Content Marketing, Engineered Podcast: Recent Episodes
Wendy Covey
If you are a marketer in a technical company, this podcast is for you. On each episode, host, author, and TREW Marketing CEO Wendy Covey will breakdown an industry trend, challenge or best practice in marketing to engineers and like-minded technical buyers. You'll meet colleagues and industry friends who will stop by to tell you their stories along the way. Learn B2B content marketing strategies and tips to build trust and grow your business with technical content. Visit trewmarketing.com/podcast for show notes, resources and to subscribe so that you'll never miss an episode.
Quarterly marketing reviews are more than a chance to report results. They're an opportunity to align leadership, evaluate what's working, identify what needs to change, and prioritize the initiatives that will drive the next quarter forward. TREW Marketing President Jennifer Dawkins shares her framework for running productive quarterly marketing reviews that keep teams focused on business goals, spark meaningful discussions, and ensure future decisions are backed by data.
In this episode, TREW Marketing President Jennifer Dawkins shares her framework for running productive quarterly reviews. She explains that effective quarterly reviews should begin by revisiting the marketing goals established during planning. Rather than diving straight into dashboards, she recommends reminding stakeholders of the objectives everyone agreed upon and highlighting the major initiatives executed during the quarter. From there, marketers can review high-level health metrics before taking a deeper look at significant campaign performance, unexpected trends, and lessons learned.
One of the episode's key takeaways is that marketers don't need to report every metric they track. While detailed data helps marketing teams optimize their work, leadership is primarily interested in metrics that influence business decisions. Jennifer encourages marketers to tailor reporting to their audience by focusing on business outcomes, meaningful anomalies, and initiatives tied directly to strategic goals. The result is a more collaborative discussion that leads to informed decisions instead of simply reviewing numbers.
The conversation also explores several trends TREW has observed across industrial marketing clients. While organic website traffic continues to decline, AI referral traffic is steadily increasing. More importantly, the visitors who do arrive are proving to be higher quality, spending more time on websites and converting at higher rates.
Whether you're reporting to executives or leading your own marketing team, it's critical to define success before campaigns begin, measure what matters most, and use quarterly reviews as an opportunity to refine your strategy.
Resources
- Connect with Jennifer on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn more about TREW's Marketing Strategy Service
- Explore TREW's Case Studies
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
- Download the 2026 State of Marketing to Engineers Research Report
Breaking into a technical industry can feel intimidating for marketers, especially when you're surrounded by engineers, product experts, and complex technologies. But you don't need to become an engineer to become an effective industrial marketer. In this episode, you'll learn practical strategies for building confidence, creating stronger content, and connecting with technical audiences. \
In this episode, Natae, Content and Brand Marketing Manager at Novaspect, shares how she immerses herself in new industries and markets by interviewing customers and subject matter experts, joining industry organizations, reading trade publications, and learning the language her audience uses. She explained her goal isn't to know every technical detail. It's to understand why customers care and what challenges they're trying to solve.
The conversation also explores the growing importance of authentic, human-centered content. While product specifications and technical capabilities still matter, the people behind the brand often create the strongest performance across social media platforms. From showcasing company culture to capturing unscripted interviews with sales engineers at trade shows, Natae has found that genuine content consistently outperforms overly polished marketing.
The episode also highlights why content creation shouldn't be limited to the marketing department. Encouraging leaders, salespeople, HR professionals, and technical experts to share their knowledge helps build trust, supports recruiting, and extends a company's reach. Marketing's role becomes one of enabling, amplifying, and repurposing that expertise across channels.
Whether you're new to industrial marketing or looking for fresh ways to strengthen your strategy, this episode offers practical advice for building credibility, creating better content, and connecting with technical audiences in a meaningful way.
Resources
- Connect with Natae on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Novaspect
- Download the 2026 State of Marketing to Engineers Research Report
- Related Episode: AI Visibility: The Future of Search Optimization
If your content strategy still revolves around publishing endless "what is" and "how to" articles, it's time to update your strategy. Learn why taking a clear point of view, investing in original research, and building credibility beyond your own website are becoming key differentiators in the age of AI search.
In this episode, Sooraj Shah, Content Marketing Lead at Aikido Security, shares why thought leadership and PR are becoming more valuable than ever and how companies can create content that both audiences and AI trust.
Drawing on his background as a technology journalist, Sooraj explains why Aikido has shifted away from producing generic "what is" and "how to" articles in favor of opinion-driven content backed by evidence. Rather than publishing the same advice as their competitors, the team focuses on taking clear positions, sharing original perspectives, and supporting those viewpoints with research and real-world expertise.
The conversation also explores how AI search is changing content strategy. While SEO remains an important foundation, Sooraj believes brands need to think beyond rankings and create content that offers unique insights, original data, and credible perspectives that large language models are more likely to surface. He also shares why third-party media coverage, annual research reports, and strong relationships with industry publications play an increasingly important role in building authority.
Finally, Wendy and Sooraj discuss a challenge many marketers face today: measuring the impact of thought leadership. Unlike traditional SEO content, success isn't defined by rankings alone. Instead, marketers should look for signals such as media citations, industry engagement, social sharing, and whether their ideas are influencing conversations within their market.
Resources
- Connect with Sooraj on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Download the 2026 State of Marketing to Engineers Research Report
- Related Episode: AI Visibility: The Future of Search Optimization
AI search is changing how buyers discover and evaluate vendors, yet many industrial companies have no idea whether they're being cited in tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or Perplexity. Over the past few months, we've conducted AI visibility audits for several clients to uncover exactly how often their brands appear in AI-generated responses, and why. The findings revealed clear patterns separating brands that are consistently recommended from those that are virtually invisible. In this week's episode, we share what we've learned and outline four practical strategies that can help increase your visibility, authority, and chances of being cited by top AI platforms.
In this episode, TREW Marketing's Kara Koch joined Wendy Covey to discuss the growing importance of AI visibility and the strategies industrial marketers can use to improve it. The conversation also explored the differences between SEO (Search Engine Optimization), AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization). While traditional SEO remains foundational, marketers must now optimize content to become trusted sources for AI-generated answers.
To assess visibility, Kara recommends conducting AI visibility audits that evaluate brand mentions, citations, content structure, and competitor performance across AI platforms. She emphasized that many industrial companies possess deep expertise but fail to package that knowledge in ways AI systems can easily understand and cite.
When it comes to improving visibility, the most effective strategies include strengthening technical SEO fundamentals, creating problem-focused content, organizing content into topic clusters, earning third-party validation through PR and industry publications, and showcasing authentic thought leadership.
Resources
- Connect with Kara on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Download the 2026 State of Marketing to Engineers Research Report
- Related Episode: AI Visibility: The Future of Search Optimization
- Related Episode: Evolving Your Website Alongside AI and Shifting Buyer Expectations
How do European engineers research, evaluate, and purchase technology today? How do these behaviors differ from their North American counterparts? I sat down with Udo Bormann to discuss the 2026 State of Marketing to Engineers Research report with a European lens.
In this episode, Wendy Covey connects with Udo Bormann, Senior Sales and Marketing Manager at Elektor, to talk about the Europea-specific insights from the 2026 State of Marketing to Engineers research report. One of the most important findings: European engineers complete approximately 64% of their buying journey online before ever speaking with a salesperson. This is slightly higher than their North American counterparts. This means manufacturers must focus on becoming part of the research process rather than interrupting it.
Udo explains how engineers are skilled at filtering out promotional messages and quickly identifying content that lacks substance. He says successful marketing strategies provide practical, in-depth information through articles, webinars, videos, datasheets, and demonstrations that help engineers evaluate solutions on their own terms.
The research also revealed an interesting contradiction around artificial intelligence. While nearly 70% of engineers report using generative AI during the buying process, trust remains low particularly in Europe. Bormann noted that engineers often use AI as a starting point, but they still seek validation from credible sources before making decisions. That emphasis on credibility helps explain another surprising trend: the growing influence of trusted technical publications. Engineers have been increasingly gravitating toward sources they trust to provide accurate, verified information.
For marketers targeting European engineers, it's important to prioritize technical accuracy, invest in trusted content channels, and focus on building credibility at every stage of the buyer's journey.
Resources
- Connect with Udo on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Download the 2026 State of Marketing to Engineers Research Report
- Watch the Research Webinar
- Related Episode: What Surprised Us Most in the 2026 State of Marketing to Engineers Research Report
For the first time in the report’s nine-year history, technical publications surpassed vendor websites as engineers’ top source for researching purchases, signaling a growing demand for trusted, third-party content. Listen to the latest episode of Content Marketing, Engineered to hear what we found most surprising in this year's State of Marketing to Engineers Research Report.
In this episode, Wendy Covey and CJ Haight pull back the curtain on the 2026 State of Marketing to Engineers Research Report and explore the trends reshaping technical buying behavior. The conversation dives into the growing role of AI in the research process, revealing a fascinating contradiction: engineers are increasingly using generative AI tools, yet trust in AI-generated information remains low. Wendy and CJ discuss how technical buyers may be leveraging AI as a shortcut for discovery while still relying on verification from credible, independent sources.
The episode also explores why online technical publications overtook supplier websites as the preferred research destination for engineers. CJ suggests this may reflect a desire for less biased information and frustration with overly generic or AI-generated vendor content.
Wendy and CJ share practical advice for industrial marketers: invest in credible third-party visibility, maintain a strong and unique market position, and prepare for continued disruption as AI changes how engineers discover information online.
Resources
- Connect with CJ on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Download the 2026 State of Marketing to Engineers Research Report
- Watch the Research Webinar
When was the last time your updated your visual brand? An outdated visual identity could be costing you more than you realize. From lost sales opportunities to recruiting challenges and diminished credibility, visual branding isn’t just about looking polished; it’s a strategic tool for building trust, standing out from competitors, and attracting top talent. Paul Kiesche shares how to know when it's time to give your brand a refresh and the best practices to consider.
In this episode, Paul Kiesche, President and Creative Director of Aviate Creative, shares how an outdated visual brand can be detrimental not only to your sales and marketing efforts, but your company's internal culture and external recruitment efforts as well.
Paul shared that one of the biggest misconceptions in industrial marketing is the belief that buyers “don’t care” about creative. While technical buyers may prioritize seeking out technical content, they still make judgments based on professionalism and trustworthiness. A dated or amateur-looking brand can create hesitation, especially when prospects are making large purchasing decisions.
Employee recruitment and retention is also a major reason to modernize you company's visual brand. Modern, polished branding can energize internal teams, attract younger talent, and help manufacturers compete for skilled workers in a tight labor market.
So, when companies should consider a brand refresh? According to Paul, businesses that haven’t updated their branding in 10 years or more are likely already feeling the effects of an outdated brand. Signs can include declining engagement, difficulty hiring, or slower lead generation.
Resources
- Connect with Paul on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Aviate Creative
PR becoming a critical strategy for visibility. In this episode, Morgan Norris, VP of Marketing at TREW, breaks down why PR matters more than ever and how to properly prepare subject matter experts and executives for media opportunities.
One of the biggest shifts driving renewed interest in PR is the evolution of search and AI. Traditional website-first strategies are no longer enough. Today, brand visibility increasingly depends on being featured in trusted third-party sources like technical and trade publications. These outlets not only influence human audiences but also shape how AI models surface and prioritize information.
To take advantage of this, companies need to rethink how they prepare their spokespeople. For SMEs, success starts with thoughtful media training. That includes providing briefing documents with background on the publication, the editor, and likely interview angles. Even a short practice session can help reduce nerves. SMEs should come equipped with real-world examples: customer stories, performance data, or application use cases to bring technical concepts to life.
On the other hand, executive interviews require a different level of preparation. Leaders must align on what information can be shared publicly, especially when it comes to company data. Morgan recommends preparing key facts in advance and developing three core stories executives can consistently return to during interviews. This ensures messaging stays focused, strategic, and impactful.
Across both groups, one theme stands out: consistency. Without clear, aligned messaging, PR efforts aren't as effective.
Resources
- Connect with Morgan on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Related article: News Releases in B2B Tech: Why They Matter and How to Do Them Right
- Related episode: How B2B PR Should Fit into Your Integrated Marketing Strategy
- Related episode: A Technical Editor-in-Chief's Perspectives on PR, Hot Industry Topics, and AI
- Download the News Release Template
- Learn more about TREW's PR and Thought Leadership Services
Let's face it. Industrial webinars can be...forgettable. But what if yours could keep people watching for hours? Aya Takase produces 40 webinars a year. She breaks down how to turn technical expertise into binge-worthy content that educates, builds trust, and leaves viewers coming back for more.
In this episode, Aya Takase, Head of Global Marketing Communications at Rigaku, shares how her team transformed webinars into a powerful, scalable content engine.One of the biggest insights is simple but often overlooked: meet your subject matter experts where they are. Many technical experts struggle to write blog posts, but they’re comfortable presenting. By turning webinars into the primary content format, Aya’s team unlocked expertise that would have otherwise stayed hidden.
Aya emphasized that “binge-worthy” webinars are possible, even in highly technical industries. The key is to understand your audience. For technical audiences, break down complex concepts clearly without oversimplifying. For less technical users, focus on real-world pain points and practical solutions. Engagement is another critical factor. Instead of relying only on polls or chat, Aya recommends using rhetorical questions throughout the presentation. This keeps viewers mentally involved, prompting them to actively think through the content rather than passively listen.
Preparation also plays a major role. Aya goes through multiple dry runs with her team and reviews the structure and flow of the webinar to make sure it applies to the audience’s knowledge level.
Perhaps the most counterintuitive advice is to stop selling. Promotional content erodes trust and reduces credibility. Instead, focus entirely on delivering value. Over time, consistent, helpful webinars build brand recognition and position your company as a trusted authority.
Finally, don’t let your webinar content go to waste. Repurpose recordings into blog posts, summaries, eBooks, and more. A single webinar can fuel an entire content strategy.
Resources
- Connect with Aya on LinkedIn
- Connect with Morgan on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Rigaku
- Explore Rigaku's webinars and videos
- Purchase the Industrial Marketing Digital Pass
Your marketing efforts may be strong, but are you using your sales team to take them to the next level? Many industrial marketers overlook sales as a powerful extension of marketing. In this episode, we show you exactly how to build relationships with your sales team to amplify your marketing efforts.
In this episode, Wendy talks with, Luke Wittenbraker, Sales and Marketing Director at Mactech, about how building strong relationships with your sales team can significantly amplify your marketing efforts.
Luke’s career spans both disciplines, giving him a unique perspective on bridging the gap. One of his biggest insights? Marketers need to understand what truly motivates salespeople. While marketing teams often focus on content and campaigns, sales teams are driven by outcomes like revenue and incentives. When marketers frame opportunities in terms of potential earnings or pipeline impact, they immediately capture attention.
Luke emphasizes the importance of getting in the trenches with sales he advises marketers to attend trade shows, join conversations, and understand their day-to-day challenges. Just like marketers seek to understand customer pain points, they must also invest time in understanding their internal sales audience.
One standout example from Mactech is a simple LinkedIn engagement initiative. By encouraging sales reps to like, comment, and post content, Luke saw not only increased participation, but lasting behavior change. One team member even took ownership of posting regularly, extending the company’s reach organically.
Resources
- Connect with Luke on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Purchase the Industrial Marketing Digital Pass
- Register for the 2026 State of Marketing to Engineers Webinar
- Related Episode: Sales vs. Marketing
Missed the Industrial Marketing Summit? Wendy and Lee recap the biggest takeaways and behind-the-scenes moments from the event and even tease a few plans already in motion for 2027. Tune in to hear what industrial marketers can’t stop talking about this week.
In this episode, Wendy Covey and Lee Chapman debrief the recent Industrial Marketing Summit, sharing behind-the-scenes insights, key takeaways, and innovative strategies discussed at the event.
One of the most notable changes since last year’s summit was the dramatic increase in AI adoption among industrial marketers. While only about 10% of attendees reported using generative AI in their daily work the previous year, roughly 80% raised their hands when asked the same question this year. The discussion extended beyond experimentation to practical implementation, including custom GPTs, AI agents, and workflow automation.
Another major takeaway came from keynote speaker Rand Fishkin, who highlighted how buyer behavior is evolving in the era of generative search. Website sessions may be declining, but revenue continues to rise suggesting that traditional attribution models are becoming less reliable. Instead of focusing solely on traffic metrics, marketers should prioritize high-quality engagement and conversions from more informed buyers.
The Industrial Marketing Summit is already gearing up for its 2027 event, which Wendy and Lee said will be returning to Austin, Texas in late February. After another successful year, the team will review attendee survey feedback to refine the program and continue growing the conference experience. Planning will ramp up in the spring, with calls for presenters and sponsors expected around June. A notable addition for 2027 will be the introduction of the Industrial Marketing Summit Awards, designed to recognize standout work and innovation in industrial marketing. As the conference enters its fourth year, the goal is to build on its momentum while continuing to deliver a highly relevant, community-driven event.
Resources
- Connect with Lee on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Purchase the Industrial Marketing Digital Pass
- Register for the 2026 State of Marketing to Engineers Webinar
Chatbot technology has evolved dramatically in just the past few years. Powered by today’s large language models, what was once a clunky, frustrating tool is now transforming industrial websites into dynamic, conversational buying experiences while also giving marketers unprecedented visibility into what their buyers truly want to know.
In this episode, Wendy Covey sits down with John Greely, VP of Marketing at Navu, to explore a pressing question facing B2B marketers today: What is your website for anymore? For years, industrial and B2B websites followed a predictable formula. Drive traffic through SEO and campaigns, guide visitors through structured navigation, capture a form fill, and nurture from there. But as John explains, that formula is breaking down. Buyer behavior has shifted dramatically. Prospects are increasingly turning to AI tools and large language models for answers, often getting the information they need without ever clicking through to a website.
This shift forces marketers to rethink the role of their website. In industries where purchases involve significant investment and technical detail like infrastructure, manufacturing, or engineered products, buyers need fast, specific answers. Traditional navigation and even older chatbots often create friction rather than clarity.
John shares how modern AI-powered chat tools are transforming website experiences by making content conversational rather than purely navigational. Instead of digging through PDFs or layered menus, this technology allows visitors to ask detailed questions and receive precise answers pulled directly from approved site content.
This not only improves user experience but also surfaces valuable insight for marketers. The questions buyers ask reveal content gaps, misunderstood messaging, and emerging needs.
Key Takeaways
- Buyers no longer rely on websites as the primary source of truth.
- Many get answers from AI tools before ever visiting.
- Modern buyers expect to ask specific questions and receive direct answers.
- Content Is only valuable if it’s accessible.
Resources
- Connect with John on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Navu
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
What if your customers could explore every angle of a complex machine, product, or system without ever stepping onto the factory floor? For industrial buyers evaluating intricate systems and components, static images and brochures rarely tell the full story. That’s why immersive 3D visualization is transforming how manufacturers showcase, explain, and ultimately sell their products.
In this episode, Mark Worger, Managing Director of MarTech3D, shared how 3D product visualization is helping manufacturers modernize both their marketing and their sales funnels. Brochures, static images, and even trade show booths struggle to fully demonstrate large machinery, embedded systems, or intricate components. It's also very challenging to set up in-person demonstrations or ship large equipment to in-person events. So, sales and marketing teams must figure out how to effectively present a 10-ton machine or a fully integrated process line during an early-stage sales meeting.
That’s where interactive 3D visualizations come in. By transforming engineering CAD files into marketing-ready, photorealistic 3D models, manufacturers can create product visuals, animations, augmented reality experiences, and even virtual showrooms. These tools can be applied to a variety of marketing channels and serve multiple stages of the sales funnel. At the top, they create visual impact and differentiation. In the middle, they educate buyers with interactive demonstrations that showcase internal workings and unique selling points. And at the bottom, they help shorten the sales cycle by allowing prospects to fully understand the product before scheduling in-person visits.
Key Takeaways
- 3D accelerates complex industrial sales funnels.
- It's easy to transform CAD files into marketing-ready visual assets.
- Interactive demos improve buyer education and engagement.
- Better visualization shortens the sales cycle.
- Marketing processes should match manufacturing efficiency.
Resources
- Connect with Mark on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn more about MarTech3D
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
For marketers who’ve felt that video is too expensive, too technical, or too time-consuming, this episode offers a clear takeaway: you don’t need a big budget or a big team to make video work, you just need the right approach and tools.
Video is one of the most powerful content formats for marketers, but for years it also felt out of reach. That’s no longer the case. Today, creating high-quality video for every channel is easier and more affordable than ever and video consistently ranks as one of the top-performing content types across channels. In this episode, Elise Beck, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Wistia, shares how today’s marketers can create impactful video easily and affordably, even with lean teams and limited budgets.
Video is uniquely effective for companies with complex products, long buying cycles, and technical audiences. From product demos and explainers to webinars and podcasts, video allows marketers to scale knowledge, replace in-person demos or plant tours, and communicate ideas that are difficult to explain with text alone.
Video creation has become far more accessible in recent years. Elise explains how modern tools for recording, editing, and polishing video, has lowered the barrier to entry for marketers who don’t have video production backgrounds. Features like screen recording, simple editing, AI-powered audio cleanup, social clip generation, and automated captions help marketers develop and publish quality video content.
This episode also explores the evolving role of video in search and AI-driven discovery. As generative search and large language models change how buyers find information, Elise explains how making video content readable by AI is becoming increasingly important for visibility and reach. The episode goes beyond creation into measurement, highlighting how video analytics can give marketers and sales teams deeper insight into buyer engagement.
Finally, the discussion looks ahead to emerging trends in video marketing, including AI-assisted ideation, localization, and the ongoing debate around synthetic video and avatars. Elise emphasizes the importance of balancing innovation with authenticity, especially for technical and industrial brands where trust and credibility matter most.
Key Takeaways
- Video’s true power lies in its ability to simplify complexity and enable authentic communication at scale
- Embedding transcripts and enabling AI to read video content transforms videos into accessible, searchable assets, increasing reach and relevance.
- AI streamlines recording, editing, and post-production, making video creation feasible for small teams or individuals.
- Features like integrated editing tools enable quick turnaround and testing of video content.
- Organizations are bringing video production internally, leveraging AI for ideation, scripting, and editing, reducing reliance on external vendors.
- Trust and genuine human connection are prioritized over AI-generated video, especially in technical fields
- All-in-one video solutions like Wistia empower lean teams to execute comprehensive video strategies efficiently.
Resources
- Connect with Elise on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Wisita
- Learn more about Wistia's State of Video Research Report
- AI Benchmark: Will Smith Eating Spaghetti
- Related Episode: How to Add Value-Driven Videos to Your Content Marketing Mix<
Jake Hall is back on Content Marketing Engineered for a deep dive into what actually works on LinkedIn for industrial brands. We break down best practices for approaching LinkedIn not just as a company page, but through your spokespeople and employees, too. We also dig into the evolving role of influencers in the marketing mix and what it really takes to build successful, authentic influencer partnerships in manufacturing and engineering.
In this episode, Jake Hall, aka the Manufacturing Millennial discusses the evolving landscape of content marketing, particularly focusing on the importance of LinkedIn as a platform for authentic engagement. He shares insights on effective content creation strategies, the role of influencers in the industrial sector, and the necessity of maintaining authenticity in a world increasingly dominated by AI-generated content. The conversation emphasizes the need for marketers to adapt their strategies to foster genuine connections with their audience while leveraging the unique advantages of social media platforms.
Key Takeaways
- LinkedIn is still a powerful platform for industrial marketing in 2026.
- Authenticity is crucial in content creation.
- Engagement is more important than clicks.
- Influencers can help brands reach new audiences.
- Posting consistently builds trust with your audience.
- AI should be a tool, not the core of your strategy.
- Content should tell a story and address real problems.
- Influencer marketing is evolving and should be embraced an another marketing tool.
- Companies need to empower employees to share authentic content.
Resources
- Connect with Jake on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn more about the Manufacturing Millenial
- Related Episode: Trade Show Tips with Jake Hall
- Related Episode: 2026 Marketing Trends: The Power of a Strong Differentiated Strategy
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
Erin Moore sits down with Rand Fishkin, one of the most influential voices in modern marketing, to unpack how audience behavior, search, and content strategy are fundamentally changing in 2026. They discuss the rise of zero-click marketing, the myth that AI tools are “killing” search, and why audience research now matters more than competitive research. Rand brings data-backed clarity to some of the biggest questions marketers are grappling with right now.
In this episode, we’re joined by Rand Fishkin, founder of SparkToro, Alertmouse, and Snack Bar Studio; former co-founder of Moz; and, if we can add one more title, keynote speaker at the 2026 Industrial Marketing Summit. Rand brings decades of experience helping marketers understand how people actually discover, consume, and trust information online.
The conversation dives into why audience research has become critical step of marketing strategy as traditional inbound tactics lose effectiveness. Rand explains how data powers audience insights and why these insights are often most valuable for gaining internal buy-in, or just as importantly, for saying "no" to ineffective channels and trends.
