 has created a huge disruption in marketing, one we haven’t seen since the recession in 2008, says Ryan Carlson, Head of Market Development for Healthjump. He shares insights on how to evolve your brand marketing when your customer base is facing a new reality.
When it comes to creating account-based marketing (ABM) campaigns, more companies are stuck in strategy mode versus putting a program into practice. Fabio Luz, Latin America Media Team Leader and North America Digital Media Strategist at Schneider Electric, shares his account-based marketing pilot process, which helped the company identify target accounts and move them down the sales pipeline.
Should B2B manufacturers step into the already-crowded podcasting arena? Iris Weeden, Director of Marketing at MacroFab, says the MacroFab Engineering Podcast is the company’s content engine with the added bonus of generating leads and revenue. She shares how the podcast drives traffic and conversions to the website, how they’ve grown to 5,000 downloads per week, and how they choose topics for the podcast and blog.
More manufacturers are moving their business online than ever before and the pandemic has accelerated that timeline. Jeff and Carman present eight different ideas on how you can stand up an ecommerce platform relatively quickly without a large budget and use of resources.
Many manufacturers have not stopped working during the pandemic and they have continued to buy and sell from other manufacturers. So how does the sales team close a B2B sale without having the factory tour as a successful “club in the bag” when prospects are social distancing? Jeff and Carman discuss ways to harness technology and knowledgeable staff to make a virtual factory tour a personalized, meaningful experience for each prospect.
Why do marketers avoid website accessibility considerations? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff W. White talks about where marketers fall short when building websites and web content for all users, and how accessibility features and conversion goals can work together to build a good user experience.
Websites that marketers and other stakeholders are being asked to create are more and more complex, and at the same time, generic templates are on the rise. On The Kula Ring, Jeff White talks to Carman Pirie about how marketers can move beyond the aesthetics of the web build to thinking holistically, considering how information is organized and ensuring it meets accessibility requirements.
The inbound marketing sales funnel suggests there’s an unlimited amount of traffic and leads, but how does that strategy scale when you’re a manufacturer with a limited number of prospects? On The Kula Ring, Carman Pirie and Jeff W. White discuss why the funnel doesn’t work in a B2B context and how manufacturers can shift to a more human-centered approach that focuses on a small number of target accounts using a blend of campaign tactics including inbound and account-based marketing strategies.
With trade shows and conventions postponed due to the coronavirus (COVID-19), what can manufacturers do to showcase new products and services they had lined up for 2020? In this special episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman talk about how manufacturing marketers and other internal stakeholders can adapt to this new reality by moving parts of their business online and serving customers digitally.
With data consumption rates doubling every year, and regulations becoming an industry trend, the data center industry needs to increase its reporting of power consumption. How can companies square their offerings with the global reality, and evolve their positioning and their messaging? Sam Prudhomme is Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Mission Critical Environments for Senneca Holdings, a company with a sub-division called Subzero Engineering that creates products that reduce the carbon footprint of data centers. Sam talks to Carman and Jeff about harmonizing campaign messaging around corporate responsibility and sustainability in order to help customers see the financial benefit of offsetting carbon emissions.
Building trust on an e-commerce platform is about more than just posting pictures and prices. How can manufacturers digitize the $4-billion per year used aerospace parts industry while ensuring transparency? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Lisa Butters, General Manager for GoDirect Trade at Honeywell, talks to Jeff and Carman about how blockchain technology is key to winning over sellers to use the GoDirect Trade marketplace, how they’re drawing on the intuitive design of B2C platforms, and why a legacy manufacturer like Honeywell is driving this innovation.
Any time a manufacturer acquires new assets, the brand evolves along with their customer base. How do you manage your communications strategy to keep pace with mergers and acquisitions? Cathy Dodd, Vice President of Marketing for PolyOne, talks to Jeff and Carman on The Kula Ring about how PolyOne created a campaign called “Challenge Accepted” to bring clarity to their brand messaging across a broad range of industries using customer feedback, buyer persona work, and through consolidating their website to better serve as a solutions-driver for their customers.
Emotional marketing campaigns are compelling, but where do they fit into a B2B manufacturer’s content strategy? Luke Schoenbeck, Marketing Director at Mark VII Equipment, created a year-long campaign showcasing car wash equipment factory workers and the team atmosphere at the company. He talks to Jeff and Carman on The Kula Ring podcast about how a focus on people (versus products or services) dramatically impacted engagement rates and conversions, and how Mark VII Equipment will approach its “people” campaign next year.