The episode also discusses the impact AI tools have had on search, zero-click marketing, and how marketers should rethink attribution in a world where impressions and brand lift matter more than direct clicks. Rand shares advice for teams stuck in outdated SEO playbooks, emphasizing the importance of following audience behavior over competitor behavior, and pushing back against the dangerous mindset of “doing more with less”.
Resources
- Connect with Rand on LinkedIn
- Connect with Erin on LinkedIn
- Learn more about SparkToro
- Learn more about Alertmouse
- Related Episode: What is THE SEO Alligator? A New Challenge in Search Metrics
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
What if one of the most influential channels for industrial buyers isn’t LinkedIn or Google, but Reddit? Reddit is shaping how engineers research products, validate vendors, and even influence AI-powered search results. In this episode, we dig into how one industrial brand embraced Reddit as a low-cost, high-impact awareness channel.
In this episode, Mandee Nguyen, Content Marketing Manager at SICK Sensor Intelligence, shares her journey through her marketing career and how her current role led her to focus on using Reddit to reach SICK's technical audience. Mandee’s journey to Reddit didn’t start with enthusiasm. Like many marketers, she initially associated the platform with gaming threads and pop culture debates. But shifting search behavior, Google’s increased surfacing of Reddit threads, and the platform’s growing influence on AI-driven search quickly changed her perspective. Engineers, it turns out, are actively using Reddit as a trusted source of information.
At SICK, Reddit began as a low-risk pilot focused on paid advertising. With most ads costing under $1,000, the barrier to entry was far lower than LinkedIn. Mandee shared examples and said video ads, especially demo-focused, educational content, performed best.
The conversation also explores why Reddit is best approached as an awareness channel rather than a direct lead-generation engine. Reddit’s lead gen tools are still in beta, and users are notoriously resistant to marketing. Authenticity is critical, both in ad copy and any organic, used-based participation.
Beyond Reddit, Mandee offers broader advice for industrial marketers heading into 2026: invest in partner marketing, leverage credible external influencers, and use AI strategically for efficiency.
Key Takeaways
- Reddit is a trusted source for information in the engineering community.
- Advertising on Reddit is more cost-effective than LinkedIn.
- Authenticity is crucial when marketing on Reddit.
- Video ads perform better than image ads on Reddit.
- Engaging with external influencers enhances credibility.
- Content should be educational rather than promotional.
- AI tools are used for content repurposing and ad creation.
Resources
- Connect with Mandee on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn more about SICK Sensor Intelligence
- Learn more about TREW's Marketing Strategy services
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
Every December, we wrap up Content Marketing, Engineered with a tradition: a trends conversation with TREW Marketing’s own Lee Chapman. This episode focuses on how Industrial Marketers can reckon with with the new age of AI and differentiate themselves among a "sea of sameness" and what marketing strategies to focus on in 2026.
2025 was a year of massive transformation for industrial marketers. As AI tools matured and generative search became a primary gateway for technical buyers, long-standing content and inbound strategies were forced to evolve. Marketers saw firsthand how important differentiation, depth, and authentic expertise is to stand out and earn trust.
AI Has Leveled the Tactical Playing Field
According to Lee, 2024 and 2025 were years of experimentation. Marketers used AI to produce content faster than ever but this caused everyone to sound alike and create an overwhelming amount of noise. Lee says the biggest trend for 2026 is a differentiated strategy.
With AI providing instant answers to basic queries, surface-level content no longer cuts it. Technical buyers still end up on your website, and when they do, they’re looking for clarity, technical depth, and authenticity. If your content doesn’t communicate a strong value proposition and true expertise, it’s easy for prospects to bounce back to AI or head to a competitor.
Your Website Must Earn Its Keep
Lee highlighted two extremes plaguing engineering websites today:
- The “museum” site: outdated, bloated, and difficult to navigate.
- The “brochure” site: modern and pretty, but shallow, lacking specs, case studies, and proof points.
Both fail to meet the needs of technical buyers. Lee recommends a website and content audit using a keep/kill/create framework, elevating high-value content, and ensuring users can find what they need with minimal clicks.
Trade Shows: Substance Over Swag
Events are booming again, but many companies are “checkboxing” their presence rather than building a strategic plan around them. Lee stressed the importance of:
- Strong booth messaging
- Demos and SMEs
- Pre-event outreach and partner activation
- Thoughtful, timely post-show follow-up
Content: Go Deep, Get Specific, Prove It
Technical audiences still value white papers, webinars, case studies, and research if they contain meaningful depth. Lee emphasized developing more proof-driven assets, including unnamed case studies when needed, and turning high-performing content into webinars or videos. Voice-of-customer research and even closed-lost surveys are underrated tools for uncovering differentiators AI can’t replicate.
Resources
- Connect with Lee on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn more TREW's Marketing Strategy services
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
As industrial marketers plan out their 2026 marketing strategies, it's important to take into consideration the difference in research and buying behavior of engineers across generations. EETech's Terra Gledhill in on this week's episode to share what sources these engineers trust, and what strategies marketers should emphasize in 2026.
In this episode Wendy Covey sat down with Terra Gledhill, Director of Marketing and Research at EETech, to unpack findings from the 2025 Engineering Insights Report (EIR). Now in its ninth year, the EIR captures responses from more than 3,000 engineers across roles, industries, and experience levels, making it a great resource for industrial marketers as they plan their 2026 marketing strategy.
A dominant theme in this year’s report is the rapid rise of AI adoption. Among millennial and Gen Z engineers, usage of AI tools (including LLMs, code generation, and simulation) jumped from 45% to 64% year over year. Even seasoned career professionals saw a significant increase, from 20% to 46%. Terra explained that while younger engineers overwhelmingly see AI as a positive accelerator, seasoned engineers remain more cautious, emphasizing the need for regulation and security.
The report also highlights major generational differences in research behavior. Communities and forums have become the top resource for Millennial and Gen Z engineers, who seek out peer validation and authentic, real-world solutions. Career pros, however, still rely on manufacturer websites. Across all groups, engineers increasingly expect robust online tools such as CAD models, reference designs, and simulation resources directly on supplier websites.
When it comes to challenges, both groups cite staying on schedule and on budget as their top concerns. But younger engineers struggle more with skill gaps on their teams, often inheriting outdated systems and incomplete documentation. Career pros, conversely, feel the pressure of keeping pace with technology’s rapid evolution.
For marketers planning 2026 strategies, Gledhill’s advice is clear:
- Prioritize technical depth over marketing polish.
- Equip engineers with self-serve digital tools on your website.
- Show up in trusted communities and authoritative third-party publications.
- Encourage SMEs to share their expertise on technical forums like Reddit and Github.
- Market not just to today’s decision-makers, but to the next generation.
Resources
- Connect with Terra on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn more about EETech
- Related Episode: Comparing Content Preferences of Engineers in Europe and the US
- Related Episode: Your Top Questions Answered from the 2025 State of Marketing to Engineers Webinar
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
As AI changes how people search, marketers face a new challenge: getting their brand seen in AI-generated results. Learn how SEO expert Jason Khoo says you can appear in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google’s AI Overviews, and more.
In this episode Wendy Covey and Jason Koo, founder and CEO of SEO agency Zupo, discuss the evolving landscape of SEO in the age of AI especially as more searchers turn to AI platforms for their answers, how can marketers ensure their brands appear across AI Overviews, ChatGPT results, Perplexity results, and beyond?
Wendy and Jason emphasize that the fundamentals of PR and traditional SEO remain the foundation for success in AI visibility. Getting featured in trusted publications and earning backlinks from those sources continue to be essential strategies.
They also discuss users and their changing search behaviors. Are more users going straight to ChatGPT for their searches? Are they starting with Perplexity and then completing a secondary search on Google? As these habits evolve, marketing attribution becomes more complex. How do these changes affect referral, organic, and direct traffic attribution?
Currently, there’s no perfect way to measure AI-driven traffic and visibility. Jason shared that his team uses PEECAI to track AI visibility, while platforms like HubSpot are developing their own AI measurement tools. Even without a universal metric, understanding how your content performs in AI results is becoming a crucial part of marketing analytics.
But one of the most important questions on marketers' minds is how to rank on AI. Jason walked us through his top three strategies:
- Appear on the first page of Google's Search Engine Results Page
Research shows a strong correlation between ranking on Google’s first page and appearing in AI-generated answers. Jason cited several studies, including a ChatOptic report that found a 67% overlap between top-ranking pages and AI answers. A Seer Interactive study found that Google organic keywords were the top correlating factor for appearing in AI answers. In other words, if you rank well for specific keywords, you have a better chance of appearing in AI answers for those topics. - Appear in listicles
Jason also highlighted that brands featured in listicles like “Top 10” articles on review or ranking sites are more likely to appear in AI results. However, he cautioned that only high-quality listicles (those ranking on the first page of Google) are effective. Creating your own “Top 10” list and ranking yourself at the top can appear disingenuous, so aim to earn placement organically. - Answer topics from AI's "Query Fan Out"
Jason explains that when LLMs try to answer questions, they will often seek answers to related questions simultaneously in order to be able to serve a more in depth answer. If your brand has the best answers for the primary question of an AI user AND the answers to the related questions, you're more likely to appear in the AI answer. How do you know this list of questions in an AI's "query fan out"? Most AI tools will not tell you even if you ask, but Perplexity does! Run through some questions with Perplexity and ask it what it's related questions are - now you have a roadmap to all the related topics that align with AI’s logic. The "Query Fan Out" strategy is likely to evolve over time but this is great tactic to know.
So, where should you begin? The first step is to measure. Get familiar with how AI traffic is being tracked in your analytics tools, whether that’s Google Analytics, HubSpot, or another platform. From there, examine how much traffic is coming from AI-driven so
Is your distributor program truly working for you? Emily Ting of CCS America unpacks how her team analyzed and revamped their program to create stronger partnerships and measurable sales growth.
In this episode, Wendy Covey interviews Emily Ting, a Marketing Specialist at CCS America, about the importance of revisiting and revamping an outdated distributor program. Distributor relationships can be critical to sales success for many industrial companies and together, Wendy and Emily discuss the challenges faced by outdated distributor programs, the need for collaboration, and the strategies implemented to revamp these programs.
Emily shares valuable lessons learned from the distributor feedback process and emphasizes the significance of cross-departmental collaboration.
Takeaways
- Distributor relationships can be critical to sales success.
- There are many challenges with maintaining effective distributor programs.
- It's important to reevaluate distributor performance and relationships.
- Take advantage of collaborative marketing efforts with distributors.
- Measure success through feedback and sales trends.
- Networking and sharing experiences with other industrial marketers is essential.
Resources
- Connect with Emily on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn more about CCS America
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
Many marketing leaders in industrial companies have their hand in sales as well. That's certainly the case for Eric Seiberling, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at MXD Process. This episode is all about how Eric has successfully used AI to streamline critical (yet routine) sales and marketing processes and better yet, get the whole team on board as well.
In this episode, Eric Seiberling, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at MXD Process, shares his diverse career journey and insights into the adoption of AI in sales and marketing processes. He shares how his team uses AI to cut the sales quoting process down by 80%, personalize sales personas and messaging, and how to make it easiest for the team to trust and adopt AI into their everyday tasks.
He also emphasizes the importance of cross-team collaboration and offers practical advice on fostering strong human connections across departments and office locations.
Takeaways
- Custom GPTs were developed to cater specifically to their industry needs
- Fostering collaboration among teams is essential for success.
- Celebrating team achievements helps build a strong company culture.
- Leadership alignment is necessary for successful AI experimentation.
- Lowering the stakes can encourage teams to adopt new technologies.
- Continuous learning and iteration are key in AI development.
- Consulting for nonprofits combines corporate techniques with theological insights.
Resources
- Connect with Eric on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn more about MXDProcess
- Related Episode: Taking AI Up a Notch: Training Brand Voice, AI Assistants, and Custom GPTs
- Related Episode: AI Strategies and Tools for Industrial Marketers
- Related Episode: The State of AI: Chatbots, Reasoning Models, and Agents
- AI Resource: Marketing AI Institute
- AI Resource: AI First Academy with Allie K. Miller
- AI Resource: OpenAI Training Courses
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
If you didn't have the chance to attend Content Marketing World 2025, give this episode a listen! I talk with Lee Chapman and Morgan Norris about their time and we unpack the event's key takeaways from topics on storytelling and AI, to the future of platforms like LinkedIn and Reddit.
In this episode Wendy Covey welcomes Lee Chapman, President of TREW, and Morgan Norris, Senior Brand Strategist, to discuss their experiences at Content Marketing World 2025. Morgan Norris presented a manufacturing masterclass, focusing on executing a campaign in 30 days. This session provided attendees with actionable strategies to build brand awareness quickly, a skill increasingly necessary in today's fast-paced market. Lee Chapman participated in the mentor-mentee program, emphasizing the value of community and shared learning within the industry.
The episode delves into key themes from the conference, including storytelling as a strategy, AI and search disruption, and innovative content systems. AI and search were hot topics, with discussions on generative engine optimization (GEO) and the evolving role of AI in content creation. The speakers emphasized the need for unique content to stand out in a sea of AI-generated material. The episode also explored the potential of platforms like LinkedIn and Reddit for industrial marketing, highlighting the importance of thought leadership and community engagement.
Takeaways
- Storytelling is crucial for aligning sales and marketing, as highlighted by Pam Didner's session.
- Farah Kober demonstrated the impact of storytelling on brand perception and purchase intent.
- Generative engine optimization (GEO) is becoming a key focus in AI and search strategies.
- Unique content is essential to stand out in a market saturated with AI-generated material.
- Interactive content like configurators and ROI generators can enhance user engagement.
- Creating comparative content can enhance your brand's visibility and engagement.
- Users on Reddit are highly intentional, often seeking specific answers or engaging in community discussions.
Resources
- Connect with Lee on LinkedIn
- Connect with Morgan on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
Calling all Industrial Marketers! The 2026 Industrial Marketing Summit will take place March 3rd through the 5th in Austin, Texas. Have you purchased your Early Bird tickets yet? This year promises to be bigger, bolder, and even more valuable for marketers in the manufacturing, engineering, and industrial sectors.
In this episode, Wendy Covey and Marketing Director of Gorilla76, Peyton Warren, discuss the upcoming 2026 Industrial Marketing Summit. They explore the event's growth, key speakers, and the unique value it offers to marketers in the manufacturing, engineering, and industrial sectors. The conversation highlights the summit's focus on strategic insights, hands-on learning, and community building.
Early Bird pricing is available through October 15, saving you up to $600 on your ticket. With three days of workshops, sessions, networking, and fun, the Industrial Marketing Summit is your chance to kick off 2026 with fresh ideas and lasting connections.
Event Details
Website: industrialmarketingsummit.com
Date: March 3 - 5, 2026
Location: Austin, TX
Buy Tickets
Takeaways
- Rand Fishkin is announced as the keynote speaker, focusing on SEO and zero-click content.
- The event will be held in Austin, Texas, at the Renaissance Hotel.
- The event emphasizes networking and community, with opportunities for attendees to connect and share knowledge.
- Early bird registration is open until October 15th
Resources
- Connect with Peyton on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
Do you know the communication preference of the engineers and technical buyers visiting your website? Some are quick to pick up the phone, others prefer filling out a form, while many now expect instant, human-powered responses. Nelson Bruton of Manufacturing Chats explores how live chat influences the buyer’s journey and boosts sales efficiency.
In this episode, Wendy Covey is joined by Nelson Bruton, President of Manufacturing Chats and Interchanges, to explore the pivotal role of chat technology in enhancing customer communication for manufacturers and technical companies.
They discuss how chat can shorten the buyer's journey, reduce friction in the sales process, and cater to different communication preferences. The conversation also covers the integration of AI and human elements in chat systems, the importance of offering multiple communication options, and the impact of chat on sales and customer service efficiency. Tune in to gain insights into leveraging chat technology for better customer engagement and increased sales conversations.
Resources
- Connect with Nelson on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Manufacturing Chats
- Read the State of Marketing to Engineers Research Report
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
Do you ever feel like your marketing efforts are undervalued by sales, or worse, misunderstood by leadership? This episode is all about working through one of the most persistent challenges in business: aligning sales and marketing.
In this episode, Wendy Covey sits down with A. Lee Judge, who introduces the CASH framework designed to help organizations strengthen collaboration and prove the true value of marketing. Too often, marketers are asked to justify budgets, campaigns, and outcomes in terms that don’t resonate with sales leaders. The CASH Method provides a practical approach to shifting that conversation—focusing on Communication, Alignment, Systems, and Honesty.
This conversation is packed with insights for industrial marketers who want to strengthen internal relationships and gain buy-in from leadership. Whether you’re struggling with proving ROI, building credibility with sales, or simply trying to get both teams speaking the same language, this episode offers practical advice.
Resources
- Connect with A. Lee on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Related Episode: A Sales Leader’s Perspective on Content that Earns Engineers’ Trust
- Related Episode: Sales vs. Marketing: How to Bridge the Divide
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
Have you noticed a steady drop in your click through rate in Google Search Console, even as impressions seem to be increasing? You're not alone! TREW's Account Director, Erin Moore, explains the "SEO Alligator" phenomenon and how marketers should pivot when AI search results siphon off your traffic.
In this episode, Wendy Covey and Erin Moore discuss the concept of the 'SEO alligator,' a term describing the widening gap between impressions and clicks in Google Search metrics. They explore the impact of AI-generated content on click-through rates and the need for marketers to adapt their strategies in response to these changes. The conversation emphasizes the importance of creating unique, valuable content that resonates with audiences, rather than relying on high-volume keywords that may no longer drive engagement.
Key Takeaways
- The 'SEO alligator' refers to the gap between impressions and clicks in Google Search Console.
- AI overviews are affecting click-through rates significantly.
- Unique content based on your company's deep expertise is more valuable in search than generic content (even when that generic content ranks for higher volume search queries).
- AI overviews are answering top-of-the-funnel queries directly in search results, turning these terms into zero-click results.
- Marketers should explore multiple channels for audience engagement and traffic.
Resources
- Connect with Erin on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
- Related Episode: Is Inbound Marketing Still Working?
- Related Episode: What the Heck is Going on at Google?!
In this episode, Morgan Norris speaks with Susan Poeton, Publisher, Owner and CEO of Industry Today Media. They discus the evolution of publishing and strategies for technical companies to effectively communicate their news. They explore the importance of understanding the audience, the role of press releases, and the current trends in manufacturing and technology. Additionally, they talk through advertising strategies, paid media opportunities, and the significance of building brand awareness in a competitive market.
Key Takeaways
- Smaller companies can still tell valuable stories despite budget constraints.
- Brand awareness is key in a competitive market.
- Paid media opportunities should be part of a broader campaign strategy.
- Building long-term relationships with media platforms enhances exposure.
Resources
- Connect with Susan on LinkedIn
- Connect with Morgan on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Industry Today Magazine
- Listen to Industry Today's Industry Insights Podcast
- Submit news to Industry Today
- Learn more about TREW's Brand Marketing Services
As your company grows and changes, whether through acquisitions, new products, or expansion into new markets, it's important your messaging evolves, too. Learn how to evolve your messaging and align both internal and external stakeholders along the way.
In this episode of Content Marketing Engineered, Morgan Norris speaks with Chris Zmijewski, VP of Marketing at SAM, about the evolution of brand marketing and the transition of SAM into a data-driven solutions provider. They discuss Chris's journey in the company, the importance of internal messaging, leadership support, and the need for consistent communication across platforms, especially while acquiring multiple brands and entering new sectors.
Key Takeaways
- The integration of new technologies requires clear communication.
- Internal messaging is critical during acquisitions.
- Leadership support is vital for effective internal communication.
- Consistent messaging across platforms enhances brand recognition.
- Engaging staff at all levels fosters learning and innovation.
Resources
- Connect with Chris on LinkedIn
- Connect with Morgan on LinkedIn
- Learn more about SAM
- Learn more about TREW's Brand Marketing Services
As AI-generated content becomes more common, technical buyers and engineers are turning to more vetted sources than just company blog articles. Trusted technical and trade publications are gaining influence, and a strong PR strategy can help your brand break into these outlets—and boost visibility in AI-driven search results. Here's how to build a successful PR campaign.
In this episode, Morgan Norris, Senior Brand Strategist at TREW Marketing, discusses the evolving landscape of public relations (PR) and its significance in today's marketing strategies. The conversation covers the barriers marketers face in implementing effective PR campaigns, the importance of identifying newsworthy content, and the best practices for executing successful PR strategies. Morgan shares insights from a recent successful PR campaign for Path Robotics, illustrating the impact of a well-structured PR approach. The episode concludes with practical advice for marketers looking to enhance their PR efforts.
Key Takeaways
- PR is experiencing a renaissance
- Identifying newsworthy content is crucial for effective PR
- PR campaigns should focus on brand awareness, not immediate sales
- Contributed articles can enhance the reach of a PR campaign
- Building a targeted media list is essential for successful outreach
- Effective PR requires follow-up and engagement with media contacts
- Visual content can greatly enhance PR announcements
Resources
- Connect with Morgan on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn more about the Industrial Marketing Summit
- Download our News Release Template
Ever wonder if wiring and pitching press releases to technical publications is worth the effort? We spoke to the Editor-in-Chief of R&D World to uncover how marketers should be communicating and developing relationships with journalists to get the most out of their PR efforts.
In this episode, Morgan Norris, Senior Brand and Content Strategist at TREW Marketing, talks with Brian Buntz, the Editor-in-Chief of R&D World at WTWH Media. They discuss the evolving landscape of public relations, content marketing, and journalism, particularly in the context of technical publications. They explore how news consumption has changed over the years, the impact of AI on content creation and journalism, and the importance of press releases. Brian shares insights on best practices for brands to engage with media effectively.
Key Takeaways
- Trade publications are key sources for technical audiences.
- The voice of the customer is essential for effective storytelling.
- Press releases should include customer perspectives and data-driven insights.
- Engaging with media requires flexibility and adaptability.
- SEO strategies are evolving due to AI and changing search behaviors.
- Technical brands should focus on building relationships with journalists.
Resources
- Connect with Brian on LinkedIn
- Connect with Morgan on LinkedIn
- Learn more about R&D World
- Learn more about WTWH Media
In this episode, Kasey Tyring and the host discuss their experiences at the Automate Show, highlighting innovative demos, engaging booth strategies, and effective marketing practices. They explore the historical context of the show, share insights on attendee engagement, and emphasize the importance of follow-up strategies post-event. The conversation also touches on networking opportunities and the excitement surrounding future events in the industry.
Key Takeaways
- Engaging demos are crucial for attracting attention at trade shows.
- Interactive booths create memorable experiences for attendees.
- Staffing strategies significantly impact booth engagement and success.
- Post-show follow-up is essential for nurturing leads and maintaining momentum.
- Networking is a valuable aspect of attending trade shows.
- Fun and creative booth themes can enhance brand visibility.
- Content marketing should leverage insights gained from conversations at the show.
Resources
- Connect with Kasey on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
Chances are, your ideal buyer isn't limited to just North America. That's why we expanded our State of Marketing to Engineers report to include data about the buying decisions of engineers and technical buyers across Europe. We dive into the differences and similarities between the two audiences.
In this episode, Wendy Covey chats with Udo Bormann, Senior Marketing Manager at Elektor Media, to discuss the findings from the 2025 State of Marketing to Engineers report. They explore regional differences in marketing strategies, the importance of digital content such as video, social media trends, and the evolving role of AI in marketing. Udo shares insights on engineers' content preferences, the significance of trade shows, and the challenges of localization in Europe. The conversation emphasizes the need for marketers to adapt their strategies based on regional behaviors and preferences to effectively reach their target audience.
Key Takeaways
- Engineers in Europe and the US prioritize detailed and in-depth information
- Digital platforms are crucial for the buying process
- GitHub is a leading platform for engineers in Europe
- Video content is increasingly important for engagement
- Trust in AI tools is lower in Europe compared to the US
- Trade shows remain significant for networking and showcasing products in Europe
- Localization is key in European marketing strategies
Resources
- Connect with Udo on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Download the 2025 State of Marketing to Engineers Report
- Watch the Webinar
- Related Article: Your Top Questions Answered from the 2025 State of Marketing to Engineers Webinar
- Learn more about Elektor
Have you ever wondered how we decide which questions make it into our annual State of Marketing to Engineers report—and why those questions matter? In this episode, we pull back the curtain on the research process, revealing the strategy and collaboration that shape the insights industrial marketers rely on year after year.
Whether you're a longtime reader of the report or new to marketing to technical audiences, this behind-the-scenes look offers valuable context for understanding the data and how it reflects the evolving behavior of engineers and technical buyers.