Before diving headfirst into a website redesign project, what are the moving parts a B2B marketer or other internal stakeholders should consider? Christina Wegner, Vice President of Marketing for The Vollrath Company, joins Jeff and Carman on The Kula Ring to talk about building the right foundation for your manufacturing company’s website redesign. She talks about developing a “listen-first” approach by assembling a stakeholder team early on in order to identify redesign objectives from feedback across departments.
With a small centralized marketing team tasked with digital transformation, step one for Jon Sujecki, Director of eCommerce and Digital Marketing at Enerpac, was to evaluate the company’s websites. On The Kula Ring, Jon discusses with Jeff and Carman the challenges and benefits of consolidating their tech stack, including sacrificing flexibility to be able to do more for less.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Ellsworth Adhesives Marketing & Digital Experience Manager Jas Kaur talks about how her background in design thinking has helped her lead her organization toward a more human-centric approach to B2B. Her “business to everything” philosophy is guiding a tightly integrated marketing and digital team’s efforts in making their customers’ buying process fast, efficient, and intuitive.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, manufacturing content veteran David Holliday, Director of Product Marketing at ProMach and founder at LabelingNews.com, shares his experience creating successful, problem-solving B2B content. Among his top tips: own your platform, build your personal brand, think long-term, and don’t try too hard to rank—be a problem-solver instead.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Courtney Sperlich—Marketing Director at The Duha Group, an international manufacturer of colour marketing tools—discusses her organization’s challenges in scaling and interpreting marketing content for global and local customers. Colour has universal impact, but its appeal can vary dramatically between geographical regions. Courtney talks with Jeff and Carman about her 16-year career at The Duha Group and how they approach digital transformation, content distribution, and marketing their expertise to a diverse range of buyers.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Market Intelligence Analyst Jason Cappiello describes how Kanthal (and its parent company, Sandvik) approaches hiring and developing skilled talent—including marketers with technical backgrounds—for a complex B2B business. He discusses his own journey, which took him from an engineering degree to a sales role to his current manufacturing marketing position.
Lisa Hargrove, Director of Sales and Marketing at LS Industries, shares with The Kula Ring her approach to taking highly technical content and reframing it in a way that’s accessible and appealing to customers. She also explains why you should never underestimate the effort it takes to write good content as part of a website redesign.
MSTQ founder and principal product designer Yazin Akkawi discusses why he has moved away from demographics and toward a five-factor OCEAN model to build more accurate and useful buyer personas, and how user-centric design can enhance the entire customer journey.
Sangram Vajre—co-founder of Terminus, the SaaS platform for account-based marketing—discusses how ABM can transform your business on The Kula Ring. Sangram is a leading mind in B2B marketing as host of the FlipMyFunnel Podcast and author of ‘Account-Based Marketing for Dummies’ and ‘B2B is ABM’. He talks with Jeff and Carman about ABM’s strategic nature and how it aligns the goals and metrics of sales and marketing.
Daniel Englebretson—Director, Growth Marketing and Demand Generation at B2B manufacturer, Phononic—shares his account-based marketing process which helped him achieve a 100% win rate in a tier one campaign over 10 months.
Tracey Rettig, Marketing Specialist at Kistler Instrument Corporation, joins Jeff and Carman on The Kula Ring to share how her journalism background has helped shape her approach to marketing and communications. She also explains why, as a B2B manufacturing marketer, it’s important to distill technical information into messaging that fits each audience and where they’re at in the buying cycle.
Michael Blake, Director of Marketing for KM International, joins Jeff and Carman to discuss his company’s ecommerce launch, the evolution of their trade show strategy, and how he thinks video will be the differentiator between manufacturers that get ahead and ones that fall behind. In discussing these different marketing and sales tactics, Michael gets at the heart of KM International’s forward-thinking strategy: meeting their customers where they already are.
Jon LaPorta, Vice President, Marketing, describes to Carman and Jeff how he has helped transform the marketing at Pfannenberg USA—the American arm of a German-owned manufacturer. Jon’s team works locally in order to appeal to the US market. Although they continue to align with headquarters on content and branding, this has allowed them to implement marketing automation, create their own website, and simplify their messaging.
James Stanaway, Director of Marketing at Epilog Laser, talks with Carman and Jeff about how video content plays a major role in their marketing strategy. From creating how-to videos that support their customers post-purchase, to co-creating video with customers and showcasing user-generated content, James shares how Epilog has grown its YouTube channel to over four and a half million views—along with how they track each video’s contribution to sales.