In this episode, Wendy Covey is joined by CJ Haight, Content Marketing Manager at GlobalSpec, to unpack the findings from the eighth annual State of Marketing to Engineers Research Report. Together, they dive into the expanded scope of this year’s study—conducted in collaboration with Elektor International Media—which now includes insights from engineers and technical buyers across Europe and Asia.
The conversation covers key demographics of the respondents and highlights emerging trends in how technical audiences consume marketing content. Wendy and CJ explore the importance of recognizing regional nuances, tracking year-over-year shifts, and understanding which information sources—from social media and newsletters to the growing influence of generative AI—are shaping buyer behavior in the engineering world.
Key Takeaways
- Year-over-year trends help identify changes in buyer behavior.
- Engineers prefer direct sources for information.
- Social media platforms like LinkedIn have varied importance.
- Podcasts saw a decline in listenership this year.
- Independent sources are valued by technical buyers.
- Brand messaging should adapt to market conditions.
Resources
- Connect with CJ on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Download the 2025 State of Marketing to Engineers Report
- Watch the Webinar
- Related Article: Your Top Questions Answered from the 2025 State of Marketing to Engineers Webinar
- Learn more about GlobalSpec
Feeling a little uncertain in today’s economic climate? As the macroeconomic landscape continues to shift, marketers are being asked to do more with less. By focusing on efficiency and honing in on what truly drives results, marketing teams can continue to make a meaningful impact, even amid tightening budgets and evolving business priorities.
In this episode Wendy Covey interviews Karla Gregory, Digital Marketing Manager at Sumitomo Drive Technologies. They discuss Karla's career journey, the importance of strategic marketing planning, and the challenges faced in the current economic climate. Karla shares insights on leveraging AI for marketing efficiency, the significance of SEO, and the need for standardized processes. They also explore trends in industrial marketing, the value of employee-generated content, and the importance of building relationships in the industry. Karla concludes with advice for marketers to keep pushing forward despite challenges..
Key Takeaways
- Time blocking is essential for managing multiple marketing requests.
- AI can streamline data collection and analysis in marketing.
- SEO strategies should focus on long-tail keywords and content relevance.
- Standardized processes help ensure continuity in marketing efforts.
- Content created by employees often garners more engagement than traditional marketing posts.
- Marketers should adapt to changing economic conditions by automating processes.
Resources
- Connect with Karlaa on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Sumitomo Drive Technologies
When your sales territory spans thousands of square miles, and your customers are highly technical decision-makers, you need more than a few cold calls and sales brochures to break through. For Wes Murray, Regional Sales Manager at Hayward Flow Control, that “more” has been LinkedIn and video content.
Like many of us, Wes saw a shift in how engineers and specifiers engaged during the pandemic. With travel and in-person meetings on pause, he ramped up his use of LinkedIn—not just to create awareness but to educate.
And it worked. When presenting at lunch-and-learns or industry events, Wes started hearing things like:
“I loved that post you shared last week.”
“That video with your kids—so relatable!”
Often this feedback came from people who never interacted with his posts. That’s when it clicked: visibility and familiarity were paying off in real conversations.
Video isn’t always easy. Wes shared the many real-life challenges of filming at home—chaotic dogs, noisy kids, desert wind. But the results are worth it. Video gives people a feel for who you are, how you communicate, and what you stand for—all key ingredients for building trust with skeptical technical audiences.
Wes is quick to admit he’s not a professional marketer. And yet, his content works because it’s authentic. He blends technical insights with glimpses into his personal life—fishing trips with his kids, behind-the-scenes looks at product installs, even the occasional chainsaw cameo.
The result?
Content that makes people feel like they know him before he ever steps foot on-site.
“I want people to have a general idea of who I am and what I’m about. That familiarity helps me earn their time and attention.”
Wes had some advice for both sales and marketing professionals.
For Marketers:
- Create tools your sales team can actually use. From videos to application images to PowerPoint decks, think about how content can help a salesperson open a conversation or strengthen credibility.
- Think beyond spec sheets. Help salespeople connect—not just inform.
For Salespeople:
- Master your message. Content creation sharpens communication. Even if you never hit “publish,” the act of writing or recording helps you prepare for high-stakes conversations.
- Lean into your strengths. Wes isn’t trying to be polished—he’s trying to be real. And that makes all the difference.
Resources
- Connect with Wes on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Hayward Flow Control
This week, we dive into how industrial marketers should be leveraging first-party data, Google Ads, and contextual targeting to drive smarter, more effective, privacy-conscious digital campaigns.
In this episode, Wendy Covey speaks with Devin Webb, Performance and Innovation Manager at EETech about the evolving landscape of digital marketing, particularly focusing on the transition from third-party cookies to first-party data. They discuss the implications of this shift for marketers, the importance of utilizing Google Ads for targeted campaigns, and the necessity of measuring success through tools like Google Analytics. Devin shares insights on contextual targeting and emphasizes the need for marketers to adapt to changing consumer privacy expectations.
Takeaways
- Third-party cookies are being phased out due to privacy concerns.
- Marketers are shifting towards first-party data for targeting.
- Google Ads can be leveraged for precise audience segmentation.
- Contextual targeting is an effective strategy that doesn't rely on cookies.
- Working with publishers can enhance targeting capabilities.
Resources
- Connect with Devon on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Purchase a Digital Pass to the Industrial Marketing Summit
- Download the 2025 State of Marketing to Engineers Research Report
In this episode, Wendy Covey, Morgan Norris, and Kasey Tyring discuss their experiences at the recent Industrial Marketing Summit. They share insights on key themes such as the impact of AI on marketing, the importance of customer voice, and the shift towards video-first content. The conversation highlights the community aspect of the event, emphasizing networking opportunities and the value of personal branding. They also touch on how to access recording of the Industrial Marketing Summit sessions via the Digital Pass. Plus, the team talked about future plans for the summit and the release of new research on marketing to engineers.
Takeaways
- AI is transforming marketing strategies and should be embraced.
- Understanding customer voice is crucial for effective marketing.
- Video content is becoming a primary focus for marketers.
- Personal branding can elevate corporate messaging.
- Future events will continue to focus on community and collaboration.
Resources
- Connect with Morgan on LinkedIn
- Connect with Kasey on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Purchase a Digital Pass to the Industrial Marketing Summit
- Download the 2025 State of Marketing to Engineers Research Report
Could Amazon really be the industrial sales channel you're missing? I talk to an Amazon account management firm that works with manufacturers to get their products on the Amazon platform and meet the buying preferences of a new generation of buyers.
In this episode of Content Marketing Engineered, Wendy Covey interviews Will Tjernlund, co-founder of Goat Consulting, about the significance of Amazon for B2B businesses. They discuss Will's background, the journey of transitioning to Amazon selling, the advantages of using Amazon over traditional e-commerce, and how to navigate distributor relationships. The conversation also covers identifying suitable B2B products for Amazon, inventory management, optimizing product listings for visibility, and strategies for driving traffic to Amazon listings.
Takeaways
- Amazon is a crucial platform for B2B businesses.
- Using Amazon can be less complex than setting up a standalone e-commerce site.
- Distributors can still play a valuable role in the Amazon ecosystem.
- Optimizing product listings can significantly impact visibility and sales.
Resources
- Connect with Will on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn More About GOAT Consulting
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
If you're familiar with AI and want to take your knowledge one step further, this is the episode for you! We discuss advanced strategies to train your AI for tone of voice, how to utilize custom GPTs, and more.
This week we're learning from Melissa Reeve, the cofounder of MarketingFrontier.AI. We discuss the integration of AI in marketing, focusing on how to effectively use AI for writing and maintaining a brand's tone of voice. We explore the challenges marketers face when adopting AI, the importance of defining brand voice, and the creation of custom GPTs to enhance content generation. The conversation also touches on advanced strategies for teams, the necessity of persistence and nuance in AI usage, and resources available for marketers looking to leverage AI. Finally, we provide insights on how to gain executive buy-in for AI initiatives.
Takeaways
- The shift from A-B testing to "A to infinity" testing is now possible with AI.
- Articulate differences in tone in your AI prompts for various platforms is key.
- Creating a negative word list in your AI prompts can help refine AI outputs.
- Custom GPTs can streamline content creation for brands.
Resources
- Connect with Melissa on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn More About Marketing Frontier
- Related Article: Technical Marketing in the Age of AI: 2025 Trends and Recommendations
- Related Episode: AI Strategies and Tools for Industrial Marketers
- Related Episode: Differentiate Your B2B Marketing in 2025: Stand Out in an AI-Driven Landscape
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
Do you know which website page is your "money page"? This week, I talk to Mark Manual who shares how marketers can and should optimize the content that's bringing in the most revenue.
In this episode, Mark Manuel, co-founder of SightSonar, discusses the critical intersection of sales, marketing, and technology. He emphasizes the importance of understanding customer intent, optimizing websites for conversions, and the role of AI in modern marketing strategies. Mark shares insights on building effective bottom-of-funnel strategies, managing expectations in marketing, and the significance of trust and relationships in business. He also highlights the evolving landscape of marketing in manufacturing and the need for continuous improvement in marketing efforts.
Takeaways
- Understanding customer intent is crucial for effective marketing.
- The 'money page' is key to generating leads and revenue.
- Website optimization should focus on user behavior and needs.
- Expectations in marketing should be realistic and data-driven.
Resources
- Connect with Mark on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn More SiteSonar
- Related Episode: Is Inbound Marketing Still Working?
- Related Episode: Why Technical Companies Rely on Content Marketing
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
Are you finalizing your 2025 marketing plans? This episode will help you take a look at which of your initiatives could be disruptive to your team if not introduced thoughtfully. Today we're talking about change prioritization and how to implement change.
In this episode we talk to Jenny Magic, a change management expert and author of the book "Change Fatigue: Flip Teams From Burnout to Buy‑In." We discuss the evolution of change management, the challenges organizations face with change fatigue, the importance of psychological safety, and how to effectively integrate AI into workflows. Jenny shares insights from her book and offers practical advice for marketing leaders on managing change and fostering a supportive work environment.
Takeaways
- Organizations often struggle with too many simultaneous changes.
- Psychological safety is essential for team resilience and adaptability.
- Effective change management involves clear communication and transparency.
- Involving employees in the change process can reduce resistance.
- Change should not be dictated solely by the organizational hierarchy.
- Leaders must prioritize employee well-being during transitions.
Resources
- Connect with Jenny on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Get the Book: Change Fatigue: Flip Teams From Burnout to Buy‑In
- Learn More About Unworkable Work
Haven't figured out what your New Year's Resolution is yet? Consider leaning into AI adoption in 2025. Steve Cunningham shares how you can become the Hero of AI adoption at your company.
In this episode, David Schneer, a body language expert and CEO of Merrill Research, discusses the significance of qualitative research in today's changing landscape. He emphasizes the importance of understanding body language in research, the shift to virtual methodologies post-pandemic, and the intersection of AI with qualitative insights. David also shares personal stories from his journey of writing his book, 'Backbone: Surviving the Road Less Quantified,' and offers advice for marketers navigating technical fields.
Takeaways
- Qualitative research is essential for understanding consumer behavior.
- Body language plays a crucial role in interpreting responses during research.
- AI technology can enhance qualitative research by analyzing micro-expressions.
- Qualitative research should focus on depth rather than just surface-level data.
Resources
- Connect with David on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Get the Book: Backbone: Surviving the Road Less Quantified
- Related Episode: Communicating Through Body Language With David Schneer
- Related Episode: Understanding the Technical Buyer: 2024 State of Marketing to Engineers Report
Haven't figured out what your New Year's Resolution will be? Consider leaning in to AI adoption in 2025. Stave Cunningham shares how you can become the Hero of AI adoption at your company.
n this episode, Wendy Covey interviews Steve Cunningham, co-founder of Simple Academy, discussing the evolving landscape of AI adoption in businesses. They explore the changing attitudes of business leaders and employees towards AI, the stages of AI transformation, and the importance of creativity in marketing roles. Steve shares insights on implementing AI in organizations, the future of AI with agents, and how individuals can adapt and learn in the AI age.
Takeaways
- Understanding the stages of AI transformation can help individuals adapt.
- Creativity can be enhanced through AI tools in marketing roles.
- Companies need leadership buy-in for successful AI implementation.
- Learning in the AI age should be hands-on and practical.
- Using AI effectively can provide a competitive advantage in careers.
- Training AI on specific company data can enhance its usefulness.
Resources
- Connect with Steve on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Simple Academy
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
- Related Episode: AI Strategies and Tools for Industrial Marketers
- Related Episode: How We're Using AI Tools for Content Marketing
Can you believe it's already time to plan for 2025? Lee Chapman and I reflect on everything that changed in the world of marketing in 2024 and how we're updating our marketing strategy in 2025.
In this episode, Wendy Covey and Lee Chapman discuss the evolving landscape of marketing as they prepare for 2025. They reflect on the significant changes in inbound marketing, the importance of having a solid strategy, and the role of AI in enhancing marketing efficiency. The conversation also delves into the necessity of strong branding and the need for companies to focus on high-quality content that resonates with their audience. As they look ahead, they emphasize the importance of adapting to new tools and trends while maintaining a clear and focused marketing strategy.
Takeaways
- The inbound marketing playbook is evolving.
- Having a well-formed strategy is crucial before experimenting with new tools.
- AI tools can assist in creating more effective marketing strategies.
- Brand differentiation is key in a crowded marketplace.
- Quality of content is more important than quantity.
- Webinars and short-form videos are effective for conversions.
- Companies should focus on their unique expertise to stand out.
- Leveraging customer feedback is essential for brand messaging.
- Maintaining a clean CRM is vital for effective marketing.
- 2025 will require marketers to adapt to new trends and tools.
Resources
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- Connect with Lee on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
- Related Episode: How to Leverage Clean Data and AI for Effective Email Marketing
- Listen to the Artificial Intelligence Show
Scroll through Rob Brunson's LinkedIn profile and you'll see a variety of personal and professional posts - from memes to personal and emotional essays. His online presence inspires trust which ultimately makes his sales strategy a success.
In this episode of Content Marketing Engineered, Rob Brunson, Vice President of Marketing and Sales for Wallace Electronic Sales, shares insights on the importance of authenticity in social media, particularly on LinkedIn. He discusses his approach to personal branding versus company branding, the strategies he employs for content creation, and the significance of building genuine relationships in sales. Rob also reflects on his personal experiences, including the loss of his mother, and how these experiences shape his online presence and interactions. The conversation emphasizes the need for sales professionals to be themselves and to nurture relationships rather than resorting to aggressive sales tactics.
Takeaways
- Authenticity is key in social media engagement.
- Different audiences require tailored content strategies.
- Building relationships is crucial in sales.
- Personal experiences can enhance professional interactions.
- Humor can make sales approaches more relatable.
- Sales professionals should avoid pitching in initial contacts.
Resources
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- Connect with Rob on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Related Episode:The Power of Developing a Personal Brand in an Industrial Sales Role
- Related Episode: Building A Strong Personal Brand with Chris Luecke
As industrial marketers, we are obsessed with the technical buyer - how they're researching new solutions, how they're creating their shortlist of suppliers, and when they're ready to talk to sales. Gardner Business Media recently published their Industrial Buying Influence Report to help us answer these questions.
Dave Necessary, Executive Vice President of Product Development at Gardner Business Media stopped by the show this week to reveal the findings of Gardner's Industrial Buying Influence Report. Dave's findings emphasized the importance of understanding the industrial buying process, and the role of trust in information sources. Dave shares the need for industrial marketers to adapt their strategies to meet the expectations of modern buyers. The conversation concludes with practical recommendations for marketers looking to enhance their outreach and engagement efforts.
Takeaways
- 65% of buyers are open to considering new vendors during the purchasing process.
- 98% of buyers look for alternatives when making a purchase decision.
- The buying team typically consists of three or more members.
- Multi-channel marketing is essential for reaching buyers effectively.
Resources
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- Connect with Dave on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Download the Industrial Buying Influence Report
- Learn more about Gardner Business Media
- Related Resource: State of Marketing to Engineers Research Report
The TREW Crew is fresh back from sunny San Diego, and we're diving deep into their experience at Content Marketing World. Hear our lessons learned and what we'll be applying to our own marketing practice.
Join me as Lee Chapman and Morgan Norris share their insights from the mentorship program, the manufacturing master class, and the countless inspiring sessions they attended. We'll discuss the latest AI innovations, the power of personal branding, and the evolving landscape of video marketing.
They also share their honest thoughts on the conference party, and we'll look ahead to future industry events like the Industrial Marketing Summit. Whether you're a seasoned marketer or just starting out, this episode is packed with actionable tips and inspiring stories.
Takeaways
- Participating in the mentorship program was a highly rewarding experience.
- The manufacturing masterclass focused on personal branding strategies.
- Storytelling is a crucial element in marketing, especially for technical audiences.
- AI is reshaping SEO strategies, emphasizing search intent over keywords.
- Video marketing is becoming more accessible and less intimidating for companies.
Resources
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
- Connect with Lee on LinkedIn
- Connect with Morgan on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
Calling all industrial marketers! The Industrial Marketing Summit is BACK!
On this week's episode, we're sharing all the details on what to expect from the second annual Industrial Marketing Summit, the go-to event tailored specifically to the challenges of marketers in the B2B manufacturing, engineering, and technical industries.
Joe Sullivan, co-founder of Gorilla76, is my partner in crime! Together, our agencies are hosting the Industrial Marketing Summit, which will take place Wednesday, February 26 through Friday, February 28, 2025 in the AT&T Hotel and Conference Center at the University of Texas Austin campus.
I invited Joe on the podcast this week to talk about what he's most excited about for next year's event and why we started IMS in the first place. We'll peel back the curtain on the event schedule, covering workshops, keynote sessions, panels, and roundtables. We also talk about the positive feedback we received from the 2024 event and how this marketing summit is different from other marketing conferences you could attend.
Takeaways
- The Industrial Marketing Summit is designed for industrial marketers.
- Workshops will provide actionable insights for attendees.
- The event aims to build a community among industrial marketers.
- Sponsorships opportunities are available for companies who want to get involved.
- The summit will feature dual tracks of sessions: Brand & Strategy and Tactical Excellence
- The event is inclusive for all levels of marketers.
Resources
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
- Connect with Joe on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
If you're a well-established industrial brand in a specific vertical, it can be tempting to launch your products in a completely different sector. But there is a lot that goes into making the decision to launch into a new market and even when you do make the decision, it can take years and many trial and errors to gain market share. That's why I had John Schober, founder of Sorian, on the podcast this week. John has decades of experience consulting for businesses who are interested in launching into new markets. He shares insights on entering new markets, emphasizing the importance of experimentation, understanding customer needs, and developing a strong value proposition.
He discusses the iterative process of prototyping and feedback, risk management, and the necessity of collaboration across teams. Additionally, he highlights effective marketing strategies and the role of technical marketing in successfully penetrating new markets.
Takeaways
- Experimentation is crucial when entering new markets.
- Understanding customer needs is essential for success.
- Prototyping can help capture customer interest and feedback.
- Collaboration between R&D, marketing, and sales is vital.
- Unlearning previous assumptions is necessary when entering new markets.
- Iterative processes lead to better market fit and product success.
Resources
- Connect with John on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Mentioned in the Episode: Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A. Moore
- Related Resource: How to Create a Product Positioning Statement
- Related Guide: Product Launched for Engineers
Successful email marketing always starts with a clean email database. Hear tips on how to organically grow your email list, how often you should review your email list, when to delete inactive recipients, and how AI plays a role.
In this episode of Content Marketing Engineered, I talk to Shelly Alvarez, the Vice President of Marketing Services at Ragnarok. We discuss the evolution of email marketing, the impact of AI, and the importance of maintaining a clean database. Shelly shares insights on building a database from scratch, effective email marketing strategies for startups, and the significance of measuring success through revenue and key performance indicators. The conversation emphasizes the need for continuous testing and adaptation in marketing strategies.
Takeaways
- Email marketing is still relevant and evolving.
- Maintaining a clean database is crucial for email success.
- Pop-ups on websites can effectively capture leads.
- Testing different strategies is essential for success.
Resources
- Connect with Shelly on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Related Episode: Email Marketing Myths Debunked: What Really Works in 2024
- Related Resource: B2B Email Marketing Tips That Actually Work with Jay Schwedelson
How can we navigate the "family feud" between sales and marketing so we all succeed? Mark Hunter, The Sales Hunter, is on the show to talk about the common misunderstandings between teams and how to work together.
Mark Hunter is a best selling author, professional speaker, and founder of The Sales Hunter, an organization that trains companies and salespeople to achieve better sales and retain customers.
This episode is all about the age-old battle (or more, "misunderstanding") between sales and marketing departments and how to work through tension that often occurs. We explore the customer journey, the significance of effective communication, the need for alignment in strategies, and the need for quality metrics reporting. Mark discusses the role of personal branding on LinkedIn, and practical advice for bridging the gap between sales and marketing teams.
Takeaways
- The blame game between sales and marketing is unproductive.
- Understanding the customer journey is crucial for both teams.
- Salespeople should take responsibility for prospecting.
- Marketing should create awareness and educate the market.
Resources
- Connect with Mark on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Related Episode: The Power of Developing a Personal Brand in an Industrial Sales Role
- Related Resource: Top 7 Topics Sales & Marketing Alignment Sessions
Chris Peer, the author of The Great 8 Pillars: ROI-Driven Marketing for Manufacturing Companies joins us on the podcast this week to walk through all eight pillars and share what he thinks the most important are for industrial marketers. We talk about how to structure marketing operations for success and how to get in front of leadership with the right data that is meaningful to grow your influence within the organization and demonstrate the impact marketing can have.
We also talk about the need for frameworks and processes so that you can have a repeatable model when you launch campaigns. We talk about value proposition and of course your MarTech stack and how AI factors into this equation.
Takeaways
- ROI is crucial in marketing and should be the focus of marketing operations.
- A strong value proposition, messaging, and branding are essential for differentiation and attracting customers.
- Content creation and AI are major obstacles faced by marketers in the industrial sector.
- To get executive buy-in, marketers should demonstrate the impact of marketing on revenue and align marketing strategies with organizational goals.
- Measuring and reporting on the right metrics is key to gaining executive support and demonstrating marketing effectiveness.
Resources
- Connect with Chris on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
- Read The Great 8 Pillars: ROI-Driven Marketing for Manufacturing Companies
- Related Episode: Creating Your Manufacturing Marketing Foundation
- Related Episode: How Honest and Strategic Marketing Let to Rapid Growth
In this episode, VP of Account Service, Jennifer Dawkins, talks about her experiences at MAICON, the Marketing Artificial Intelligence Conference. Jennifer shares the high-level timeline of how AI is expect to evolve over the next decade and how marketers can keep up. They discuss the rapid advancements in AI, the importance of AI literacy for organizations, and the evolving landscape of content marketing in the age of AI, including the broader copyright implications.
As AI chat continues to answer user questions accurately, we discussed the importance of moving away from "what is" content, and work towards creating compelling content that stands out - with unique points of view and personal anecdotes. I also ask her about the new AI tools she's excited to learn about and try, including video editing tools and integration tools.
The main takeaway from the conference? AI is here. If you don't learn it, you'll lose business to your competitors and it will ultimately hinder your career as a marketer. But it doesn't have to be impossible to learn or implement, start small and don't let initial AI mistakes dissuade you from taking advantage of the tools.
Takeaways
- AI literacy is essential for organizations to stay competitive.
- Generic content will not perform well in the AI-driven landscape and compelling content must have a unique point of view.
- Copyright laws regarding AI-generated content are still evolving.
- Organizations must develop a clear AI strategy and guidelines.
- The future of AI includes multimodal capabilities and Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).
- Starting with small, low-stakes AI projects can ease the transition.
Resources
- Connect with Jennifer on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn more about the Marketing AI Institute
- Listen to the Artificial Intelligence Show
- Related Episode: How We're Using AI Tools for Content Marketing
- Related Episode: Navigating Data and Content in the Era of AI with Chris Penn
AI Tools Mentioned
- Chat GPT
- Descript
- Poe
- Chathub.gg
- Make
Curious about the fast-paced world of B2B tech startups? In this episode, fractional CMO Mary Anne Gunn shares her experiences navigating the challenges and opportunities of startup marketing. From building strong customer relationships to balancing sales and marketing, Mary Anne provides actionable insights to help marketers thrive in an ever-evolving environment.
Drawing from her 25+ years of experience, Mary Anne highlights the importance of adaptability in startup environments, understanding what your customers care about, and aligning marketing with high-level business goals. She discusses how to handle the pressure to deliver leads quickly while still laying a strong strategic marketing foundation. Mary Anne also provides practical tips on navigating the volatile nature of startups, balancing sales and marketing alignment, and staying up-to-date in a fast-changing marketing landscape.
Takeaways
- Embrace Flexibility for Career Growth: In the startup world, adaptability is a must. If you're willing to pivot quickly and tackle challenges head-on, you’ll develop a wide skill set that accelerates your marketing career.
- Build Customer-Driven Strategies: Understanding customer pain points and shaping marketing strategies around their needs is essential. The deeper your insights, the more impactful your role becomes.
- Focus on Metrics That Matter: Go beyond vanity metrics. As your career progresses, focus on efficiency and revenue-driven metrics that align with broader business objectives to position yourself as a strategic contributor.
- Collaborate and Network: Partner with sales, product, and other departments to create more impactful marketing programs. Relationship-building skills are crucial to your success.
- Stay Ahead of Marketing Trends: Keeping up with advancements in tools like AI can enhance your skills and make you more valuable, but never lose sight of the fundamentals—clear communication and a strong understanding of your market.
Resources
- Connect with Mary on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Start with Why by Simon Sinek
- Revenue Vitals by Chris Walker
- Related Episode: The Scrappy Solo Marketer
If you're like most industrial companies, attracting and retaining talent is one of your biggest challenges. In this episode we discuss how marketing can play a critical role in recruitment initiatives and community engagement.
Batesville Products Inc., an aluminum casting manufacturer, was facing a problem that plagues many modern manufacturers - they couldn't find or retain talent to fill their vacant production roles. Even when they did fill these positions, there was a high turnover. Mary Jutzi, Digital Marketing Associate at Batesville Products, teamed up with Batesville's human resources team to address this issue. In this week's episode, Mary shares the steps Batesville took to understand the root of their talent problem and the initiatives they launched to address those findings.
This episode is full of out-of-the-box initiatives that were very successful for Batesville Products Inc. From rewriting job descriptions, engaging in community events and local schools, and developing a children's book.
Mary explains how they leveraged their company culture and unique selling points to attract the right candidates. Mary offers advice for marketers tasked with meeting recruiting goals and shares insights on reaching younger professionals.
Takeaways
- Marketing can play a crucial role in supporting local communities and meeting recruiting goals.
- Increasing brand awareness in the community is essential for attracting the right candidates.
- Highlighting company culture and unique selling points can help differentiate from competitors.
- Engaging with the community through initiatives like children's books can have a significant impact.
- To reach younger professionals, it's important to show that the company is modern and offer workplace flexibility.
- Connecting with other Department of one marketers can provide support and valuable insights.
Resources
- Connect with Mary on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn more about the Batesville Products Inc.
- Check out the Batestville Products children's book and other resources
- Mentioned Resource: Winning the War on Talent by Chris Czarnik
- Related Episode: Navigating Modern Manufacturing: AI, Recruitment, and Marketing
- Related Episode: Working Together to Solve Manufacturing's Talent and Image Issues with Meaghan Ziemba
Fellow marketers, have you started your AI journey yet? No matter what stage of the journey you're on, The Marketing AI Institute is a resource you can use to accelerate your use of AI.
We are lucky to have Cathy McPhillips, Chief Growth Officer for the Marketing AI Institute, join us on the podcast to discuss her seasoned marketing career and all Marketing AI Institute including their upcoming Marketing AI Conference (MAICON).
Cathy shared the institute's mission to to make AI approachable, accessible, and actionable for marketers, focusing on AI literacy for all. They institute provides many free resources to get started including blogs, white papers, podcasts, research, online courses, and events. The podcast is one great way to learn a little more each week about the latest in AI for marketing and beyond.
We spent a lot of time talking about MAICON and as a past attendee, I can say the event is something every marketer should add to their calendar. From networking, to valuable sessions, to learning from fellow marketers, MAICON is a can't-miss event.
Takeaways
- The Marketing AI Institute aims to make AI approachable, accessible, and actionable for marketers, focusing on AI literacy for all.
- They provide various resources, including blogs, white papers, podcasts, research, online courses, and events.
- The flagship event, MAICON, focuses on accelerating AI adoption and strategy.
- Training and education are crucial for marketers to stay up-to-date with the rapidly changing AI landscape.
- AI has significant relevance and potential in the manufacturing industry, with various use cases and success stories.
Resources
- Connect with Cathy on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn more about the Marketing AI Institute
- Learn more about MAICON
- Related Episode: What the Heck is Going on at Google?!
- Related Episode: Navigating Data and Content in the Era of AI with Chris Penn
Writers from the TREW team share how they're using AI chat technology in the writing process. They also give tips on when to use tools like ChatGPT Teams and how to construct prompts and chat threads to get a better result.
Jamie Tokarz, Senior Content Strategist, and Julia Holliday, Senior Inbound Marketing Specialist, both use AI chat tools to take their projects up a notch. We discuss how they're using AI tools for research, ideation, content mapping, and editing as well as how these tools have changed since they were first introduced. Has their output improved in quality, or are they still seeing issues with AI "hallucinations"? We also revisit the strategy for prompting and returning to previous chat threads.
We touch on a few different AI tools including ChatGPT Teams, Claude, Perplexity AI, and Gemini.
The two TREW Crewers emphasized that AI is a tool that enhances the writing process but doesn't replace human creativity. Tips for integrating AI into marketing processes include starting small, treating AI as an assistant, and iterating on prompts.
Takeaways
- AI tools can be used for various stages of the content creation process, including research, ideation, content mapping, and editing.
- The launch of ChatGPT Teams has provided a tool that allows for conversation-based AI assistance while ensuring data confidentiality.
- Google search results are increasingly prioritizing discussion-based sites like Reddit and Quora, which may not always provide authoritative information for technical topics.
- Organizing prompts by subject and providing detailed background information can improve the effectiveness of AI-generated responses.
- Start small when integrating AI into marketing processes and iterate on prompts.
Resources
- Connect with Julia on LinkedIn
- Connect with Jamie on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Related Episode: What the Heck is Going on at Google?!
- Related Episode: Is Inbound Marketing Still Working?
Worried about Google's generative AI changes? Don't panic! Learn actionable strategies to pivot to mid-funnel content and use AI tools to navigate this new SEO environment successfully.
As we continue our SEO series, Wendy and Dale Bertrand delve into the evolving landscape of Google’s search results due to changing algorithms and the integration of generative AI. Dale emphasizes the need to plan proactively for upcoming uncertainties. He advises marketers to pivot their focus towards middle-of-the-funnel content, targeting customers who have identified their problems and are actively seeking solutions. Their conversation underscore the importance of adapting marketing strategies to provide unique, valuable information that truly resonates with the target audience instead of chasing trends. Additionally, Wendy and Dale delve into the use of AI tools in marketing and stresses the importance of measuring success through conversions and sales rather than merely focusing on traffic and rankings.
Takeaways
- Don’t panic about Google’s generative AI changes, but prepare for the uncertainties.
- Shift your strategy to create content for customers who are problem-aware and solution-seeking.
- Produce unique and valuable content that is easily consumable by your target audience.
- Use AI to streamline your processes and develop interactive widgets or apps.
- Focus on conversions and sales to gauge the true effectiveness of your marketing efforts, not just traffic and rankings.
Resources
- Connect with Dale on LinkedIn
- Email Dale
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- LinkedIn Post on using Claude to generate content maps
- Related Episode: What the Heck is Going on at Google?!
Have you recently found yourself saying, What the heck, Google?! Google search results have been experiencing significant changes, with an increase in discussion sites like Reddit and Quora appearing in search results. This is due to Google's emphasis on first-person experience (EEAT) and combating misinformation. However, the results often include outdated information and unreliable advice.
Additionally, Google's AI overviews, formerly known as Search Generative Experience (SGE), have been quietly rolled out, providing automatic answers to queries but sometimes pulling in inaccurate information from sources like forums. The leaked Google algorithms reveal that clicks, click-through rates, and length of page visits are ranking signals, while on-page SEO and technical backend optimization are less important than we previously thought. To adjust to these changes, marketers should diversify their strategies and focus on reaching their audience where they are through channels like YouTube, events, thought leadership, referrals, digital advertising, and public relations. Content strategies should prioritize deep technical content, real-world projects, and data, rather than introductory topics. It's important to stay flexible and adjust plans as Google's search landscape continues to evolve.
Takeaways
- Google search results now prioritize content from discussion sites to provide a first-person perspective.
- However, this shift has resulted in outdated and unreliable information appearing in search results due to a lack of oversight.
- Google's AI overviews, previously known as SGE, provide automatic answers to queries but may pull in inaccurate information and are not always pulling from the most authoritative sources.
- Clicks, click-through rates, and length of page visits are ranking signals, while on-page SEO and technical backend optimization are less important.
- Marketers should diversify their strategies and focus on reaching their audience through channels like YouTube, events, thought leadership, referrals, digital advertising, and public relations.
- Content strategies should prioritize deep technical content, real-world projects, and data, rather than introductory topics.
Resources
- Connect with Erin on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- An Anonymous Source Shared Thousands of Leaked Google Search API Documents with Me; Everyone in SEO Should See Them
- Reddit shown excessively in Google product review search results, study finds
- TREW Marketing Strategy Services
- Related Episode: The Evolving Search Landscape of 2023, from E-E-A-T to AI
- Related Episode: What We've Learned from Google's Search Generative Experience (SGE)
Industrial manufacturing and engineering companies may go decades without considering a Public Relations strategy. Our guest this week shares why PR shouldn't be overlooked in your overall marketing strategy.
Michelle Garrett is the author of B2B PR That Gets Results, a new public relations book that helps companies understand the importance of PR while providing tactical PR tips. On this episode, Michelle and I discuss how PR can help companies tell their stories and gain credibility. We talk about the misconceptions about PR, the difference between paid, earned, shared, and owned media, and the the integration of PR with content marketing and social media. We also talk about how to measure your PR efforts.
Takeaways
- PR is an essential component of B2B marketing and can help companies gain credibility and tell their stories.
- Misconceptions about PR include confusing it with advertising.
- PR should be integrated with content marketing and social media to maximize its impact.
- Measurement of PR efforts can include placements, impressions, and traffic generated.
- Consider adding PR to your marketing program to improve brand reputation and share company achievements.
- Quality writing is crucial in PR to stand out and engage audiences.
Resources
- Connect with Michelle on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn More About Michelle Garrett's PR Services
- Read Michelle's New Book: B2B PR That Gets Results
- Related Episode: Modern Public Relations: Micro Influencers, Niche Publications, and Generative AI
- Related Episode: How EETech is Helping Technical Brands Build Community and Add Self-Service UX
Has your growth stalled as a system integrator? Then this episode is for you! I talk with a senior consultant who works with system integrators to avoid common sales and marketing pitfalls that hinder growth.
This week, I'm joined by Jack Barber, Senior Business Consultant for Exotek, a boutique consultancy firm focused on system integration companies in industrial automation. Jack has more than 25 years of experience in the system integrator (SI) space, and was kind enough to share his wisdom about what he sees are the most common mistakes SIs make and how he educated them to be disciplined in order to grow leads and expand within their current clients.
We talk about the importance of focusing on specific niches and differentiating yourself in the market. SIs oftentimes fall in the trap of saying they "do it all" which can leave potential buyers confused about their strengths. We also touch on the discipline it takes to be successful during account management, and the importance of expanding accounts instead of just completing a project and moving on to the next client.
Takeaways
- Focus on specific niches and differentiate yourself in the market to attract clients.
- Balance business development with project delivery and have discipline in account development.
- Capture and transfer tribal knowledge from senior employees to younger ones.
- Create visual content to showcase capabilities and engage clients.
Resources
- Connect with Jack on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Exotek
- Related Service: Marketing for System Integrators
- Related Content: Top 5 Marketing Investments for System Integrators
- Related Case Study: Gray Solutions Content Development and Marketing Automation
Sam Heimbach is a professor of Public Relations and she talks to us about how modern PR really works. Gone are the days of solely pitching traditional journalists for coverage.
In this episode, Morgan Norris, Senior Brand Strategist, interviews Sam Heimbach, a public relations professor at Texas State University. They discuss the evolution of PR, the impact of social media, and the role of employee voices in PR.
They also touch on the use of generative AI and the changing landscape of journalism and PR. The conversation covers social listening tools, influencer research, and the impact of generative AI on the PR landscape as well as the importance of trust and authenticity in content creation.
Takeaways
- The evolution of PR has expanded beyond media relations to include social media and owned channels.
- Employee voices play a significant role in company brand and reputation, but it requires a balance of control and freedom.
- Generative AI is impacting the content landscape, emphasizing the importance of high-quality and trustworthy content.
- The rise of social media has changed the way journalists source information and has created new opportunities for PR professionals.
- The changing landscape of journalism and PR requires active digital and social media listening.
- Influencer research involves evaluating the reach, alignment with brand values, and content quality.
- Trust and authenticity are crucial in content creation, and AI should be used additively rather than as a replacement for human input.
Resources
- Connect with Sam on LinkedIn
- Connect with Morgan on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Texas State's PR Program
- Related Content: Engineering a Multichannel Marketing Strategy
- Related Content: The Rising significance of PR for B2B Engineering Firms
Engineering firm Hallam-ICS has sustained growth over the last decade, crediting honest company culture, inbound marketing in niche service areas, and evolving brand messaging as the reason for their success. We talk to the president and CEO, Keith Flaherty on the latest episode of Content Marketing, Engineered.
TREW Marketing has worked with engineering firm Hallam-ICS for more than 7 years and over that time many of the marketing strategies and brand messaging have evolved to reflect the company's growth. We invited president and CEO Keith Flaherty to discuss the company's history, culture, and growth over the years.
One thing that's truly special about Hallam-ICS is the company culture, it plays a huge role in recruiting and retaining employees and the messaging reflects this differentiator.
Hallam-ICS is also seen rapid growth in niche expertise areas, such as toxic gas monitoring and arc flash, and Keith credits executive buy-in of inbound marketing as the reason they've grown and generated millions of dollars in leads in those areas.
We also discuss how messaging changes with growth, and how to blend "small and friendly" messaging with "large and expert" messaging and how to stay consistent as more regional locations are added to the company.
Takeaways
- Company culture is a key differentiator in attracting and retaining employees.
- Achieve rapid growth in niche expertise areas by leveraging inbound marketing to generate leads.
- Messaging should be evolved over time to blend an original small, friendly culture with the current larger, more capable image.
- Opening new offices requires careful selection of leaders who understand the company's culture and can effectively communicate its messaging.
Resources
- Connect with Keith on LinkedIn
- Connect with Morgan on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Hallam-ICS
- Case Study: Hallam-ICS Uses Culture as a Key Differentiator in Technical Solutions
- Related Content: 4 Questions to Ask to Define Your Brand Differentiators
- Related Service: System Integrators
Christopher Penn is a co-founder and Chief Data Scientist at Trust Insights. Chris' newsletter is something the TREW Crew passes around our slack channel on a regular basis. His insights into the latest news about data analytics, automation, and generative AI, have been immensely valuable to or team, and we are thrilled he accepted our invitation to be a guest on Content Marketing, Engineered podcast.
In this episode, Morgan Norris, Senior Brand Strategist at TREW Marketing, asks Chris all of our burning questions about generative AI. They discuss the challenges and opportunities that arise when using generative AI or in-platform AI tools, and he provide a unique perspective about how AI should really be used as a research tool - something technical marketers can use to increase their knowledge of highly complex industries. They discuss AI disclosures to stay compliant with recent EU regulations, copyright issues, and a framework to help you decide which tasks are truly worthy of AI.
They also have a conversation about the rise of AI generated, no-click search and how marketers should update the way they approach content marketing.
Resources
- Connect with Christopher on LinkedIn
- Connect with Morgan on LinkedIn
- Learn more about the Trust Insights
- Related Episode: Generative AI for Marketing - Maintaining Trust and Building an AI Policy
- Related Episode: Optimizing for LLMs and Google's SGE with Dale Bertrand
I was lucky enough to schedule this podcast recording on the very rare weeks when Jake Hall was not on the road. This conversation focuses on Jake's years of experience at manufacturing and engineering trade shows. He shares valuable strategies for companies who want to maximize their event spend, Including the most important strategies to take while planning, attending and following up with attendees post-show. We talk about the opportunity to capture video content with partners, clients, and your internal subject matter experts and how networking events can be just as important as the trade show itself.
Key Takeaways
- Promote trade show attendance before the event to generate interest and schedule meetings with potential customers and partners.
- Create engaging and interactive booth experiences to attract and engage attendees.
- Form partnerships and collaborations with other companies in the industry to showcase integrated solutions and expand reach.
- Capture video content at trade shows to create post-show content and leverage for marketing purposes.
- Recast manufacturing as a cool STEM industry to attract younger generations and change the perception of the industry.
Resources
- Connect with Jake on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn more about the Manufacturing Millennial
- Related Episode: Trade Show Marketing Strategies from Automate 2024
- Related Episode: Nimble Event Strategy in Electronics
Ever wondered how to truly optimize your email campaigns? Join us as we chat with Jeanne Jennings, founder of the Email Optimization Shop, about innovative strategies, myth-busting, and the latest best practices for email marketing. Discover how business metrics are your ultimate KPI, why straightforward subject lines work best, and the pitfalls of third-party email lists. Jeanne also explores the power of valuable content in newsletters over promotional material and discusses the evolving role of AI in enhancing email marketing effectiveness.
Key Takeaways
- Measure Success with Business Metrics: Rely on business metrics as your key performance indicators (KPIs) to gauge the success of your email marketing campaigns.
- Benchmark Internally: Focus on your own past performance instead of industry standards to assess the effectiveness of your email marketing.
- Steer Clear of Third-Party Lists: Protect your sender reputation by avoiding the purchase of third-party email lists.
- Prioritize Valuable Content: Engage your subscribers by focusing on delivering valuable content in your email newsletters.
- Collaborate with AI Tools: Work iteratively with AI tools to fully leverage their capabilities and enhance your email marketing efforts.
Resources
- Follow Jeanne on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Check out Email Optimization Shop
- Join the Only Influencers Community
- Check Your Emojis with Emojipedia
- 6 Tips for Better Subject Lines, Preheader Text, and Headlines
- B2B Email Marketing Tips That Actually Work with Jay Schwedelson
It's a question marketers all over the world face - "Are trade shows worth it?" We get this question time and again and are often asked which industry trade shows are best to attend and exhibit at. After all, 89% of technical buyers said they plan to attend at least one in-person industry event this year. Last week, TREW Crewers Lee Chapman, Kara Moon, and Kasey Tyring attended the Automate trade show in Chicago to uncover the value of trade shows and what marketing and sales strategy can make your company stand out in a sea of other exhibitors on the show floor.
We discuss their impressions of the show, the booths and attractions that stood out to them, and the cool tech they saw.
Key Takeaways
- Attending trade shows can be a valuable opportunity to connect with prospects and stay competitive in the industry.
- Interactive booths and attractions can make it easier for attendees to engage with exhibitors.
- Timely follow-ups, such as same-day emails, can help maintain the momentum and interest generated at the trade show.
- Collaborating with other companies in the industry can enhance credibility and create a more impactful presence.
- Creative marketing strategies, such as limited swag giveaways and exclusive events, can help attract attendees and generate leads.
- Trade show planning should involve a balance between eye-catching demos and targeted marketing efforts to attract quality leads.
- Having a well-defined strategy and follow-up plan is crucial for maximizing the results and ROI of attending a trade show.
Show Notes
- Connect with Kara on LinkedIn
- Connect with Kasey on LinkedIn
- Connect with Lee on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Automate
- Related Episode: How European Engineers Seek Information and Make Technical Buying Decisions
- Related Episode: Nimble Event Strategy in Electronics
Kristin Graybill is the Vice President of Commercial Strategy at the Manufacturers Alliance and in her role, she speaks to hundreds of manufacturers all across the country. In this episode, we talk about the work of the Manufacturers Alliance whose mission is to drive economic growth and foster collaboration within the manufacturing sector. They do this by hosting peer programs, conducting research initiatives, and providing resources to leaders across departments in mid to large manufacturing companies.
I ask her what trends trends she's seeing in manufacturing marketing, and we focused on the increasing risk and use of AI to streamline operations and enhance marketing efforts. We also talked about how "old school" manufacturers are being forced to modernize their marketing to compete in a tight talent market. Kristin echoed the need for marketers in the manufacturing sector to embrace innovation and leverage marketing strategies that appeal to the human element of their audience.
Near the end of the conversation we talk about diversity and inclusion in manufacturing leadership. Kristin shares findings from recent research conducted by the Manufacturers Alliance on women's leadership in manufacturing. She highlights the challenges women face in middle management and disparities in perceptions of gender equality within the industry.
Key Takeaways
- The Manufacturers Alliance helps leaders in manufacturing through peer groups and industry research.
- AI is being used across manufacturing operations, marketing, and recruitment but comes with notable risks.
- Modern and creative marketing is necessary to recruit talent.
- Focusing on the advancement of women in manufacturing can help address the growing talent shortage.
Melissa Geertz is the Director of Marketing at Gray Solutions and over her year and a half tenure at the company has overseen a complete rebrand of the system integrator. I had her on the podcast to discuss the scale of the rebranding project, including how to get executive and cross-company buy-in, what steps to take during the rebrand, and how to measure qualitative and quantitative ROI of a rebrand.
We talk about the importance of authenticity to stand out in a crowded market and Melissa shares insights on how Gray Solutions used the culture of the company to guide the branding process.
Key Takeaways
- Establishing a unique brand identity is key to stand out in a crowded market.
- A rebranding project can have a significant impact on growth if done authentically and with a unique point of view.
- A unique rebrand can add to company culture and recruitment initiatives.
- Measuring the ROI of a rebrand should focus on growth metrics, such as inbound traffic, conversions, and brand recognition.
- Look at competitors to understand the space they are owning, but find your own unique brand identity and stay away from copying others.
- Gain inspiration from outside industries to bring fresh ideas and perspectives to your rebranding project.
According to our research, 97% of engineers and technical buyers watch work related videos during the work week. I talk with a video expert to learn the best types of videos to add to your content marketing mix.
Jeff Long is the owner of True Focus Media, a video and web development agency for industrial manufacturers. Jeff has more than 20 years experience in creating video content for industrial companies. Over the years, Jeff has seen the role of video evolve in marketing and today, it's more important than ever to include video in your content marketing strategy.
We discuss the types of videos to create besides the traditional corporate promotional overview video. Videos such as thought leadership pieces, answering frequently asked questions and creating demos of your products is a great way to share valuable content with your audience. Jeff shares his tips for preparing a spokesperson for video and emphasizes the value of authenticity in video content. We share advice on creating a content roadmap and effectively distributing video content as well as tools that can make producing video content easier.
Key Takeaways
- Consider adding video to your content marketing strategy
- Use video to showcase expertise and provide value
- Prepare spokespersons for video by encouraging them to teach rather than sell
- Create a content roadmap to plan topics and speakers for your video content
- Authenticity and human connection are important for building trust through video
Resources
- Connect with Jeff on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn more about True Focus Media
- Related Episode: Video Shouldn't Be This Complicated with Bryan Fittin
- Related Episode: Daily Videos Part of a Robust Content Marketing Strategy For Optics Manufacturer
How will Google's Search Generative Experience change the way brands appear in Google's search results? One member of the TREW Crew has been in the SGE beta for more than a year. Let's see what she's found out
In this episode, I catch up with Jennifer Dawkins, Vice President of Account Services at TREW Marketing, Jen has been part of the Beta program for Google's new Search Generative Exoereince (SGE) for more than a year and in that year, there have plenty of updates. I ask her about her experience with the SGE program program.
For some background, Google's SGE is an AI-generated search summary that appears on the Google homepage, providing quick, AI-generated answers to users' queries. Jennifer shared that SGE has been valuable for finding clear factual answers and quick information, but has been less than accurate when asking, technical or complex questions. Often pulling from sources that are not traditionally high-ranking in Google search results.
We also talk about how brands can optimize their content strategy for Google SGE and other AI-assisted search tools. The bottom line? Quality content and a multi-channel digital presence are the most effective strategies. The rollout of SGE to the general public is still uncertain, and we believe that traditional Google search and quality SEO standards will continue to coexist with AI-assisted search platforms like SGE.
Key Takeaways
- SGE provides quick answers and summaries for factual queries, but may provide inaccurate or misleading information for more complex and technical searches.
- A multi-channel digital presence is crucial for optimizing for AI-assisted search, as AI algorithms consider the frequency of brand mentions across various platforms.
- Quality content remains essential, and creating valuable, trustworthy content is key to gaining exposure and building trust with readers.
- Traditional Google search will likely coexist with AI-assisted search platforms like SGE, as they serve different purposes and cater to different user needs.
Resources
- Connect with Jen on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Related Episode: Optimizing for LLMs and Google's Search Generative Experience (SGE) with Dale Bertrand
- Related Episode: Updating You 2024 & 2025 SEO Strategy with Kyle Roof
The marketing team at Heatcraft Refrigeration Products are not afraid of stepping outside the box when it comes to reaching their target audience. Pete Grasso, Content Marketing Leader, and Tim Fletcher, Digital Marketing Leader join me on the podcast to talk about how they use B2C strategies to build a loyal following and get the information their contractors need.