Greg Palmer, Director of Marketing at National Nail, talks with Carman and Jeff about how the marketing and product teams work together to use a customer-centric approach to product development. They also discuss which channels National Nail finds successful when launching products including trade shows, social media, and print.
Jen Miret, Director of Marketing at Bendheim, describes the listening strategy she uses to create marketing that resonates with specialty architectural glass and systems customers. Tools such as keyword research, social media, and public relations enable Jen to identify market opportunities so that Bendheim can better serve its customers.
As official media sponsors at ManufacturED 2019 in Chicago, The Kula Ring had the pleasure of podcasting onsite, interviewing leaders at the forefront of digital transformation in manufacturing.
This special compilation episode focuses on smart factory adoption, rethinking education, and jumpstarting digital manufacturing. Hear three short interviews with Paul Wellener, Vice Chairman of Deloitte LLP and Leader of the US Industrial Products & Construction Practice; Dr. Gary Bertoline, the Dean of Purdue Polytechnic Institute; and Raj Batra, President of Digital Industries at Siemens USA.
As official media sponsors at ManufacturED 2019 in Chicago, The Kula Ring had the pleasure of podcasting onsite, interviewing leaders at the forefront of digital transformation in manufacturing.
This special compilation episode focuses on the importance of finding top talent and enabling your teams to do ‘deep work’, including three short interviews with Stephen Gold, CEO of MAPI; Cal Newport, acclaimed author; and JoAnna Sohovich, CEO of The Chamberlain Group.
Steve Miller of The Adventure LLC discusses why focusing on building strong relationships with key accounts is critical to generating ROI at trade shows.
Irina Kem, Director of Marketing at PACKPRO Systems, is on a mission to smash the glass wall between marketing and sales. With over 15 years’ experience in B2B marketing, her advice to younger marketers is to get out of their offices and into important conversations happening between the sales department and the C-suite. Without a better fundamental understanding of their own business’s processes and pain points, Irina says marketers are setting themselves up for failure—but the path to B2B marketing success becomes clear in this episode of The Kula Ring.
D. Bruce Merrifield of the Merrifield Consulting Group and Waypoint Analytics brings over 40 years of B2B insight to this episode, in which he talks about how Amazon Business applied learnings from their overwhelming success in online consumer sales to take on legacy B2B distribution channels. Bruce says manufacturers need to radically transform their relationships with distributors—and distributors must reinvent their business models—not only to succeed, but to survive in the Age of Amazon.
Paul Wellener—Vice Chairman, Deloitte LLP, and U.S. Industrial Products and Construction Leader, Deloitte Consulting LLP—provides early insights into Deloitte and MAPI’s collaborative research on technology adoption in manufacturing, being released at the ManufacturED Summit happening September 16-18 in Chicago. He shares which factors are critical to success in digital transformation, along with different approaches to implementing digital practices in the context of Industry 4.0—offering manufacturers a way forward regardless of adoption level.
In the lead up to the 2019 ManufacturED Summit happening in Chicago September 16-18, Stephen Gold, President and CEO of the Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation (MAPI), shares his outlook on digital transformation in manufacturing. He discusses the dynamics shaping digital transformation in the industry—including its implications for marketing and sales—along with the highlights attendees can look forward to at this year’s conference.
Jacki Lutz, Global Head of Marketing Communications and Intelligence, talks with Carman and Jeff about how Sensata Technologies made a product portfolio change last year, causing them to pivot midway through a major marketing campaign. The campaign was centered on their legacy product, Schrader valves—a product they were no longer selling.
David Ward, Director of Public Affairs at the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, brings his public relations perspective to The Kula Ring, sharing insights on how manufacturing marketers can use earned media as a source of content marketing, the importance of internal communications, and how virtual reality (VR) is being used in marketing and public affairs.
Brian Richards, Digital Marketing Supervisor at Gardner Denver, shares his insights on how he led a digital transformation in his previous role at Knapheide Manufacturing—moving from push marketing tactics to pulling customers through their distribution network.
Kellie De Pooter, Global Marketing Manager at G&W Electric, discusses her approach to redefining G&W Electric’s goals on this episode of The Kula Ring. To stay competitive in the marketplace, her new manufacturing marketing department supports product development and sales and manages new digital marketing initiatives.
Alex Lovdahl, Digital Experience Manager at Brandt, talks with Jeff and Carman on The Kula Ring about getting leadership’s buy-in for digital marketing initiatives by using results to demonstrate their effectiveness.