We discuss how they've successfully partnered with a trusted influencer in their space to maximize reach, create dozens of new content pieces and gain feedback from their community. This video alone has more than 30,000 views. They've also created a dedicated mobile app to help their contractors get the answers the need quickly, the app is also used as a sales-enablement tool and is used by their wholesalers and distributers. creating a mobile app, experimenting with AI, and using video marketing for sales enablement. We discuss their use of AI and video. They emphasize the importance of measurement and ROI and the power of executive buy-in.
Not only is the marketing department seen as innovators, they are also a valued department in the organization, assisting HR with recruitment and culture assets (check out this creative Family Matters video), creating sales enablement tools and getting key buy-in from executives.
Key Takeaways
- Consider applying B2C strategies to the B2B space
- Collaborate with influencers to reach niche audiences and build trust
- A mobile app can be a useful content delivery system and sales enablement tool
- Use video marketing to engage customers and showcase company culture
- Prioritize marketing initiatives based on core company pillars
- Think outside the box and dare to try new and creative approaches
- Measure marketing efforts and demonstrate ROI to stakeholders
Resources
- Connect with Pete on LinkedIn
- Connect with Tim on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Heatcraft Refrigeration Products
- Related Episode: Influencer Marketing in Electronics and Semiconductor
- Related Episode: Why Successful Technical Companies Rely on Content Marketing
Jordan Yates is well known in the Industrial Marketing B2B space as a Marketing Engineer and podcaster. She's the host of her own podcast Failing For You, and has helped many industrial businesses create their own podcasts.
In this episode, we discuss the benefits and considerations of starting a B2B podcast. We explore the growing popularity of podcasts and the opportunities they present for B2B companies. We also discuss the different formats of podcasts, such as interviews and solo episodes, and the misconceptions people have about podcasting. The conversation covers the importance of planning and strategy before starting a podcast, as well as the tactical steps involved, such as naming the podcast, designing the creative for the podcast, establishing an RSS feed, and choosing an online recording software. We also cover the different ways to measure the success of a podcast.
Jordan and I share our recommendations for equipment, including laptops, cameras, microphones, and lighting.
Takeaways
- Before getting started, understand the time and commitment it takes to produce a podcast and divert resource accordingly
- Create a hook in the podcast introduction to engage listeners from the start.
- Consider using music and voiceover to make the podcast introduction more professional and captivating.
- When creating podcast cover art, choose a design that aligns with your brand
- Maintain brand consistency by using the same cover art and overlays for your podcast episodes.
- Invest in essential podcasting equipment, such as a laptop, camera, and microphone, and lighting
- Measure podcast success through metrics like listens, downloads, and engagement, and consider using lead capture mechanisms to gather more information about your audience.
The folks at EETech know a thing or two about the research and buying habits of engineers and designers after spending decades building communities better known as the 'Reddit for Engineers." We talked about what they've learned and how technical companies of all sizes can take advantage of their tools.
EETech is a huge online communications company dedicated to serving up the most important content for today's engineers. Today, I'm lucky to have David Blaza, Global Sales Director and Terra Gledhill, Director of Research & Marketing, on the podcast to talk about their wealth of experience working with highly technical brands to make the most impact when reaching engineers and technical buyers.
We discuss all the different online communities EETech has built to be the "Reddit for engineers" including All About Circuits, Control Automation, and EE Power, among many others. We also go deep on the findings of EETech's Annual Engineering Insights Report and why self-service on your website is one of the most important features you need to close the deal with engineers.
In this episode, I welcome back Morgan Norris, Senior Brand Strategist at TREW Marketing. We delve into the world of personal branding and specifically, how people in sales and marketing roles can utilize this strategy to become a go-to and trusted resource. Personal brand is as an individual's identity and reputation both online and in person. We talk about how personal branding fosters trust and loyalty among customers.We also discuss how to define and enhance a personal brand by identifying your strengths. The conversation also covers how personal branding should align with your company's corporate brand.
Takeaways:
- Personal branding is essential for salespeople to establish themselves as trusted resources
- Identify your strengths and what sets you apart from others to define your personal brand
- Align your personal brand with your company's brand, but also maintain your own unique tone
- Imagery and visual cues can enhance your personal brand
- Use AI tools to brainstorm ideas, but ensure that your personal brand remains authentic
- Start with small steps like posting on LinkedIn, commenting on posts, and creating videos
Struggling with organic traffic or how to update your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy for 2024 and beyond? Give this episode a listen. Kyle Roof returns to share how marketers should approach SEO updates like EEAT, SGE, LLMs and more.
Kyle Roof is the co-founder of Internet Marketing Gold and PageOptimizer Pro and he's the Lead SEO of High Voltage SEO. Kyle is also one of our most popular guests on Content Marketing, Engineered. The last time he was on the podcast was two years ago and wow, have things changed in the SEO landscape since then.
I was thrilled to have him back on to discuss all the recent updates and themes of the SEO industry, from Google's Search Generative Experience (SGE), E-E-A-T guidelines, Multimodal Search, optimizing for Large Language Models (LLMs), and Parasite SEO strategy on forum sites like Reddit, Quora, and Medium.
We talk about the impact of the Helpful Content Update, if pillar pages are still relevant, author authority and how important it is to signal to Google that a real person wrote your content.
We finish the episode with one truth: Successful SEO is still in large part about understanding the foundations of SEO: Semantics HTML (Htags), inbound links, entities, winning longtail keywords, etc.
Resources
- Connect with Kyle on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Related Episode: Using a Data-Driven SEO Approach with Kyle Roof
- Related Episode: The Evolving Search Landscape of 2023, From E-E-A-T to AI
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
- TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
Craig Coffey is a seasoned marketing professional and champion of content marketing to improve his B2B technical company's market share and bottom line. Learn how Craig has utilized content marketing successfully throughout his career.
If you look at Craig Coffey's LinkedIn profile, you'll find an impressive career in B2B marketing and you may even notice that many of his roles lean heavily on content marketing. Craig is no stranger to the power and success a content marketing strategy can bring to an organization. I brought Craig on the podcast to talk about his career and his content marketing strategies over the years - everything from research to product launches, to creating a physical magazine to place in distribution centers. During the episode we talk about ways to convince leadership that content marketing is a winning strategy to break into markets, gain market share, and build trust and leave a lasting impression with your audience.
We talk about Craig's current role, and how he's using content marketing to foster trust and brand awareness while breaking into a market where you're not well known. As a true content marketing expert, I couldn't wait to get his opinion about the following topics:
- Content repurposing
- Brand and messaging development
- Buyer personas
- Collateral vs. content
- Service matter experts
- Spokespeople and thought leadership
This episode is a content marketing masterclass. Listen now to learn from a true champion of content marketing.
Resources
- Connect with Craig on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Related Content: 10 Activities to Include in Your B2B Content Marketing Strategy
- Related Content: An Engineers Guide to B2B Content Marketing
- TREW Services: Content Marketing for Engineering Companies
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
- TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
Targeting engineers and technical buyers? We walk through the ways your ideal audience is researching solutions, making purchasing decisions, and spending time online.
The State of Marketing to Engineers Research Report is in its 7th year! GlobalSpec and TREW Marketing have teamed up all these years to understand the behavior and strategy of the technical buyer and engineer. What are their research habits? What are their channel preferences? How are they spending their time online outside of work? On this week's episode, I'm joined with CJ Haight, Content Marketing Manager at Global Spec to go over some of the findings from our annual report.
We discuss some of the most popular topics such as artificial intelligence (AI) and how technical buyers are using and feeling about AI tools. We also discuss topics that industrial marketers what to know about their ideal buyers:
- What social platform do technical buyers value most for work?
- How many trade shows will technical buyers attend this year?
- How many newsletters are they willing to subscribe to?
- Which types of content do they value most?
- Which types of content are they willing to fill out a form for?
- How much time do engineers spend researching a solution before reaching out to a sales person?
- Where do engineers routinely seek out information for a work related purchase?
In this episode we go deep into the topics above and break down preferences and behavior by age and geography. Does an engineer in Europe use LinkedIn as much as an engineer in North America? What social platform do Engineers aged 66+ use the most for work? What about for engineers younger than 30?
Watch or list to this episode fore a great breakdown of the report or download the full research report here.
Resources
- Connect with CJ on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn more about GlobalSpec
- Related Research: 2024 State of Marketing to Engineers
- Related Content: Q&A form the 2024 State of Marketing to Engineers Webinar
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
- TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
Matthew Olson of Signalfire shares how to boost organic search through Google Business Profiles and how to make visual branding and brand identity a priority.
Matthew Olson is the President of Signalfire, a creative marketing agency based in Wisconsin. Signalfire was a brand sponsor of 2024 Industrial Marketing Summit and after meeting him and his team at the event we knew we had to have him on the podcast. Signalfire started in 2006 and has a unique mix of clients. Today Matthew and his team are focused on helping clients in the industrial manufacturing and tourism industries. While these two industries may not appear to have a lot in common, Matthew shared the key strategies that are successful in both and what industrial marketers can learn from B2C marketing strategies.
This episode of Content Marketing, Engineered covers the importance for industrial companies to optimize their Google Business Profiles, including adding geographic locations and soliciting authentic customer reviews. Matthew goes into detail about the hidden SEO benefits of Google Reviews.
Matthew and I talk about the future of SEO and Google Search as well as alternative avenues to bring in audiences like Google Ads and even TV ad placement. Another great conversation topic is the importance of visual branding and creative design - something stakeholders don't often see ROI in. Matthew shares his perspective on this and teaches us how to get buy-in from executives by sharing the benefits of great creative.
Resources
- Connect with Matthew on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Related Research: 2024 State of Marketing to Engineers
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
- TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
Meaghan Ziemba shares how manufacturers can attract young talent and how to use marketing to manage their brand to sustain success for years to come.
Mavens of Manufacturing were a Media Sponsor for this year's Industrial Marketing Summit. Behind the brand is the very talented and champion for Manufacturing - Meaghan Ziemba. Meaghan is the owner of Z-Ink Solutions, a technical copywriting and editing service. On this episode, Meaghan and I discuss the skill development and hiring issues the manufacturing industry is facing, what benefit marketing has to correct some branding issues in the industry, and the important role of the technical writer.
We also discuss the upcoming Manufacturing Ally Rally, taking place June 20th in Cleveland, Ohio. This full day event will host panels from experts across disciplines in manufacturing to help unite manufacturers as allies to their communities.
Resources
- Connect with Meaghan on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Z-Ink Solutions
- Learn more about Mavens of Manufacturing
- Related Episode: How to Turn the Knowledge of Your SMEs into Exceptional Content
- Related Content: How to Write a Technical White Paper for Engineers
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
- TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
After a whirlwind few days in Austin, Texas at the Industrial Marketing Summit, Kasey Tyring and Wendy Covey share their highlights of the event.
Wow! If you didn't attend the 2024 Industrial Marketing Summit, you missed out on one of the most special, engaging, and valuable industrial marketing events of the year - and it's not just us saying that! A quick look at the #IMSummit tag on LinkedIn shows just how impactful this conference was to industrial marketers.
In this episode of Content Marketing, Engineered, I talk with Kasey Tyring, Senior Inbound Marketing Specialist at TREW Marketing. Kasey played a large role in organizing the conference but also got to attend many of the sessions and mingle with attendees. We discuss what went down at the conference, from the keynote, to the back-to-back sessions, and the stacked line-up of panels. We cover our key takeaways from AI sessions, branding and messaging sessions, and more.
Of course, one of the biggest highlights of the Industrial Marketing Summit was the genuine networking and connection building everyone experienced - all wrapped together by a really REALLY fun time we won't soon forget.
Catch the recap of the 2024 Industrial Marketing Summit!
Resources
- Connect with Kasey on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn more about the Industrial Marketing Summit
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
- TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
Patrick Hopper joins me to talk about the many ways marketers can partner with industry publications to grow awareness, reach new audiences and build leads.
Patrick Hopper is the Publisher and President of OpenSystems Media which publishes well-known industry publications such as Embedded Computing Design and Military Embedded Systems. As the president, Patrick straddles both sides of the operation, working on the content side and client/advertising side. I've worked with Patrick for over a decade in various capacities and I invited him to join me on the podcast to share all the different ways marketers can utilize technical industry publications they might not know about including some free avenues.
Patrick and I spoke about trade show strategies with their upcoming trade shows Embedded World 2024 in Europe and Embedded World North America - coming to Austin, Texas this October. Specifically how to stand out in a sea of thousands of vendors. We also dove into the FREE ways small businesses can utilize the reach of OpenSystems Media properties. Most notably, marketers can submit content for free, whether it's just one article or several in a series, this content is then distributed across daily and weekly newsletter and LinkedIn. Marketers can get connected to their content team through their submissions page. Patrick encourages everyone to use this free resource.
Listen to the full episode on how to utilize technical publishing using:
- Webinars
- Tradeshows
- Newsletters
- Blog Articles/Series
- Podcasts
For a true, integrated marketing campaign, marketers know they need to use many different channels to get their message across, working with an established, trusted media brand is an effective strategy.
Resources
- Connect with Chris on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Learn more about OpenSystems Media
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
Building a strong personal brand can be a game changer for salespeople in technical companies. A strong personal brand establishes you as authoritative and credible and helps you stay top-of-mind with your key audience.
I invited Chris Luecke, Founder and Podcast Host of Manufacturing Happy Hour on the podcast to share how he built his personal brand, how it benefited him as a salesperson, and how to get started.
Chris was generous enough to share how he got started building his personal brand. It all started when he needed to reach a new audience of technical buyers in his role as an account manager selling industrial automation solutions and software. Chris needed a way to reach a new audience, including millennials who were starting to be promoted into decision making roles. He wanted to share his solutions in a simple, casual way like you would if you were out having a beer someone. The venture grew from campy videos he would store on YouTube and include in his personalized sales newsletter to popular LinkedIn videos that grew his reach and personal brand exponentially.
In this episode we discuss the challenges B2B brands have with utilizing the personal brands of employees within the company including less control of brand standards and messaging, and use of standard marketing materials. Ultimately their is a strategy that includes merging company and personal brands together so everyone wins.
We also discuss the fear and workarounds of getting in front of a camera and growing your audience if you're just starting out.
Resources
- Connect with Chris on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Listen to Manufacturing Happy Hour
- Related Episode: How Industrial Marketers Approach Influencers, Storytelling, and Personal Brands
- Related Article: 5 Actionable Ways to Position Yourself as a Thought Leader
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
So much has changed in the marketing landscape over the last 12 months. Erin Moore and Kara Moon share how your 2024 marketing scorecards should be adjusted to reflect those changes.
There have been so many industry changes in marketing over the last 12 months from how users are searching, what platforms their using, and how the channels themselves are serving up content. As we grapple with all these changes and its effect on organic traffic, it's important make adjustments to your marketing analytics, whether you keep a weekly scorecard, monthly spreadsheet for stakeholders, and so on.
I sat down with TREW Crewers Erin Moore, Account Director, and Kara Moon, Senior Inbound Marketing Specialist, to talk about how they've updated their tracking and marketing benchmarks for 2024, why those changes were necessary, and best practices for marketing analytics.
We discuss the continued need for differentiated and targeted channel strategy and what tracking for each channel looks like including YouTube, LinkedIn, events, PR, Google advertising, and industry advertising. We also talk about where to get your marketing data: GA4, HubSpot, or each channel individually.
For many marketers, especially those wearing multiple hats in a small or one-person department, it can be tempting to blow off metrics but it's one of the most important marketing tasks. You need to be able to measure and track what you're spending time and money on, as well as make effective behavior changes using those metrics.
Resources
- Connect with Erin on LinkedIn
- Connect with Kara on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Related Episode: 2023 Marketing Wrapped - AI, Search, Social, and Strategy for 2024
- Related Episode: Optimizing for LLMs, and Google's SGE with Dale Bertrand
- Related Episode: How to Increase Organic Traffic and Improve Domain Authority with a Content Audit
- Learn more about Looker Studio
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
January is the perfect time to audit your marketing content - and it's not just a housekeeping task! Jennifer Dawkins and Kara Moon explain how a content audit can increase organic traffic and improve domain authority.
A content audit is a great exercise to complete in January when you're preparing and organizing your marketing plan for the year. A content audit gets you organized and can help you align and update your messaging. I spoke with two TREW Crew members, Jennifer Dawkins, Vice President of Account Services, and Kara Moon, Senior Inbound Marketing Specialist, on the podcast who shared how they execute successful content auditing projects for our clients. First, we talk about the reasons why you should complete a content audit, including updating outdated or irrelevant content, and ensuring all content on your site reflects your current products and services.
We spoke about how a content audit can uncover the common issue of having too much or not enough content for each stage of the buyer's journey. Maybe you have too much content for the lead nurturing stage, but not enough lead generation content. You may also find that a high-traffic piece of content is not relevant or bring in the wrong type of user.
In this episode, you will learn:
- What data you need for a content audit
- How to analyze that data
- What qualitative analysis you need to complete
- How to determine what content to keep, combine, or kill
- how often you should be auditing your content
- The benefits of a content audit
Resources
- Connect with Jennifer on LinkedIn
- Connect with Kara on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Related Episode: Lasso Your Content Chaos
- Related Guide: An Engineer's Guide to B2B Content Marketing
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
We've all heard of Spotify Wrapped, so this year we thought it would be fun to create Industrial Marketing Wrapped! Lee Chapman and I discuss the many changes to marketing in 2023 and what we and our clients are focusing on in 2024.
In 2023, TREW Marketing celebrated its 15th anniversary! While we've seen tons of changes in industrial marketing over the years, 2023 seems to be unique in its changes due to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and the need to update many channel strategies. In this episode Lee Chapman, TREW's President and I discuss the biggest changes and lessons learned from 2023 and how we will approach industrial marketing in 2024.
We start off the episode with the year's biggest topic, AI. We, like many marketers out there, spent many hours this year researching and testing different AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, Bard, Writer, Jasper, and all the built-in features of our favorite tools like HubSpot and Moz.
Also with the rise of AI came its ripple effects across search behavior, how users consume data, and in turn how marketers should approach different channel strategies. As AI, LLMs and Google's Search Generative Experience (SGE) start to take away opportunities for traffic to our own websites, marketers need to focus on their email strategy (newsflash, the trick is NOT to spam your database) and their social strategy. We've seen an uptick in engagement on LinkedIn as well as really interesting ways marketers are using LinkedIn whether that's the carousel posts, informal "letter" style posts or adding links in comments instead of directly in the posts.
Another channel or medium to focus on in 2024 is YouTube and video in general. Our research shows YouTube is a top channel for engineers and technical buyers of all ages and experience levels. YouTube is a great place to build out your thought leadership, subject matter experts, and brand authority,
In this episode we also touched on Moz's new Brand Authority measurement tool and our 2023 European and global research as well as the upcoming Industrial Marketing Summit. 2024 is shaping up to be a major year of growth for marketers to enhance their skill set and for industrial brands to reach new audiences on new channels.
While planning your new year remember: successful marketers will be focusing on building a strong brand and a differentiated channel strategy and they will remain agile, curious, and creative.
Resources
- Connect with Lee on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
- Related Episode: Optimizing for LLMs and Google Search Generative Experience (SGE) with Dale Bertrand
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
- TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
The TREW Team is excited to have Dale Bertrand, CEO of Fire & Spark back on the podcast to discuss the changing nature of search marketing and how to optimize for the future of LLMs and Google's Search Generative Experience (SGE).
Dale Bertrand is the CEO and Founder of Fire&Spark, an SEO agency. Dale is also a popular speaker, sharing his expertise at conferences like INBOUND and Content Marketing World. We invited Dale to share what he's learned in 2023 - specifically in regards to the changing nature of search marketing and how marketers should update their strategies to optimize for Large Language Models (LLMs) and Google's future Search Generative Experience (SGE).
Dale and I discussed how AI has had major implications on how search engines operate and how AI has changed user search behavior. For marketers, we've moved well-beyond "gaming the system" for SEO and instead should broaden SEO strategy to focus on optimizing for each channel (LLMs, SGE, bots, YouTube, etc.) and focusing on being seen as a trusted thought leader in the eyes of Google.
Dale theorized that Google is going to determine which author has the expertise to write about a topic and who Google trusts to provide the answers users are looking for. We discussed this is the perfect time to develop internal Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and leverage them for the signals Google is looking for.
Resources
- Connect with Dale on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
- Related Episode: Taking a Conversion-Focused Approach to SEO with Dale Bertrand
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
- TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
In this episode, I'm joined by Udo Bormann, Marketing Conversion Manager at Elektor, to discuss our recent research report "Decoding Engineering Preferences." The research is based on a survey of over 1,200 engineers and technical professionals across Europe and covers a broad range of topics, including search behavior, the use of AI tools, content preferences, and most valued marketing channels.
Every year, TREW hosts Content Writing, Engineered, a technical writing bootcamp for marketers who want to level-up their technical writing skills. This year, two TREW Crew members participated in the course. We talk about their experience in this episode.
The Content Writing, Engineered course is designed to teach marketers, sales professionals, and engineers in technical companies how to write compelling yet technical content for their target audiences. Senior Inbound Marketing Specialists Julia Holliday and Kasey Tyring took the course this year and they discussed what they learned with the course instructor Morgan Norris, TREW's Senior Brand Strategist.
Course Breakdown:
6-Week Course with a mix of group lessons and one-on-one coaching calls.
Week 1: Preparing to Write
Week 2: Content Types
Week 3: Research and Outline
Week 4: Writing
Week 5: Reviewing Content
Week 6: Enhancing Content
Kasey and Julia discussed the key takeaways from the course including getting a better handle on the writing and storytelling process. They also discussed the value of being trained how to interview subject matter experts (SMEs), the technical experts in your company that can be the missing link to your content strategy. Overall the two agreed the course was a great chance to learn and hear from other marketers in industrial and technical companies who are trying to balance their workload while also continuing to learn and improve their marketing skills. It was also eye-opening to know that even seasoned, marketers can benefit from the course, getting a lot of best practices and actionable takeaways to use in their role.
Resources
- Connect with Morgan on LinkedIn
- Connect with Julia on LinkedIn
- Connect with Kasey on LinkedIn
- Get Information on the 2024 Content Writing, Engineered Course
- Related Episode: How to Turn the Knowledge of You SMEs Into Exceptions Content
- Related Article: 5 Ways to Effectively Reach Engineers and Technical Audiences
- Related Article: Why You Need a Technical Writer on Your B2B Marketing Team
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
- TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
A comprehensive discussion about the relationship between marketing and sales, covering topics such as storytelling in marketing, integrated marketing and the strategy behind successful sales enablement.
Pam Didner has an impressive career history, which includes various roles at Intel, becoming a marketing professor, and then transitioning to becoming a sought-after marketing thought leader and keynote speaker. In this week's episode of Content Marketing, Engineered, Wendy and Pam discuss the importance of sales and marketing alignment, understanding your marketing bandwidth and boundaries, and what true, successful sales enablement actually looks like.
Resources
- Connect with Pam on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Related Article: Top 7 Topics for Sales + Marketing Alignment Sessions
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
- TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
Mary Keough shares a new way of looking at the buyer's journey and what channel strategies she's focusing on to add more high-intent leads to her pipeline.
Mary Keough is a seasoned marketer both in the SaaS and industrial marketing space and shares insightful marketing tips to her more than twenty thousand followers on LinkedIn. There's a reason why she's so popular - she's authentic. You can tell the marketing strategies she shares have been hard-won by experience. One of her favorite topics? Marketing and sales alignment. I spoke with Mary on this week's episode of Content Marketing, Engineered and we discussed a wide variety of topics from navigating the technical buyer's journey, which channels to focus on, how to measure high-intent leads, and how you can turn your marketing department into an essential business function in the eyes of your leadership team.
Watch or listen to this episode for some valuable marketing advice, and if you want to hear more from Mary, you can catch her session: FINALLY. A Marketing & Sales Alignment Strategy that Just Might Work at the Industrial Marketing Summit on Thursday, February 2nd in Austin, Texas.
Resources
- Connect with Mary on LinkedIn
- Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
- Related Article: Content Types That Guide Engineers Throughout Their Buyer's Journey
- Related Article: Top 7 Topics for Sales + Marketing Alignment Sessions
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
Manufacturers often don't have direct relationships with the end customer, and instead use a distribution network to sell their products. However, there is a huge communication gap between what marketing thinks the end customer wants and what the distributor knows they want. This week's episode is all about learning and listening from your manufacturing distributors.
This week I was joined by Tom Paul, CEO of BAM!, a mobile distributor portal. I wanted to have him on to give manufacturing marketers a different point of view on how our content can benefit or be reworked to serve our valuable network of distributors. We talked about the common miscommunications between the manufacturer and the distributor and how simply asking the right questions and listening to the people on the front lines can dramatically impact the usefulness of our enablement materials.
We discuss topics like training, the best way to access distributor materials, and the difference between the needs of veteran distributors and new, entry-level salespeople.
Resources
- Connect with Tom on LinkedIn
- Learn more about BAM!
- Related Episode: How Manufacturing Marketers Impact Rep Growth
- Related Episode: The Power of Integrated Data Across Marketing, and Distribution
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
Wendy Covey talked with Eddie Saunders Jr. of Speak Friend Consulting, about 2024 marketing planning, the power or comarketing, empathy in developing sales enablement, and more.
2024 is looming just a few short months away! As marketers, it's time to think about updating our strategies for the new year - where to focus our efforts, which channels to invest in, and how we can level-up our craft. I had Eddie Saunders Jr. on the podcast this week to give his insights into these topics. We talked about about the underused tactic of comarketing, how TikTok can be added to your marketing channels, and how marketers can develop more empathy to reach customers where they are - plus using your sales team to get even more customer intel.
Don't miss Eddie at the Industrial Marketing Summit January 31 - February 2nd in Austin, Texas. He will be joined by other panelists who are industry leaders in influencer marketing, brand voice, and thought leadership.
Resources
- Connect with Eddie on Linkedin
- Learn more about Speak Friend Consulting
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
The hosts of the 2024 Industrial Marketing Summit get together to share the impressive lineup of speakers and topics for the 3-day summit.
The Industrial Marketing Summit is shaping up to be a can't-miss event on any industrial marketer's calendar. Wendy Covey, Joe Sullivan, and Adam Beck got together to talk about what to expect from the summit. The event takes place January 31 - Feb 2 at the University of Texas at Austin campus in the AT&T Hotel and Conference Center.
TREW Marketing, Gorilla 76, and CADENAS PARTSolutions are hosting the event after they noticed a need for an individual marketing summit geared specifically toward the needs of industrial marketers. The conference is broken into three days. The first day is a welcome dinner and reception, the second day is a full-day of sessions, and the third is broken into a half day of workshops.
The half-day of workshops are designed for industrial marketers to walk away with actionable insights to take back with them. The first workshop is titled "Successful Reporting: Using Data to Tell the Story About What’s Working." Hosted by Gorilla 76, attendees will leave the workshop with a meaningful dashboard that will help paint a clear picture of your progress for your leadership team. The second workshop is hosted by TREW Marketing and is titled "Leveling Up Your Content Plan: A Guided Approach to Building Brand Authority." Attendees will leave this workshop with a completely build out content strategy for a campaign.
The conference will cover the following topics, and more!
- Product Marketing
- Sales and Marketing Alignment
- Increasing Right-Fit Leads
- SEO and Trustworthy Content
- AI Tools and Practical AI Strategies
- Using Data to Redefine Marketing
- The Importance of Customer Experience
- Building and Measuring Brand
- Influencer Marketing and Thought Leadership
Resources
- Register for the Industrial Marketing Summit
- Follow Industrial Marketing Summit on LinkedIn
- Become an Industrial Marketing Summit Sponsor
- Connect with Wendy on Linkedin
- Connect with Joe on LinkedIn
- Connect with Adam on LinkedIn
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
Wendy Covey talks with Sannah Vinding, Digital Marketing Director at Micro Commercial Components, about how she humanizes the brand, excels at thought leadership, and provides valuable content to her sales and distribution teams.
In electronics manufacturing, theres always so much to do - especially in marketing. From setting up your sales team for success, to producing valuable and memorable content, to working with distributors. How can you get it all done? Sannah Vinding, Digital Marketing Director at Micro Commercial Components, uses "swim lanes" to keep everything organized. She breaks down her strategy in the latest episode of Content Marketing, Engineered.
Sannah and Wendy discuss the importance of humanizing an electronics manufacturing brand and how to utilize and grow thought leaders within your organization. She also shares her winning video strategy across LinkedIn, your website, and YouTube.
Resources
- Connect with Sinnah on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Micro Commercial Components
- Listen to the Mind the Innovation Leadership podcast
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
Morgan and Wendy recap their epic week at Content Marketing World 2023!
Wendy Covey and Morgan Norris were in Washington D.C. last week to attend and share their own expertise at Content Marketing Institute's annual Content Marketing World conference.
Resources
- Connect with Morgan on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Content Marketing World
- Learn More about Content Marketing Institute
- Elizabeth Banks' American Heart Association Commercial
- Blog: The Power of Voice of Customer Insights for Engineering Companies
- Blog: Stop, Collaborate, and Listen: Harness Voices of Customers
- Podcast: Conducting Customer Interviews with Morgan Norris
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
The state of industrial marketing is changing fast! As the demographic of engineers and technical buyers evolves, so too should our marketing efforts.
On this week's episode of Content Marketing, Engineered, I spoke with Nikki Gonzales, Head of Partnerships at QuoteBeam and host of the Automation Ladies podcast. As a millennial with a storied work history in the industrial manufacturing and software industries, Nikki brought a fresh point of view on how to market and sell to engineers and technical buyers.
We discussed how ignoring your outdated internal processes can cost you young talent, whether you should gate your assets with a form, whether you should have pricing and inventory listed on your website, and the best social media strategy to reach engineers of all ages.
Resources
- Connect with Nikki on LinkedIn
- Listen to the Automation Ladies podcast
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
Senior Inbound Specialists Kara Moon and Kasey Tyring share the highlights of what they learned from INBOUND23, HubSpot's annual marketing conference.
HubSpot's annual INBOUND conference is something we look forward to every year and this year, Senior Inbound Specialists Kara Moon and Kasey Tyring attended the conference in Boston. After an action-packed week of marketing sessions spanning all topics from analytics to social media, they join me on the podcast to share what they learned and what we can expect from the all-in-one tool for marketers.
They discuss the main theme of the conference, Artificial Intelligence, and the new AI tools that HubSpot announced while also sharing the main AI tips they learned from sessions about SEO, social media, and content marketing. But this episode isn't all about AI, Kara and Kasey explain which sessions inspired them the most and what strategies they plan on using right away.
Resources
- Connect with Kara on LinkedIn
- Connect with Kasey on LinkedIn
- TREW's HubSpot Services
- More HubSpot Resources:
- The Future of AI with HubSpot
- Why B2B Companies are Adopting HubSpot
- TREW's HubSpot Tutorials
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
Our content specialist, Jamie Tokarz is the master of creating exceptional content out of your Service Matter Experts. With more than 16 years' experience, she shares how she does it.
She is a star writer that produces amazing content and all her clients love her and love working with her...we were thrilled to have our very own Jamie Tokarz on the podcast this week! Jamie is a Content Strategist and has helped TREW clients produce exceptional content using their own Service Matter Experts (SMEs) for more than eight years.
We invited Jamie to teach us how to get the most out of SMEs' very valuable time by hosting efficient sourcing sessions and how to take what we gathered from those sessions and turn it into content that converts.
Jamie shares:
- How to prep for SME sourcing sessions
- How to set expectations for SMEs who aren't in marketing
- How to us AI tools to prepare and supplement SME knowledge
- How to create an efficient review process
Resources
- Connect with Jamie on LinkedIn
- TREW's Content Marketing Services
-
AI Tools Mentioned:
- Google's Bard
- perplexity.ai
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
He's a crowd favorite at HubSpot's Inbound conference, now he's here to share his latest tips in B2B email marketing.
Are you banging your head on your keyboard thinking your attempts at reaching your audience via email is fruitless? We get it, B2B email marketing can seem like you're getting lost in the inbox. That's why we had Jay Schwedelson on, the founder of SubjectLine.com and Outcome Media. Jay has presented on email marketing for years - one of our team's favorite presenters at HubSpot's annual Inbound Marketing Conference. Jay has a talent for rebuilding our confidence in email marketing by sharing his genius yet simple tactics to great email marketing. From testing subject lines, sending newsletters more than once, and adding relevance. He even shares a few proven subject line strategies that can increase your open rate by 25% or more!
Resources
- Connect with Jay on LinkedIn
- Learn more about SubjectLine.com
- Learn more about Outcome Media
- Register for Guru Conference
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
Say goodbye to death-by-powerpoint! Richard Goring shares his top presentation tips.
Richard Goring is a director at Bright Carbon, a content creation company producing anything where visually storytelling is useful such as presentations, explainer videos, infographics, etc.
With years of experience and thousands of presentations under his belt, he is the expert on all things presentations. I talked to Richard about how to make highly technical content more engaging during presentations and some common pitfalls he sees marketers making when building PowerPoints for conferences, sales demos, and everything in between.
We talked about how to brainstorm your presentation without using PowerPoint and some PowerPoint hacks that only the experts know. Richard shared some excellent free tools (listed below) and theorized how far AI can take us in making visual presentations.
Resources
- Connect with Richard on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Bright Carbon
- Learn more about the Presentation Guild
- Microsoft Copilot
- Tools Mentioned:
- Color Pallet Generation
- color.adobe.com
- coolors.co
- Photography
- Unsplash
- Pexels
- PixaBay
- Iconography
- The Noun Project
- Material.io
- Color Pallet Generation
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
John Joyce joins us to share how integrating data across departments, distributors, and countries can really work.
John Joyce is one of those unique marketers that have worked on both sides of the business, within a marketing agency and in an internal marketing department. His career is impressive. He spent the last 8 years at Brennan as the Global Marketing Director and in that role he essentially brought the established company into the 21st century with modern marketing. In this episode we talk about his most successful moments at Brennan including branding initiatives, video, and inbound and content marketing.
We also discuss some of the data challenges and lack of connectivity he faced, which led him to start Brijr.io, a managed integration platform designed to connect data between sales, marketing, distributers, inventory, and more.
I had a great time talking to John as we discussed some of the hot topics in our industry from the changing landscape of SEO to the opportunity marketers have to rise above the noise of generative AI.
Resources
- Connect with John on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Brijr.io
- Join the waiting list for the Industrial Marketing Summit
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
Erin Moore shares the key themes from MozCon 2023 and why going back to basics is a winning strategy.
Erin More, TREW's Account Director, attended MozCon this year to bring back all the latest industry news on Search Engine Optimization (SEO). If you're a marketer or a practitioner of SEO specifically, you know how much things have changed in the last few years and even months in the world of SEO and search rank strategy.
According to Erin, there were 4 big themes from MozCon 2023:
- Search is a lot more than Google search
- The way google interprets information and feeds you information has changed
- The way SEOs understand search is changing
- Google has been evolving constantly with AI
Erin explains each of these themes and how marketers can make some key changes to their SEO strategies in order to build authority and lean into brand recognition - two key strategies SEOs are turning to for success in the future.
Resources
- Connect with Erin Moore on LinkedIn
- Learn more about MozCon
- SEO Series Part 1: The Evolving Search Landscape of 2023
- SEP Series Part 2: Taking a Conversion-Focused Approach to SEO
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
In the industrial marketing space, we have a lot of catching up to do. Jordan Yates, Marketing Engineer at Knowles Precision Devices, shares how she uses modern marketing strategies to gain an edge over the competition.
Jordan Yates holds a unique title as a "Marketing Engineer," combining her mechanical engineering background from Texas Tech University and her role on the technical marketing team at Knowles Precision Devices. After graduating, Jordan leveraged social media, particularly LinkedIn, to her advantage. She cultivated a personal following by sharing technical demos and documenting her journey of learning new skills like soldering. This growth has not only benefited the companies she has worked with but also sparked a discussion on the power of personal brands, influencer marketing, and thought leadership within the engineering industry.
In today's episode of Content Marketing, Engineered, we delve into strategies for making technical content more accessible and engaging for audiences, as well as uncovering what kind of content engineers are really searching for. One highlight of the episode is when Jordan explains her secret to making technical content exciting – writing "love letters" as her first draft or idea generation.
Resources
- Connect with Jordan Yates on LinkedIn
- Learn More About Knowles Precision Devices
- TREW Marketing Content Marketing Services
- Inbound Marketing Case Study: Knowles Precision Devices
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
What a head-spinning time we had at this year's Marketing AI Conference (MAICON). We're distilling everything we learned - with practical examples of how marketers are utilizing AI - in this week's episode of Content Marketing, Engineered.
At TREW Marketing, we are no strangers to the power of AI marketing tools to provide intelligence and streamline mundane tasks. However, the ever-evolving nature of AI means that there is always something new to discover. From innovative tools to ethical considerations, we knew it was crucial to attend MAICON, hosted by the Marketing AI Institute. TREW's Senior Brand Strategist, Morgan Norris and I immersed ourselves in three days of learning. Now, we're excited to share the key takeaways from the conference, including emerging tools we're eager to experiment with, and creative ways marketers are leveraging AI tools and LLMs themselves to drive business results.
In this podcast episode, Morgan and I delve deep into the capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) for marketers. We explore how LLMs can streamline workflows, eliminate mundane tasks, and enhance creativity. We discuss generative AI application tools like Jasper, Writer, MarketMuse, and functional-specific tools for video, transcription and more. We also highlight the potential of AI as an aid in rapid strategy development, as demonstrated by Ethan Mollick's ability to create a host of product launch materials in 30 minutes using AI.
Join us as we share our insights and discoveries from MAICON, and get ready to be inspired by the possibilities of AI in marketing.
Resources
- Marketing AI Institute
- Microsoft Co-Pilot
- Ethan Mollick: Using AI to Create a Product Launch in 30 Minutes or Less
- AI Tools
- Jasper
- Writer
- MarketMuse
- Perplexity
- Descript
- GlossAI
- Bright Edge
- BrandOps
- Claude 2
- An Industrial Marketer's Guide to Generative AI
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
We've hit the half-way mark of 2023! Here are a few strategies to boost demand, unify sales and marketing, and earn quick wins for your marketing efforts.
As we enter the second half of the year, it's easy to get overwhelmed with all that's left to accomplish - especially this year when there's been so much uncertainty. Marketers are uneasy - there's been budget cutbacks, new AI, analytics and, social platforms to keep up with, and looming end-of-year reports to consider.
So, I thought this would be a great time to talk with Lee Chapman, president of TREW Marketing, and learn from her how fellow marketers are feeling and discuss some quick wins that can get us all out of the mid-year slump to end the year strong.
The discussion covers a number of quick wins marketers can achieve.
- Revisiting value proposition and messaging
- Interviewing existing customers
- Performing a SWAT analysis
- Performing content audits
- Updating which metrics to track
- Focusing on thought leadership
- Updating social media strategy
- Launching "mini campaigns" for product launches or events
I also asked Lee about which content she is seeing perform the best for her B2B clients...no surprise...she said there is no silver bullet and that a mix of content is key (blogs, white papers, ungated assets, social graphics etc) with a heavier emphasis on video, as our research shows, younger engineers are seeking out video. LinkedIn is also one of the highest performing channels.
Give this episode a listen or read the transcript below to inspire some new energy going into the last half of 2023.
Resources
- Lee Chapman on LinkedIn
- TREW Marketing "Quick Win" Services
- TREW Value Proposition and Messaging Services
- 2023 State of Marketing to Engineers Research Guide
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
Working in a marketing department with a team of one? Here's how one solo marketer approached a full website redesign.
On this week's episode of Content Marketing Engineered, I had the pleasure of hanging out with Amanda Dinauer. Amanda is one impressive marketer. She is the Marketing Director for three brands: LasX Industries, MicroMed Solutions, and FlexPak Services. How does she juggle it all?
We talked through her approach to content marketing, how she handles different leadership priorities, and prepares for real-time events like product launches.
We also discussed one recent successful undertaking: a complete website redesign for LasX.
- Initial reasons for the redesign
- Necessity of creating a strategy first
- Adding high-quality videos
- Prioritizing customer-focused messaging
- Creating a process for updating content
Resources
- LasX's New Website
- TREW Marketing Website Services
- 6 Crucial Steps in Preparing for a Website Redesign
- Case Study: Silex Technology Website Redesign
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
New AI tools and more that continues to make HubSpot the best all-in-one marketing platform.
I caught up with Chris Alexis, Mid-Market Sales Manager at HubSpot on the latest episode of the podcast. Chris and I have worked together for more than a decade and have watched the HubSpot platform morph and expand to serve businesses of all sizes, from start-ups to large enterprises and expanded its capabilities for coverage throughout the customer journey.
Chris walked through the evolution of HubSpot from its beginnings an inbound marketing tool to today's all-in-one marketing, CRM, operations, and customer service platform.
We discussed the buyer's journey for marketers searching for the right marketing platform for their needs and Chris highlights some key considerations such as product adoption and implementation, training, connections to external tools, and productivity.
I was very excited to talk about the future of HubSpot. In its history, the company has been excellent at changing with the times and scaling with the businesses it serves. In today's changing landscape, HubSpot continues to innovate adding critical tools like generative AI writing tools and ChatSpot -- the intelligent CRM sales and marketing assistant that can pull reports and answer any CRM questions with ease.
Resources
- Chris Alexis on LinkedIn
- TREW Marketing HubSpot Services
- Try HubSpot's Content Assistant and ChatSpot
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
How to successfully approach networking events and what your local technology council can do for you.
It was a true pleasure to have a conversation with Thom Singer. His career has taken a winding path guided by the powerful connections he's made over the years. Thom is a successful public speaker, author, and podcaster and his most recent role is the Chief Executive Officer of the Austin Technology Council where his mission is to bring Austin's technology companies together to engage the wider Austin community and ensure the future of Austin's technology business landscape.
In this podcast episode we discuss Thom's background in marketing and his genius take on networking and adding value to events and to the people you meet.
"Networking is not a verb, it's a lifestyle. You can't just show up at an [industry event] and think 'this networking stuff doesn't work, nobody sent me tons of business'. It takes years to build a reputation in your community, in your industry.-Thom Singer CEO, Austin Technology Council
We also extend the philosophy of adding value to the concept of content marketing. Many businesses are apprehensive to share their IP with the public, but ultimately, in mine and Thom's experience, sharing valuable information wins business and trust.
Of course, we had to talk about Thom's plans for the Austin Technology Council. He shared why these councils are so important for their communities and how technology and related service companies can get involved.
Resources
- Austin Technology Council
- Thom Singer on LinkedIn
- Thom Singer's Website
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
Is your team using AI tools? Here’s everything you need to know to maintain trust and authenticity.
In this week's episode, Morgan Norris, Senior Brand Strategist at Trew Marketing, shares everything she’s learned about Generative AI. Morgan has become our resident expert on all things AI tools and has sifted through dozens of tools to find out which ones are most valuable to marketers. Morgan shares the key features of the best performing tools for tasks like idea generation, editing, and content writing.
We also highlight the ever-present need to stay authentic and trustworthy when developing and publishing content – something we still need human oversight for. Last, discuss what liabilities could come up if you’re using AI tools incorrectly and the direction these tools could take in the future.
Resources
- Webinar: Improve Your Prompting to Use Generative AI for B2B Content Development
- Generative AI for Content Marketing
- How to Create an AI Policy for Your Engineering Company
- Morgan Norris on LinkedIn
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
In this week's episode, I sit down with Nicole Donnelly, the Founder and CEO of DMG Digital. We are both marketing agency owners in the manufacturing and engineering space, so we really dive into what we see as the main challenges manufacturers face when it comes to marketing from executive buy-in to consistency and long-term strategy.
Here are the topics we covered in this episode:
- Executive buy-in of marketing efforts
- Marketing and sales silos
- Sales enablement materials
- The value and ROI of consistency
- The difference between SME and AI sourced content
- Where to begin marketing for manufacturing
The Artificial Intelligence vs Service Matter Expert (SME) discussion was a great topic to bring up. Nicole and I agreed that there is a place for generative AI tools like ChatGPT in your content and marketing strategy, but if you want valuable, trustworthy content that converts, it's best to source your content from your experienced internal talent. Nicole also shared her advice for marketing efforts that become stagnant and when to elevate your marketing strategy into paid advertising, video, podcasting and more.
Resources
- 2023 State of Marketing to Engineers Research Guide, including previous research reports
- Nicole Donnelly on LinkedIn
- Generative AI for Content Marketing
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
Learn the fundamentals of taking a conversion-focused approach to SEO content to meet your audience where they are in their buyer’s journey, and drive sales and revenue for your business.
Part 2 of our SEO mini-series continues with Dale Bertrand, President of SEO agency Fire&Spark. Like many SEO professionals, he didn’t start his career focused on marketing, content, or search. He started as an engineer, first in manufacturing and then in computer engineering building a supercomputer for the NSA, before a stint focused on AI. He brings his rare combination of engineering, AI, and SEO expertise to our episode today, tackling the topic of conversion-focused SEO for engineering and technical companies.
As search engines have evolved and user behavior has changed over time, SEO best practices have changed as well. SEO success no longer comes from keyword stuffing, or a few back-end tweaks, or aggressive link building. Instead, companies are finding success in search by building authority around key topics to gain visibility, and by focusing on conversion intent and optimization in their search strategies.
Dale elaborates on taking a conversion-focused SEO approach to meet your audience where they are in their buyer’s journey, delivering the content they need at that time and using content to drive them to the next step. He gives examples of how companies in the engineering space can use this approach to drive lead generation, revenue, and other key conversion activities. We also discuss the impact AI is having and will have on SEO, and how even as the technology changes, the fundamentals of marketing, SEO, and content development stay the same.
Resources
- Fire&Spark's website
- Dale Bertrand on LinkedIn
- Got a question? Email Dale: dale@fireandspark.com
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
Learn about the biggest changes to SEO over the last year, including the EEAT update and the growth of AI search and generative AI, and hear how these changes are impacting B2B engineering companies like yours.
For part one of this two-part series on SEO for technical, B2B companies, we’re joined by Lily Ray, Senior Director of SEO and Head of Organic Research at Amsive Digital. Lily has spent the last 11 years in agencies, focused on SEO and organic research across many industries, and she brings a wealth of experience to our episode today.
Google has been in a period of rapid evolution, with multiple core updates released over the last few years. The biggest update, E-E-A-T, has changed the search landscape, prioritizing experience, expertise, authority and trustworthiness of websites and individual authors alongside other, long standing ranking factors. Lily cites how she’s seeing E-E-A-T and other core updates impact client sites, as well as how businesses can find success in organic search by focusing on user experience first and foremost.
If the frequent shifts in Google’s algorithm weren’t enough, we also have the rapid adoption of AI changing how people search for and create content. After spending months testing ChatGPT and AI search engines, Lily has takeaways on the smart, responsible ways of using these tools, and why it’s dangerous to use the tools without a firm understanding of how they work and what they do and do not do. She also shares how she’s using this new toolset to create efficiencies in info sourcing and content reuse, to augment rather than replace current processes.
Resources
- Lily Ray on Twitter
- Lily Ray on LinkedIn
- Lily Ray’s website
- Amsive Digital: SEO Articles
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
Gain insights into where manufacturing marketers are seeing success and how they are investing their marketing budgets in 2023.
For part two of my two-part research series, Lisa Beets, Research Director for the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), joins me to walk through key findings from the 2023 Manufacturing Content Marketing Research Report. The report studies where content marketers working in manufacturing invest time and budget dollars, and the outcomes they are experiencing.
This year's study spans a broad range of marketing topics, from content creation and management, distribution, metrics and goals, and budget allocation.
There were three particularly interesting discussions we had during the interview:
- Manufacturing marketers are outpacing B2B marketers in video investment in both the number of videos produced and the use of YouTube as a distribution channel.
- Manufacturing marketers cited web visits and social followers as the most important metrics as opposed to conversion metrics for B2B marketers; hearing this makes me ponder the final point....
- There were struggles cited with creating a content marketing strategy (which may be the reason for bullet #2 - relying on easy-to-grab vanity metrics over substantial conversion metrics)
This report is an excellent companion to part one of my research series, where we walked through the 2023 State of Marketing to Engineers.
Resources
- 2023 CMI Manufacturing Content Marketing Report
- Content Marketing Institute
- Lisa Beets on LinkedIn
- 2023 State of Marketing to Engineers Research Guide, including previous research reports
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
Gain insights on how engineers and technical buyers find and consume content to make purchase decisions.
Christian Haight (a.k.a. CJ), Content Marketing Manager at GlobalSpec, joins me on this episode to walk through key findings from the 6th annual research study conducted by TREW Marketing and GlobalSpec.
The 2023 State of Marketing to Engineers Report includes a set of consistent questions we ask to monitor trends, such as preferred information sources and content types. We also take a deep dive into search behaviors, influencers, podcasts, and in-person events.
In this episode we walk through key findings, industry feedback and our own opinions in areas such as:
- Search behaviors
- Channel preferences
- Industry influencers
- Social media preferences
- Valued content
- Sales interactions
For more in-depth research information, check out the resources link below. Also be on the lookout for event MORE research to be released this year. In June 2023 GlobalSpec has a report coming out on engineers' work challenges and where they seek training and education. In Fall 2023 TREW Marketing and Elektor will release a European-focused report with many overlapping areas of focus as the State of Marketing to Engineers research.