Jeff and Carman talk with Google's Tarun Rathnam, Head of Industry for B2B Advertising, and Aaron Hite, Partner Lead, in this episode of The Kula Ring. With at least two thirds of B2B buyers preferring to conduct their own research online according to Google’s study with Comscore, they discuss how manufacturing marketers can adapt their marketing strategies to reach B2B buyers throughout their self-directed research process.
Mark Mitchell of Whizard Strategy, a consultancy that specializes in building materials sales and marketing, shares the keys to differentiating your manufacturing brand and winning over buyers. Mark’s advice? It has nothing to do with product features or price—rather, it has to do with how well you understand your buyer’s business and how well you can help them solve their problems.
Greg Palese, VP Marketing at Klein Tools, proves that brand-building isn’t just for B2C. He shares his experiences marketing an iconic manufacturing brand—including how to nurture brand fans and how Klein Tools is shaping the conversation around the trades skills gap, resulting in over $38 million in earned media.
Sarah Carson from packaging design and manufacturing company, Rohrer, talks about bringing together marketing and sales teams from two organizations, building in-house capabilities, and her approach to creating powerful sales enablement content.
Vincent Van Den Brink, Architect Partner at Breakhouse, talks with Jeff and Carman about how manufacturers can improve the ways they provide value to technical buyers and architects during the sales process by thinking beyond a free lunch.
Tom McLaughlin, US Marketing Manager at Nord Drivesystems, shares how a sales-driven manufacturing organization can enhance the ROI of their trade show presence through public relations, email marketing, and social media prior to and after the show.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman talk with Tim Bay, Head of Digital Marketing at Fellowes Brands, about how manufacturers can use customer feedback to improve their marketing, approaches to introducing brand new products to the marketplace, and the benefits of working for a 100 year-old family-owned business.
Jeff and Carman talk with Emily Boland from Tayco about how to market your manufacturing brand in a crowded marketplace, how to appeal to multiple buyer personas, the ROI of creating strong dealer relationships, and her experience with rebranding.
Jeff and Carman talk with Ashley Miller and Bruce Howie from Dominion Colour about building strong distributor relationships in an increasingly digital marketplace.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman talk with Murray Bain, VP of Marketing for Stanpac, about implementing ecommerce to enhance their customer service and effectively manage orders of all sizes. They also discuss how this has resulted in continuous sales growth from online sales.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman talk with Drew Richards, Marketing Manager for Hernon Manufacturing, about refining marketing strategies to achieve accurate attribution for campaign reporting and lead generation on a lean marketing budget.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman talk with Tina Hart, Vice President of Marketing, Labels and Packaging Materials North America at Avery Dennison Corporation about finding value for marketing initiatives in a conservative, sales-driven manufacturing company.
In this episode of The Kula Ring podcast, Jeff and Carman talk with Doug Hunter of Lattice Semiconductor about how to better quantify your marketing decisions and the importance of context for your customers.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman talk to John Perry, the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Power Digital within GE Power. John talks about the challenges of marketing to customers who are in an industry that's in the middle of rapid and fundamental changes to their business model.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman chat with Cori Walsh and Jake Jeffords—two marketers who worked for competing manufacturers that have recently both been acquired by Vermeer. They discuss the challenges and opportunities that come with learning to collaborate with a former competitor.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman talk with Keith Maki, Director of Marketing and Public Relations at Cascade Engineering, about how Cascade has built a unique manufacturing culture that helps their community, helps the world, and helps them stand out in a crowded marketplace.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman talk to Amber Naslund about how marketers can make a bigger impact with content that provides real value to prospects and customers.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman talk with Christina Fuges, Editorial Director at MoldMaking Technology, and Tony Demakis, Sales and Marketing Specialist at Alliance Specialties and Laser Sales. Christina and Tony are the hosts of the Manufacturing Alliance podcast, and they chat with Jeff and Carman about using stories and personal connections to break down the brand barrier.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman talk with JD Dillon, Vice President of Marketing and Pricing at Enphase Energy, about ensuring that you're pricing your products and services correctly, and how that should tie into your marketing.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman talk with Trish Kempkes, the Director of Global Communications and Marketing at BW Papersystems, about how to effectively combine brands during mergers and acquisitions, and how it's sometimes better to just rip off the Band-Aid.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman talk with Sean Rossi. Currently the Senior Marketing Director - Demand Generation with Samsung Electronics America, Sean was at RB at the time of this recording. Sean shares insights about the importance of agility in manufacturing marketing, not getting lost in the data, and doing your planning with the end goal in mind.
Carman and Jeff welcome Zach Garrett, Director, CX Programs & Communities at Belden Inc., in this episode of The Kula Ring. Zach’s aggressive career path has lead him to a director role in transforming Belden’s digital experience just a few years after his graduation from university. They discuss the opportunities presented by manufacturing marketing, how to get a traditional sales team to play a critical role in digital transformation, the importance of human-to-human marketing, and why large manufacturing companies must embrace Millennials to thrive in today’s market.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman talk with Lew Weiss of Manufacturing Talk Radio and All Metals & Forge Group. Lew shares some of his insights from his long experience as a manufacturing marketing trailblazer, and offers some tips for staying ahead of the game.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman talk with Kristin Fallon, Marketing Communications Executive at GE Power, about creative content channels, connecting across cultures, and crafting marketing that works anywhere.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman talk with Christina Liebman, Director of Global Marketing and Digital Strategy, about the iterative website redesign process she recently followed at Advanced Energy Industries. By continuously testing and refining along the way, she was able to meet the objectives set out for the redesign. Christina also discusses the unforeseen challenges she met along the way including working with more vendors than anticipated and educating the team to create mobile-friendly content that would also resonate with international audiences.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman talk to Krisztina Holly, better known as Z, about agile manufacturing, and the lessons that manufacturers need to learn to be competitive in 2019 and beyond.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman talk with Daniel Williams, Digital Marketing Director at Samtec, about how B2B manufacturing marketers can take inspiration from B2C giants like Amazon to provide easier experiences for B2B buyers, the power of data, and where to buy the best socks.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman talk with Logan Dunn and Chris Silva of ClearBags about avoiding vanity metrics, finding the numbers that matter for your company, and building the right tech stack.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman talk with Nick Goellner, Marketing Director of Advanced Machine & Engineering and Partner and Managing Director of MakingChips podcast. Nick shares his experience selling modern marketing techniques to a third generation manufacturing business, how authenticity (or the lack thereof) contributes to the success of content marketing, and how manufacturers can benefit from offering unique kinds of content.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman talk with Susan Towers, Marketing Director at Miller Fabrication Solutions. Susan shares her experience in moving between marketing roles in manufacturing and SaaS industries, rebranding a decades old family company, and why the manufacturing field is such an exciting place to work for marketers.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman talk with Scott Holstein of Computrols, a New Orleans-Based hardware manufacturer and software company. They discuss how to drive results by aligning the sales and marketing teams, the value of social selling, the challenges of marketing two different business units, and what it takes to go up against goliath competitors.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman talk with Nikki Kapilevich, Director of Global Marketing at MTS Sensors. Nikki shares her experience leading two B2B manufacturers through the branding challenges of a merger/acquisition, and discusses the skills required to be an effective leader in the digital age.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman get some valuable strategic advice on brand protection through online seller enforcement with topic expert Daren Garcia, managing partner of the Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease law firm. During the podcast, Daren walks listeners through five steps to successfully grow your B2B brand in a protected way in ecommerce and online marketplaces.
During this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman talk with Andrea Olson, podcast host of Women and Manufacturing and CEO of Prag'madik, a Customer-Centric Operations Consultancy. They chat about the customer-driven changes mid-market manufacturers must adopt in order to achieve long-term growth in Industry 4.0.
During this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman talk with Mike Powers, B2B E-Commerce & Digital Marketing Manager at Hill and Markes, Inc. They discuss the differences and similarities between the millennial B2B buyer and the baby boomer B2B buyer.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman chat with Ross Simmonds, Digital Marketer, Speaker, and Entrepreneur who specializes in B2B. They discuss B2B topics including the heartbeat of SEO, the viability of Facebook for B2B, and the threat of Amazon. They also talk about how providing value is key to engaging your B2B prospects online, no matter what the platform.
Carman and Jeff talk to Jeff Smeltzer, Marketing and Communications Lead at MetOcean Telematics, in this episode of The Kula Ring. They discuss how to get buy-in for digital initiatives at traditional organizations, the role of trade shows in the marketing mix, and how to approach content creation in a way that’s driven by technical resources yet curated by marketing.
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman chat with Chris Schmitt, Senior Director of Strategic Development from the National Association of Manufacturers. They discuss the importance of using the data from new tools and technology to prove that marketing departments in manufacturing organizations are revenue generators, not just cost centers.