Resources
- 2023 State of Marketing to Engineers Research Guide, including previous research reports
- 2023 State of Marketing to Engineers on-demand Webinar and Webinar FAQ blog post
- GlobalSpec
- CJ on LinkedIn
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
Hear from TREW Marketing Co-Founders and early employees share stories about the company and how marketing has changed in the past 15 years.
To celebrate TREW Marketing's 15-year "TREWversary," TREW Co-Founder Rebecca Geier, along with early employees Lee Chapman and Morgan Norris, joined me for a look-back episode. Expect to hear many stories on this episode, including:
- Where TREW Marketing got its name
- The most dramatic changes in marketing over the past 15 years
- Critical business decisions that shaped the agency
- The most unique technologies we learned about through client engagements
Learn more about TREW Marketing here.
Resources
- Smart Marketing for Engineers: An Inbound Marketing Guide to Reach Technical Audiences, by Rebecca Geier
- Content Marketing, Engineered: Build Trust and Convert Buyers with Technical Content, by Wendy Covey
- 2023 State of Marketing to Engineers Research Report
- Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business, by Gino Wickman
- Rebecca Geier on LinkedIn
- Lee Chapman on LinkedIn
- Morgan Norris on LinkedIn
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
Hear the latest updates on generative AI for marketing, including tools we're kicking around, features we love, and prompting best practices for creating AI-assisted technical content.
Morgan Norris, TREW Brand and Content Strategist, is on top of how AI tools can enhance our technical content writing process (not derail it). She's been researching and piloting various tools and staying abreast of the ever-evolving legal and cultural implications of generative AI.
In this episode we cover:
- Marketing AI news, including a statement and guidance from the U.S. Copywrite Office
- Generative AI tools we are trying out (see full list below)
- Generative AI functionality that benefits us most as technical marketers
- Best practices for prompting AI tools during ideation, research and writing
- How to create a company policy on generative AI
Morgan will host a webinar in May to take a deeper dive into many of these topics. If you have questions or topics you'd like her to cover, drop her a line on LinkedIn.
Resources
- Past podcast episode: Generative AI for Industrial Content Development - A ChatGPT, Writer and Jasper Showdown
- An Industrial Marketers' Guide to Generative AI
- U.S. Copywrite Office - Generative AI Resource Page
- Writer
- Jasper
- ChatGPT
- Demandwell
- Canva
- GlossAI
- Marketing AI Institute
- Morgan on LinkedIn
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
Learn the differences between Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Universal Analytics and find out how to transition to GA4.
If you've logged into your Google Universal Analytics (UA) account on or after March 1, 2023, you've realized that you have a new tool: Google Analytics (GA4). In this episode, Kasey Tyring, Senior Inbound Marketing Specialist at TREW Marketing, walks through the major differences between the two tools and how to get up-to-speed on GA4.
A few key points you'll hear during the episode:
- Web visits (and a few other key metrics) are counted differently in GA4, so don't try to compare with UA data
- Greater emphasis and deeper data are provided on-site engagement
- Bounces and clicks take on a different meaning in GA4
- One of the most insightful tools is events - check this out first and get excited about this new way to view the buyer's journey!
- After you have a handle on the changes, be sure to educate leadership about the change
If you have a busy spring schedule and/or not super excited about learning a new Google Analytics tool, well, tough. In July 2023 UA will go away forever. So let's all embrace the change and give GA4 a big welcome hug. Happy measuring!
Resources
- Webinar on April 12th: Measuring Marketing Success with GA4
- Blog Post: Preparing for GA4 -- The Next Generation of Analytics
- CME Podcast Episode from July 2022: Moving to GA4 with Keith Mooring
- Kasey Tyring on LinkedIn
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
Learn how a leading optics manufacturer uses daily videos and other content marketing tools to differentiate from their competitors.
Cory Boone, Technical Marketing Manager at Edmund Optics, is a big believer in content marketing for engineering companies, as you'll hear in this episode. He has found that through content, the company builds trust and credibility and stays top-of-mind with prospects and customers.
Edmund Optics' multi-faceted content strategy includes daily videos which range from broad and basic, such as how optics are used in the world around us, to technical challenges where optics and photonics can be applied. Videos are leveraged across multiple platforms including TikTok, LinkedIn and YouTube. TikTok is not where the company expects to find and convert near-term leads, rather it supports long-term awareness and branding goals.
In Cory's role as a Technical Marketing Manager, he acts as a bridge between engineering and marketing communications, which he finds helps to lend greater credibility to marketing as a whole. He also writes technical content where he draws from his optical engineering education and seeks time from deep subject-matter experts within the company. Cory oversees the Edmund Optics Knowledge Center, where visitors can search or filter by topic.
Cory and his team have experimented with generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, and have found their best use to be for brainstorming and outlining. Cory advises taking great caution when using data sourced by these tools. It is important to determine and cite the source of the data to make sure it is accurate, recent, and not from your competition. This is a big challenge for niche technical subjects.
Resources
- Cory Boone on LinkedIn
- Edmund Optics on TikTok
- Edmund Optics Knowledge Center
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
Hear the latest electronic components industry and marketing trends presented at the 2023 ERA conference.
TREW Marketing Senior Brand and Content Strategist, Morgan Norris joined me for the 2023 Electronics Representatives Association (ERA) conference, held in TREW's hometown of Austin, Texas. In this episode, we share some of the trending topics we heard in keynotes and sessions as well as share highlights from our presentation, Transforming Your Brand Into a Trusted Resource.
Some of our marketing takeaways include:
- Many of the rep firms are lacking differentiated messaging and their websites don't portray them as a knowledgeable technical resource for design engineers
- Video is very popular with design engineers; sales reps can use video to share their expertise and build credibility; brands can use video to add interest to (potentially dry) electronic component content topics
- Don't overthink social sharing; use content created by your marketing department, your partners or your network and add your point of view
- Generative AI and ChatGPT are great content brainstorming tools, but when it comes to creating highly technical content, they won't do the heavy lifting for you
- Enewsletters are still quite popular with design engineers; one sales rep firm consistently achieves a 70% open rate through hyper-personalization
- Sales rep firms and distributors can leverage and extend a manufacturer's marketing campaign, creating a channel win-win-win amplifier
- Manufacturers are open to collaborative marketing campaigns and offering co-op funding, but sales reps need to first have a strategic approach to marketing and pitch thoughtful campaign ideas
Some of our industry takeaways from a fascinating closing keynote by Michael Knight, President and CEO of Endries International, include:
- As more sensors are added to our cars (and other parts of our daily lives), the demand for data storage will be massive
- Look for more household and work tasks to be automated through robotics and applied AI; examples include robots delivering food to your table at a restaurant, picking strawberries in the field on a farm, and assisting with diagnosis and surgery
- Renewable, unlimited energy from solar will be more attainable with battery storage technology advances
- The commercialization of space will continue, especially to mine precious minerals
- The demand for electronics will continue to be strong!
Resources
- Electronics Representatives Association (ERA)
- An Industrial Marketer's Guide to Generative AI
- An Engineer's Guide to B2B Content Marketing
- Morgan Norris on LinkedIn
- Michael Knight on LinkedIn
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
Can AI tools help to develop content targeted to engineers and technical buyers?
The landscape is exploding with generative AI tools for content marketing. But when it comes to creating B2B marketing content, especially pieces targeted to engineers and technical buyers, are these tools actually helpful? This is what TREW Marketing set out to find through research and writing experiments.
The episode kicked off with Morgan Norris, TREW Sr. Brand and Content Strategist, walking us through the variety of tools that aim to help marketers across content strategy, SEO, and content development. As we honed in specifically on content development, the team narrowed their focus to two primary tools, Writer and Jasper. They also explained instances when ChatGPT might helpful, and made mention of other content tools which you'll note in the resources section below.
Jamie Tokarz, TREW Sr. Content Manager, and Hannah Schulze, TREW Content Specialist, walked through their experiments using the tools and what they found most and least beneficial. On the whole, the scales weighed heavily towards the negative, but all involved saw some benefit and think there is a positive outlook for gains as the tools mature.
The best experiences centered upon headline generation and branding rule enforcement. The tools also provided a nice starting point to overcome "blank page syndrome." The worst experiences were around long-form technical content and any piece of content where you'd like to reinforce your brand messaging and SEO terminology in an authentic manner.
The team put together an AI for B2B Content Generation guide based on their research and experiments to date, including before/AI-generated/writer-edited live content snapshots which really drive home their lessons learned. This guide will be continuously updated as TREW learns and experiments more.
Resources
- An Industrial Marketer's Guide to Generative AI
- Writer
- Jasper
- ChatGPT
- Canva Magic Write
- Grammarly
- MarketMuse
- Dall-E
Connect with TREW Marketing
- Learn About TREW Marketing
- Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
- Connect with Wendy
TREW Marketing is a strategy-first content marketing agency serving industrial companies that target highly technical buyers. With deep experience in electronics, test and automation, software, and engineering services, TREW Marketing helps clients build trust and generate demand.
We're in a world where everyone wants to be a thought leader. But what does it look like for your company to gain thought leadership?
Lisa Gately from Forrester meets with us to discuss thought leadership – what it is, what it isn’t, and how to create a thought leadership campaign.
According to Lisa, “Thought leadership is a social dialogue. It is an intentional exercise of knowledge, skills, and expertise to build awareness, elevate perception, and drive preference related to key issues that audiences care about.”
Thought leadership is brand equity – but it’s not easy to achieve. Most thought leadership misses the mark because it doesn't provide a unique perspective on an issue, it's not prioritized with internal resources, and it's ultimately self-serving -- it's product or solution marketing -- not industry leadership.
Lisa discusses how to diverge from our traditional way of thinking about thought leadership and build a thought leadership plan that's strategic, resourced, and meaningful.
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
Find out why conversations are so important to our health, careers, and personal growth, and learn practical tips to becoming a better conversationalist.
Two-time book author and former technology marcom professional Patti DeNucci wants to inspire you to improve (and enjoy!) conversations, whether those take place in a social or professional setting. I couldn't think of a better time to spend some mental energy on this topic, with a post-pandemic re-emergence into face-to-face gatherings, or for some, hesitation to even engage IRL.
In Patti's new book, More Than Just Talk: An Essential Guide for Anyone Who Wants to Enjoy Better Conversations, you'll learn why conversations are so important to our health, careers, and personal growth. She walks you through barriers and obstacles to good conversations and calls us out on some excuses we've probably all used to avoid social situations.
In the episode, you'll hear how setting intentions and preparation will provide focus and confidence. We also touch on several concepts from Patti's "Conversation Toolkit" including my favorite, becoming a "Possibilitaritan."
Having better conversations includes a healthy dose of listening, and Patti explains what prevents people from actively listening and how to improve this key skill.
One of my favorite tips comes at the very end of the episode where Patti tells us how to perform the "sniff test" and warns us to make sure this is done in private. Be sure to listen for that nugget!
More Than Just Talk follows on the heels of Patti's first book, The Intentional Networker.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
Learn how the Ansys product marketing team shifted from siloed activity to a unified marketing language and became one of the company's most respected groups.
Rich Goldman, Ansys Director of Product Marketing, has enjoyed a storied career journey in semiconductor, photonics, and electronics design. It seems that wherever he goes, he creatively and effectively solves challenges. He's helped the country of Armenia recruit tech businesses by establishing a presidential award in engineering. He's co-authored a book amongst the likes of famous scientists and astronauts on the symbiotic relationship of the space and technology industries. And in his latest role, he's inspired a large marketing organization to adopt a common framework and processes to be more strategic in their content marketing efforts.
During the episode, you'll hear how each business silo was using its own planning framework and vernacular for content marketing, making collaboration difficult and overwhelming corporate marketing resources. To solve this, Rich and Ansys CMO Scott Richardson held an organization-wide, 12-week workshop group based on the book Content Marketing, Engineered. The timing was perfect with marketing planning held directly after the conclusion of the workshop.
Through this approach, the product marketing and corporate marketing teams are now aligned on foundational marketing principles, including a planning framework, vernacular, and metrics. Planning is now conducted in a rolling 12-month quarterly calendar, helping teams to prepare by looking ahead while still being nimble with shifting business needs. Not only did this effort lead to revenue growth, but the product marketing organization is also now recognized as a strongly performing group.
Rich also shares details about the company's writing process, rolling 12-month planning approach, and a big 2023 focus on measurement and attribution.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
eCommerce is not just for large, transactional manufacturers. Learn how to take friction out of the buyer's journey with helpful digital assets.
When you think of eCommerce in manufacturing, you may instantly envision a store experience where visitors can purchase low-cost widgets. In reality, eCommerce is much broader and includes numerous diverse digital tactics.
Curt Anderson, Founder of B2B Tail, has experienced the evolution of eCommerce, starting from the dot.com boom which he jumped into with both feet. He helps small and medium-sized manufacturing companies identify how eCommerce strategies can help remove friction from the buying process, help buyers make informed decisions, and create a more efficient sales process.
During the episode, Curt expands the view of eCommerce beyond the store, including product configurators, ROI calculators, essentially all digital experiences that help the buyer specific and purchase. He also explains how with today's enabling technology, many of the more sophisticated eCommerce tactics of the past are affordable and within reach for smaller manufacturers.
Curt is a passionate educator and resource for manufacturers. He co-hosts a weekly LinkedIn Live show called Manufacturing eCommerce Success with Damon Pistulka. He also supports the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) by producing member webinar series on marketing and digital transformation topics.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
Learn how Keysight connects with engineers through owned and external communities.
Daniel Bogdnoff is a technical content marketing leader best known as the Resident Geek at Keysight. Leveraging his EE education from Texas A&M University (whoop!), innate curiosity for all things electrical, and enthusiastic personality, Daniel turned a small pilot video series into a corporate-wide channel with over 105,000 views.
During the episode, you'll learn the history behind Keysight Labs and how video has helped the company to grow, engage and educate their community through the channel. We also touch on the popularity of webinars and the shift in format, from talking heads with PowerPoint recordings to live streams where attendees can tap an expert in real time.
Daniel is also the host of Moore's Lobby, a podcast produced by EE Tech. This is one of many ways Keysight gains exposure to communities outside its own. They also successfully partner with creators who have their own YouTube channels and podcasts, and this is especially interesting when pairing a niche application show with a similarly-niched product.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
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Learn which major projects and areas of investments are leading to the best results for TREW Marketing clients.
Most of us are deep into marketing planning for 2023, and to help, we’ve been running a trend series to provide you with helpful information as you decide where to investment and make those important budgetary tradeoffs. (If you missed the previous trend blogs and podcast epiosde, you can find those through the links below).
On this episode I share 5 major areas of investment for TREW Marketing’s clients. You’ll hear specific tactics being used and most importantly what is producing the best results. These areas include:
- Persona-based content marketing campaigns
- Corporate brand refresh
- Shifting from owned community to external industry communities
- Return of "big splash" product launches
- Helping sales overcome objections with a strong value proposition
Learn what topics were trending and TREW's big takeaways from INBOUND, Content Marketing World, MozCon, The Martech Conference, and the PMM Summit.
In this episode, I'm joined by several senior members of the TREW Crew to share the big trends and takeaways from conferences we each attended in Fall 2022. These included:
- INBOUND
- Content Marketing World (CMW)
- MozCon
- The Martech Conference
- PMM Summit
Here are just a few of the topics we covered during the episode:
Lee Chapman, TREW President, shared a key INBOUND theme of connectedness. Emerging from the isolated Covid times, marketers (and humans in general) are seeking ways to feel connected. One has a sense of this at in-person conferences, where people are more eager than ever to talk to the stranger in the next chair over, and online, where new communities are springing up as gathering places for learning and connecting. Lee's favorite presenter was Dale Bertrand from Spark and Fire who provided in-depth advice on how to diagnose and improve SEO performance.
Morgan Norris, TREW Senior Brand Strategist, reports that pillar pages are still a thing! Demonstrate your expertise and help your buyers by publishing long-scrolling web pages packed with relevant, connected content. You can score high marks with Google AND with prospective buyers through this strategy. While at CMW, Morgan tried out several AI tools for content marketing, nabbed the top score at a content-themed whack-a-mole game, performed at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (sort of), and presented with yours truly during the CMW Industrial Marketing Summit. Morgan's favorite presenter was Lisa Gately from Forrester who covered thought leadership – what it is, what it isn’t, and how to create a thought leadership campaign.
Erin Moore, TREW Account Director, was the overachiever that fit in two conferences: MozCon and The Martech Conference. A big focus at MozCon (and INBOUND and CMW!) was Google's greater emphasis on EAT: expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. Partly in response to the misinformation of today's times, brands need to do more to build their authority. This might be niching further down, creating even MORE content on a subject (and tying it together with that pillar page), and publishing author bios along with blogs and articles. Erin's favorite presenter, Lily Ray from Amsive Digital, went into the background on EAT, the Google patents that she thinks went into it, and a lot of fantastic examples to showcase how Google can piece together an entity's authority.
Collaboration and AI-assisted content marketing and SEO were also big topics at The Martch Conference. During the episode you'll hear Erin share an easy "hack" for figuring out trending keywords used by your target personas, so be sure to listen for that.
Rounding out the five events, I attended the Product Marketing Manager Summit along with TREW client Rich Goldman from Ansys, who presented a content marketing collaboration between our two teams on a GIANT movie theater screen. About half of the sessions were themed around positioning and messaging, along with how to do content marketing at scale and ways to support sales. I had two favorite quotes, one of which “The Gartner buyer’s journey is REAL, y’all” refers to just how much of a slog the long B2B technology buyer's journey can be, and pivotal ways marketing can help.
For show links and more, visit the Co
When it comes to influencer marketing, there are remarkable differences between the B2C and highly technical B2B worlds. Find out why.
Stuart Cording is a reformed electrical engineer turned technical writer who studies and educates about the electronics and semiconductor industry. In short, he is a B2B technical influencer.
When you hear the word influencer, you might conjure a celebrity promoting designer clothes on Twitter or a teenager trying 40 different shades of lipstick on Instagram. While some of the same channels might be leveraged, Stuart explains how being an influencer in a technical B2B industry is a bit unique.
For one, the influencer needs to have enough expertise to understand how a product works and where it might be best used. They may not always get their hands physically on a product, given constraints such as pricing or size. They also don't need the massive reach of a B2C influencer, rather a deep niche focus will produce more traction. These are some of the reasons why there are not as many influencers in the electronics and semiconductor space today.
During the episode Stuart and I debate the differences between industry trade press editors and influencers, and he covers the types of services that technical B2B influencers provide.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
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Two cybersecurity experts having an authentic conversation leads to business growth and chart-topping podcast listenership.
When you fire up a Zoom call for a conversation with NuHarbor CEO Justin Fimlaid and VP of Product and Engineering Jack Danahay, you soon discover that these two have distinct chemistry and philosophical alignment on most things in the cybersecurity world. Given this, it was not very surprising to me to learn that their podcast, PWNED (that's pronounced "poh-nd" to us non-cybersecurity people) has a massive following, breaking the top 100 in both the U.S. and UK.
During the episode, Justin and Jack share their story, from how they met and discovered their aligned views, NuHarbor's "respectfully edgy" brand personality, and how at the heart of it all is walking the walk with their audience. They fully understand the needs and frustrations of their buyers, including piecemeal solutions and oversimplified value propositions that overpromise.
Through NuHarbor's content marketing, with PWNED playing a key role, they've discovered that adopting an authentic voice and helpful, specific advice has attracted the professionals they most want to work with, those that look at the cybersecurity world through a similar lens and are aligned with NuHarbor's approach.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
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Learn how to take a strategic and proactive approach to content planning.
Jennifer Dawkins, Vice President of Account Services at TREW Marketing, is an expert in content planning for both start-ups and enterprise companies. When it comes to the latter, she's seen her share of Content Managers who are overwhelmed with requests and have no formal process for planning and prioritizing content projects. This leads to random acts of content, lack of insight into performance, and a ton of aging content which can be detrimental to the brand.
During the episode, Jennifer shares key steps in developing a content plan. It starts well before the first content brainstorming session, as all content should tie back to a campaign with identified personas and success metrics. She walks us through how to conduct a content brainstorming session using a content topic cluster framework, and shares who should (and should not) be in the room.
We also cover accountability, measurement, how to handle ad-hoc content requests, and an approach to auditing aged content.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
Creating and promoting a company culture of gratitude leads to higher recruitment and retention success rates.
Lisa Ryan has the unusual title of Chief Appreciation Strategist for her company, Grategy. She's also the author of Thank You Very Much: Gratitude Strategies to Create a Workplace Culture that Rocks! You can quickly tell that Lisa has a strong opinion about gratitude and its impact on a company's growth. Gratitude starts with listening. What do employees like most about their jobs? What would they change? A short "stay" pulse interview (as opposed to the traditional "exit" interview) can provide valuable insights for both managers and marketing.
Listening alone isn't enough, of course. Managers need to have the resources and authority to act upon feedback. Marketing has the opportunity to use internal feedback to inform brand messaging for both internal and external campaigns.
During the episode, you'll hear Lisa and I bat around ideas of how leadership, HR and marketing can all work together to better define a gratitude culture and craft messaging that will not only reinforce this culture internally but be used externally for recruiting. She also discusses her take on the Great Resignation and how individual priorities and expectations from their work culture have permanently shifted across generational lines.
When Lisa is not on the keynote stage or consulting with manufacturing companies, she is in the host seat of her podcast, The Manufacturers' Network.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
Take a sneak peek at the speakers and topics included at the 2022 Industrial Marketing Summit, a one-day event held as part of Content Marketing World.
On this episode I'm joined by Adam Beck, Director of Marketing for CADENAS PARTsolutions, and Joe Sullivan, Thinker and Founder at Gorilla 76, to take a sneak peek at this year's Industrial Marketing Summit event which will be held on September 15, 2022.
As the event sponsor representing CADENAS PARTsolutions, Adam has put together a stellar line-up of industry marketing leaders to share inspirational ideas and practical advice for industrial marketing professionals. Adam tapped Joe as the event host and panel facilitator. He will not only introduce speakers, he'll also help to pull out relevant points of value for the audience.
Here is the line-up for the day:
Panel: Marketing for Manufacturers: Creating content to power direct AND channel sales
Presenters:
- Lara Schneider, Senior Marketing Manager @ Toshiba International Corporation
- John Vander Linden, Director of Digital Customer Experience @ Columbus McKinnon Corporation
- Eddie Saunders Jr. , Head of Demand Generation @ Flex Machine Tools
Session: Inside the Mind of the Technical Buyer: Create the Content your Prospects Actually Want
Presenters:
- Wendy Covey, CEO TREW Marketing
- Morgan Norris, Sr. Brand Strategist at TREW Marketing
Session: Earning a Seat at the Exec Table: A Field Guide for Marketers in Traditional Industries
Presenter:
- MJ Peters, VP Marketing @ CoLab
Session: Meeting the Customer where they are: Content Delivery in the Digital Environment
Presenters:
- Ashley Quinlan, Vice President of Global Distribution and Marketing Strategy at Samtec Inc
- Daniel Williams, Chief Information Officer at Samtec Inc
For more information about the 2022 Industrial Marketing Summit, visit the event page on the CADENAS PartSolution website. There you'll find more in-depth information on each session, and links to a registration page for Content Marketing World. You can also visit the Content Marketing World page directly if you are ready to register now. Reach out to Adam, Joe, or myself for a registration discount code before you take that last step! We look forward to seeing you in Cleveland on September 15th.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
With travel and supply chain uncertainty, it's more important than ever to adopt a nimble, adaptive approach to events.
Garrett Burnett, Head of Global Events at Silicon Labs, says that one of the most important traits of an events professional is adaptability. It's not IF something will go not according to the plan, it's WHAT. An effective events person is ready with plan B and C without skipping a beat.
Never has this trait been more important (and more put to the test) than in these early post-Covid times. Between airline staffing shortages, new Covid outbreaks and supply chain issues, there are a lot of external forces impacting events as normal. There's also lots of room for learning, growing and retooling.
During the episode, Garrett walks us through SI Labs approach to industry events in 2022-2023, their user conference WorksWith, and innovative approaches to webinars and workshops. You'll hear the outcome of his recent trip to Embedded World in Germany, and how SI Labs is bringing live and interactive elements to their virtual developer conference. We also debate event success metrics, how to extract more value from event content, and basically geek out on all things events -- one of my favorite marketing topics.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
Learn about the types of benefits that industry associations provide to their members, and why marketers should think beyond the logo on the website and invest time to explore all the ways association membership can help meet corporate marketing goals.
Stephanie Tierney, Director of Marketing Communications for the Electronic Components Industry Association (ECIA), is keenly focused on engaging members and helping them find their passion within the organization. From serving on standards boards to supporting industry studies, there is a long list of ways companies can get involved and maximize the value of their membership in ECIA.
Stephanie utilizes many channels to stay top-of-mind with members, including enewsletters and LinkedIn. Part of her role includes leading a committee to plan the annual ECIA Executive conference, which is back in person this year (after a two-year pandemic-related hiatus) with the theme "Bucking Normal." ECIA also has a podcast, The Channel Channel, which focuses on industry trends and association news.
It was clear from our interview that there is no "one way" to maximize membership in an industry association, rather Stephanie encourages members to forge their own paths based on business needs and individual motivators. For some, this may come in the form of shaping industry guidelines and for another, it might be leveraging association analyst research for a thought leadership content campaign. Regardless, she reminds us that when it comes to membership, you get out what you put in....so get involved!
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
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Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
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Executive buy-in, fractional investor support, and intern talent help a solo tech marketer succeed.
Diana Van Dusen, Marketing Manager at Azumo, has worked in both enterprise companies as part of a large marketing team and served as a marketing department of one. She enjoys the fast-paced, streamlined decision-making of smaller companies and is very resourceful at securing help to accomplish big marketing goals.
Azumo recently underwent a full re-brand, from their name and visual identity to their messaging and website. To pull this off, Diana relied heavily on help from an experienced marketing pro engaged by the investment group that has a stake in Azumo. Diana also engages agency support and interns with a talent for design and writing -- areas that complement Diana's skills as a holistic marketing strategist.
Diana has worked at both software and hardware companies, and the most remarkable difference she noted was in the length of the buying cycle. A SAAS product might be an eight-week decision whereas the cycle for Azumo's front-end displays can be as long as 18 months, if not more. This difference translates to varied marketing strategies and, in the case of longer sales cycles, less insight into marketing attribution to the sale.
Diana recommends that other solo tech marketers look to industry blogs, social networking, peer feedback, and trusty Google when learning and growing as a professional.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
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Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
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Learn how a machine tools company uses video and podcasting paired with co-marketing and an action-oriented agile process to grow awareness.
Eddie Saunders Jr., Head of Demand Generation for Flex Machine Tools, is a highly energetic and action-oriented marketer. He and a team of five colleagues collaborate closely to quickly assess marketing ideas and get them accomplished. This agile process has led them to be early to market with new platforms such as LinkedIn live, and they are not afraid to take risks with fun, humorous educational content that many larger manufacturing companies tend to shy away from.
One of the biggest game-changers in their marketing program was what Eddie coined "buddy marketing" where Flex Machine Tools pairs with complementary manufacturers and distributors to expand their reach by tapping each other's networks and defray costs. Some examples include advertising and tailored videos.
Where Eddie seemed most passionate was when talking about the Flex and Friends video podcast, which he hosts. He is thrilled to give others in the industry a platform to tell their stories and learns something new from every interview. Each interview is repurposed in numerous ways to extend the content investment.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
Starting a new marketing position at a technical B2B can be a daunting time. How can you ramp up and add value quickly?
Alicia Keene, Inbound Marketing Specialist at TREW Marketing, has been the new marketer on the scene many times over. Through her experiences at an electronic components manufacturer and multi-client work at an agency, she quickly figured out that devoting time to learn and absorb in the early months will lead to higher quality and impactful work.
During the episode, Alicia walks through 8 key steps for a new marketer to follow when ramping up with a new technical B2B company. They include:
- Hear a company overview presentation
- Study the marketing plan and review key content and branding assets
- Review historical marketing content and collateral
- Research the industry and competition
- Research keywords and perform a content gap analysis
- Meet with technical subject matter experts (SMEs)
- Shadow your colleagues
- Be a sponge! Absorb information and ask questions
Be sure to catch the end of the episode with Alicia's advice for Marketing Managers who are planning to onboard new marketing staff.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
Learn why GA4 is replacing Google's Universal Analytics platform, and what actions you need to take by July 1st to capture key reporting data.
Keith Moehring, CEO of L2 Digital, is a marketing operations guru. When Google Analytics Version 4 (GA4) first released, I'm guessing Keith was first in the proverbial line to get his hands on the Beta. It made him the perfect guest to discuss why Google rebuilt its analytics platform and walk through key differences between Universal Analytics and GA4.
One of the most exciting benefits we discussed was for content marketers. With GA4 you'll be able to measure how far someone scrolls on blog posts, long web pages, even video. This helps inform content/page length and where your call-to-action button should be placed.
Keith highly encourages marketers to add GA4 code to their site before July 1, 2022 so that they have a full year of data by July 1, 2023 -- the date that Google turns Universal Analytics off for good and everyone is on GA4. Otherwise your year-over-year data will look more like a "we used to measure X and now we measure Y but we didn't have Y last year so I don't know how we are doing" sort of thing.
During the episode he walks through which specific actions to take now, and which ones can wait until closer to that 2023 date.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
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Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
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Learn how manufacturing companies can better support their channel sales reps through content, marketing programs, and the martech stack.
Ellen Albright, Marketing and Communications Director at E-T-A Circuit Breakers, is a resourceful North American marketer of one, backed by a corporate marketing team out of their company headquarters in Germany.
Marketing plans start with new product introductions which are then supported by industry/application campaigns specific to regional needs. Every campaign has an element of sales support, whether through content assets, multi-touch email workflows, or other downstream activities. Automation is key for Ellen in areas such as lead scoring, lead routing, and targeted email workflows.
During the episode Ellen shares how the pandemic offered an opportunity for her to plan a more active role in training channel sales reps on digital marketing and selling, and creating new programs for them to leverage. One of these was a multi-touch email campaign personalized to the rep company utilizing content from E-T-A. This was a win-win, as Ellen had more control over the message, the rep leveraged marketing automation functionality not found in-house, and both could gain a fuller picture of which prospects were engaging and more likely to convert to customers.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
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- Ellen Albright on LinkedIn
- E-T-A Circuit Breakers
- Electronics Representatives Association
- Women in Electronics
Learn how companies define, reinforce and promote their culture to recruit and retain talent.
Lee Chapman, TREW Marketing President and brand guru, knows that it is one thing to define company values, but the behaviors and actions of employees shape a company's culture. When the two are aligned and differentiated, great things can happen!
During the episode Lee gives many examples of company culture in action, from keg deck parties and family picnics to service events and Trello wedding planning boards. We examine who is responsible for defining and owning culture, ways to communicate and promote culture, and opportunities to uncover and tackle culture issues.
Employee onboarding, six-month reviews, and exit interviews are all good touchpoints to seek out culture feedback. Is there alignment between the company's core values and the culture? Misalignment may be the catalyst for an operational change, such as adopting a new software tool, or an outdated notion of values, such as evolving workforce needs.
Content plays a significant role in defining and reinforcing culture, both internally and with external stakeholders such as prospective customers and new hires. Communicate about your culture through the "about us" company page, employee videos, blogs and social posts (just to name a few).
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
Award-winning ABM strategist shares his decade-long journey with ABM and advice for getting started or improving your programs.
Joe Quinn, Senior Account-Based Marketing (ABM) Manager at Salesforce-Tableau and former ABM Leader at NI (National Instruments) has spent the past decade learning, inventing, measuring, and improving on all things ABM. Joe and his team at NI were recognized with an ABM Program of the Year award by the Flip my Funnel organization, and he's tasked with scaling ABM marketing efforts at Salesforce-Tableau.
Many companies may think they need to be doing ABM given how buzzy it is in our marketing world, but here are a few criteria Joe suggests using to assess whether or not your organization is ready for ABM:
- Are there dedicated sales resources to named accounts? Are those accounts tiered?
- Is executive leadership on board with ABM?
- Is there a salesperson (or salespeople) willing to devote time and energy as a partner with marketing?
- Does the company recognize and support resource tradeoffs between volume-based lead generation versus strategic relationship development?
If all signs look positive, Joe suggests a multi-phase ABM framework with associated metrics, including account research and prioritization, content development, tailored tactical execution, and closed-loop reporting.
During the episode Joe shares some of his award-winning ABM tactics, including case study briefs, customized LinkedIn introductions from Account Managers, and contact acquisition. We also touch on the role of technology to help enhance, automate and measure ABM initiatives -- and when these should and should not integrate into the CRM or other platforms in use.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
Coming up through the technical ranks to leading a business, how do executives ramp up and keep up with inbound marketing?
Matt Eurich, COO of Genuen and former President of WTI, is an engineer with a business mind. As he moved up the ranks from engineering to business leadership, he knew that the company's approach to marketing had some gaps.He thought that perhaps those gaps would be addressed by a once-every-three-year website project. He laughs now at the old him who just didn't know what he didn't know, and credits his trusted partnership with TREW for bringing him and the organization along to where they are today.
During the episode you'll hear how, over a decade, WTI went from a trade show and brochure website approach to a holistic inbound marketing model where content investment made the greatest impact. He describes some of his a-ha moments and tools that were most helpful to keep things on track, such as a marketing scorecard and content editorial calendar.
You'll also learn that WTI's high-performing marketing program helped raised its valuation when seeking to be acquired and what happened next to the WTI brand and other entities that were acquired.
His advice to other technical leaders? Find a strategic marketing partner and trust them and their process. Even if some of what they bring to the table sounds odd at first (you'll hear him poke fun at persona development), trust in your marketing partner and their proven experience. (Spoiler alert: he now thinks personas are one of the best things that has ever come out of marketing planning).
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
The Google Adwords platform has grown tremendously in sophistication. Are you keeping up?
Glenn Schmelzle, Founder and VP of Lead Generation for Marketing What's New, is laser focused on helping B2B companies get the most out of Google Adwords. He sees marketers make the same mistakes over and over, and one of those is a lack of focus on content. By not creating quality content both in your ad itself and on your website, even the most thoughtful execution of an Adwords campaign will fall flat. He also encourages marketers to plan their content along the funnel, and consider where their ad falls along the buyers journey in order to inform content and calls-to-action.
By applying AI, Google continues to make significant changes to which advertising campaigns are accepted, how ads appear, who they appear for, and what the ad says. During the episode, Glenn fills us in on how the platform has evolved and big changes that are afoot for 2022. Some of these changes have introduced more complexity for the marketer, but also better performing ads through context and relevancy.
Glenn is the podcast host of The Funnel Reboot, a show that shares strategies from leading marketers.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
David Schneer is a Ph.D., CEO, and Body Language Master Trainer at The Merrill Institute. Through conducting qualitative focus groups in the electronics industry for 30 years, he recognizes that each and every one of us are surrounded by communications contradictions. David became passionate about helping business professionals and other interested folks (hello parents of teenagers!) discern someone's truth through body language.
During the episode, David quizzes me about common body language myths, such as reading someone from an expression or a handshake, and figuring out when someone is lying. He also provides practical advice on how to facilitate effective communications in the workplace, such as creating a comfortable environment. We also discuss how to read body language via Zoom, when only a portion of someone's body is in view.
Viewer note: our Zoom video feed cuts out around 18 minutes into the episode, but the audio file sounds great. Our apologies for this technology hiccup.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
Learn where to invest and pitfalls to avoid when crafting your 2022 marketing plan.
Lisa Beets, Research Director for the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), conducts seven primary research studies annually, and one of her favorite focuses in manufacturing. This is in part to her days with Penton Media focused in HVAC, but also recognizing the need for data in this unique industry.
During the episode, Lisa walks me through CMI's Manufacturing Marketing report and we discuss several datapoints that jumped out to us both, such as:
- 51% are challenged by overcoming a traditional sales and marketing mindset
- 51% struggle with creating valuable content as opposed to sales-oriented content
- 75% were asked to do more with the same resources in 2021
- 65% expect their 2022 content marketing budget to increase over 2021
- Marketers cited videos produced the best results for content marketing, with 53% citing how-to videos as the leading format
- When it comes to organic social platforms, LinkedIn came out on top as both the most popular at 93% and best at producing results.
- Facebook was the top paid social platform used at 76%, though LinkedIn produced the best results beating out Facebook by 8%
- The top ways to measure content performance were web-centric, including 73% citing website traffic and 69% citing website engagement
We concluded that there was a close synergy between the CMI Manufacturing Marketing Report and the TREW Marketing & Global Spec State of Marketing to Engineers report, and that both are helpful for marketers to educate and advocate for content marketing with internal leadership.
The 2022 State of Marketing for Engineers Research Report summarizes the survey results of more than 800 engineers and technical professionals from a variety of industries, including manufacturing, automotive, energy, electronic components, semiconductor, and aerospace/defense.
TREW Marketing and GlobalSpec recently released our 5th annual study of how engineers and technical buyers seek and consume information to make purchase decisions. In this episode, Christian Haight joins host Wendy Covey to walk through some of the major findings from the report, including:
- Engineers value a company's technical expertise and responsiveness over price and company values
- 83 percent of engineers are willing to fill out a form in exchange for technical content
- 73 percent of engineers listen to work-related podcasts throughout their week, a 33% YOY increase
- Engineers prefer YouTube and LinkedIn over other social platforms
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
Understanding the context of why and who makes all the difference when writing for engineers and technical buyers.
Adam Kimmel, Principal Technical Content Writer at ASK Consulting, spends his days boiling down highly technical information into consumable content targeted to specific audience personas. During this episode, we covered a ton of ground -- from what behaviors make a technical writer successful to how to extract the right information from subject-matter experts.
Aside from the numerous nuggets of advice, what struck me most about this episode is one word that kept creeping in throughout our discussion: context.
When interviewing a subject-matter expert (SME), it's important to contextualize why a solution is significant and where it fits into the broader market landscape. Data is great, but the context of why the data is significant (e.g. competitive comparisons, etc.) helps to demonstrate value and build preference.
Your audience needs to first care about a topic, then be enticed to go deeper and learn more. Understanding the context of where your content piece fits into the buyer's journey helps you to position the material at the right technical level and build upon information served elsewhere.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
Shifting strategy, LinkedIn, media and advice from technical marketers in the trenches were all highlights of our 2021 podcast season.
Content Marketing, Engineered is almost two years old now! It's evolved and improved, but the focus remains steadfast on helping leaders and marketers reach highly technical audiences through content and digital marketing. In case you missed some of our episodes, here is a walkthrough of what we covered in 2021.
- Virtualizing the field sales role with Michael Knight, President of TTI's Semiconductor Group
-
LinkedIn Miniseries featuring 5 guests, each with a unique perspective on how to leverage the platform, including:
- Advertising - AJ Wilcox, B2Linked
- Writing - John Espirian, Technical Copywriter
- Sales - Nick Capozzi, Sales Pitching
- Sales - Susan Tatum, The Conversion Company
- Measuring engagement - Scott Ingram, Relationship One
- Lead gen and spokesperson branding - Erin Moore, TREW Marketing
- New platform features - Julia Fellows, TREW Marketing
- Practical advice to improve your content marketing, including
- Video - Bryan Fittin from GoRougeX
- SEO - Kyle Roof from High Voltage SEO
- Technical writing process - Morgan Norris, TREW Marketing
- Newsjacking - Lance Looper, TREW Marketing
- Why HubSpot - Andre Leonard, TREW Marketing
- High Performing Websites - Erin Moore, TREW Marketing and Jamie Tokarz, TREW Marketing
- Honing your digital marketing strategy
- 2021 State of Marketing to Engineers report - Jenn Corcoran, GlobalSpec
- Digital Customer Engagement Maturity Model - Richard Barnett, Supplyframe
- Getting started with digital transformation - Douglas Karr, Martech Zone
- Takeaways from 346 marketing & sales books - Douglas Burdett, Marketing Book Podcast
- 2022 marketing planning - Jennifer Dawkins, TREW Marketing
- Stories from executives, marketers and salespeople working in highly technical industries
- Sabrina Veylder-Pahwa, R2Sonic
- Chad Pasho, Mechanical Solutions
- Sam Morgan, Morgan Polymer Seals
- Matt Judge, Vizseek
- Chris Grainger, EECO
- Jackie Mattox, Women in Engineering
- Sandy Williams, Access Biomedical Solutions
- Acquisition rebranding with Genuen leaders Jeff Gray and Tood VanGilder along with Lee Chapman from TREW Marketing
- Media Miniseries with guest host Morgan Norris and 6 experts covering both paid and earned opportunities
- Gary Lerude, Microwave Journal
- Lee Douglas, Aspencore
- Erik Jansen, Elektor
- Patrick Carmody, Endeavor Group
- Lisa Peterson, Lisa Peterson PR
- Glenn Frates, Cision Media
A huge thank you to all of these guests for sharing their wisdom and experiences on Content Marketing, Engineered!
We have an exciting line-up for the start of 20
In the Content Marketing, Engineered Media Miniseries, we’re learning from media experts about how working with external news outlets and trade publications fits into your content marketing strategy. Today, we're learning how to pitch media successfully, and what goes into a successful media relations campaign.
Through this Media Miniseries we've learned that a lot goes into securing coverage in publications (whether paid placements or editorial coverage.
In today's episode, Lisa Peterson, owner of Lisa Peterson PR, has spent decades pitching reporters, building relationships, and securing coverage on behalf of her clients. She believes that you need a strong message, an integrated approach, and a determination to identify and pitch the right journalists.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
In the Content Marketing, Engineered Media Miniseries, we’re learning from media experts about how working with external news outlets and trade publications fits into your content marketing strategy. Today, we're breaking down news wiring services and covering -- what they are, when to use them, and how to use them to get your message across as effectively as possible.
Through this Media Miniseries we've learned that there's a host of ways to get your information in front of your prospects. Newswires allow you to pay to wire content that you write over a public news line, so it can be picked up and syndicated by other outlets.
In today's episode, Glenn Frates, VP of Cision Media, gives us all of the "how-to" information we need to wire news. Glenn talks about frequency of releasing news, what topics are relevant, and what you need to include in your release for it to be successful...down to the character count of your headline. This episode is incredibly practical. One of my favorite messages that Glenn shares is that a news release isn't a standalone strategy, you need additional marketing activities and content that supports an overall campaign.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
In the Content Marketing, Engineered Media Miniseries, we’re learning from media experts about how working with external news outlets and trade publications fits into your content marketing strategy. Today, we're exploring opportunities to connect with prospects via online communities
From our research, we know that engineers look to content written by other engineers. For this reason, engineers look to content that has technical depth and a tone that's relatable. When writing content for your website or writing gated content like white papers and ebooks, writers leverage SME knowledge, customer interviews, research, and additional knowledge to create content. If engineers are looking for content off your site, forums or communities are a great resource.
In today's episode, Erik Jansen from Elektor Media shares how to connect with engineers using online communities as a media channel. Elektor is a magazine that also has a strong community forum called Elektor Labs where users can test hardware, tinker with new technologies and share what they've created. If you have customers experimenting with your products or platforms you think Elektor would be interested in sharing your hardware with their community, this is a great example of an additional media channel you can use to connect with prospects.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
In the Content Marketing, Engineered Media Miniseries, we’re learning from media experts about how working with external news outlets and trade publications fits into your content marketing strategy. Today, we're diving deeper into advertising -- and in particular how to align your marketing goals with the right advertising products to support your business.
Last week, we gave a comprehensive introduction to advertising with technical trade publications, and this week, we're diving in deeper with advertising to really discuss marketing goals and how to achieve them with different advertising products.
In today's episode, Patrick Carmody, Area Sales Manager at Endeavor Business Media which owns publications like Electronic Design and Machine Design, will talk to us about some of the detailed products that we can use to build brand awareness, generate leads, and grow sales. From sponsored content to podcasts to email marketing, Endeavor brings many different forms of advertising to the table. And like other publishing houses, Endeavor owns a host of publications, so you can target your specific, niche audience exactly where they go to find information.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
In the Content Marketing, Engineered Media Miniseries, we’re learning from media experts about how working with external news outlets and trade publications fits into your content marketing strategy. Today, we're exploring advertising -- how to think about it, what goals are reasonable, and where to focus your spend.
Content marketing typically involves writing and publishing content on your own site, and attracting visitors to that content. But -- external channels can still be extremely helpful to broaden your potential audience. By paying for advertising in trade publications, you can capture your audience in another channel and direct them back to your site.
The printed trade publications of the 80s and 90s were full of advertising content (if you were around then, I'm sure you remember seeing who secured that back cover ad each month). With the rise of digital content, those print ads gave way to clunky banner ads in the early oughts and for many of us, the advertising knowledge stops there.
But, advertising has evolved a ton. In today's episode, Lee Douglas, an Account Director from Aspencore which owns publications like EE Times, EDN, embedded.com, and Planet Analog, will talk us through all of the available advertising options and how to find advertising opportunities that help you meet your marketing goals. The opportunities range from optimized banners to sponsored podcasts to even retargeted ads that your prospects can engage with when they're on a site other than yours or a publication's.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
In the Content Marketing, Engineered Media Miniseries, where we’re learning from media experts about how working with external news outlets and trade publications fits into your content marketing strategy. In today’s episode, we cover working with technical B2B trade publications from an editorial perspective.
Content marketing typically involves writing and publishing content on your own site, and attracting visitors to that content. But -- external channels can still be extremely helpful to broaden your potential audience. By securing content in trade publications, companies can catch the attention of new prospects and draw them back to the company's website.
There are dozens of reputable B2C technical publications but a few rise to the top. Microwave Journal is one of those few. Today, Microwave Journal editor Gary Lerude will talk to us about how you can use trade publications to share your news, grow your audience, and build your brand. This content is particularly relevant with the recent advancements in 5G mmwave -- Gary notes that while there are a handful of significant test and measurement providers who have relationships with editors, industries like communications and medical are full of smaller companies and startups with niche technologies who can benefit from the brand awareness that comes with editorial coverage.
On this episode you'll hear details of exactly how and when to engage with technical editors as well as what editors are looking for, what's helpful to them, and what to expect to have prepared when you reach out.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
Learn where to invest and pitfalls to avoid when crafting your 2022 marketing plan.
Jennifer Dawkins, TREW Marketing VP of Account Services, has spent two decades crafting marketing plans for technical companies. In that time she's seen companies fall into some common traps when approaching planning, which leads to wasted budget, poor results, and a negative reflection on marketing as a whole. Being tactically driven, planning in a silo, and focusing on vanity metrics rather than business impact are among those typical mistakes marketers make.
During the episode, Jennifer walks through key elements of her marketing planning approach. She advises on what and how to analyze your current performance, the competitive landscape, and how to set meaningful goals. Persona development, a messaging audit, and campaign plans are all part of the marketing plan. Jennifer describes how she measures success and the importance of quarterly evaluation and plan update meetings with your core marketing committee.
We then shift gears to touch on trends for 2022, including tried-and-true tactics that are waning in effectiveness in addition to new areas of investment.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
Too many marketing and sales professionals are targeting technical buyers with approaches that are either too aggressive, too fluffy, or too dry.
Sandy Williams, Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. and President of Access Biomedical Solutions, has seen too many marketing and sales efforts fail due to misconceptions about the technical buyer leading to ineffective tactics. Buyer personas are helpful, but overreliance on these can be dangerous. Sandy reminds us that these buyers are often innovating -- looking for new ways of doing things or solving new problems -- and by acknowledging and appreciating their uniqueness companies can build trust and gain more insights to influence the sale.
Fluffy content is a big trust-breaker. Sandy recommends quality over quantity, saying that technical buyers tend to lurk more than share, absorbing information incognito until late in the buyer's journey. Marketing attribution can be difficult with this type of behavior, with engagement metrics not telling the full picture.
During the episode, Sandy shares a list of "don'ts" for technical marketing and sales professionals and provides greater insight into the minds of the engineer and scientific buyer.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
Analysis and testing are key on-page SEO tactics that can significantly lift search engine rankings.
Kyle Roof, SEO consultant, patent-holder, product developer and trainer, is here to dispel a myth. People may believe that high-ranking pages in Google equate to the best content, but in reality, the Google algorithm boils down to math -- without human intervention. So it isn't necessarily the best content that wins, it's the most optimized-for-Google content that wins. (Case in point - check out the presentation link below in which Kyle presents how he boosted a site to a page one ranking using mostly lorem ipsum text).
This of course doesn't mean that fresh, quality content isn't important to converting prospects to customers. But it is clearly a call-to-action for marketers to spend time analyzing and testing SEO tactics on key pages.
Kyle points to four key areas within a page that Google scans to determine ranking for a keyword or phrase. By just focusing here, companies may see a significant boost. Throughout the episode, he also provides pointers on how to research competitors and use SEO analysis software tools for more insight and direction.
When looking to supplement some of the popular SEO tools with specifics for page optimization, Kyle and his team developed their own algorithm which has evolved into the software tool PageOptimizer Pro. They also offer SEO training through a program called Internet Marketing Gold.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
Did you miss INBOUND 2021? Never fear, we have you covered with this recap episode.
Julia Fellows, TREW Account Manager, joined me to recap trending topics and hot sessions from INBOUND 2021, an annual marketing and sales conference hosted by HubSpot. The event was held virtually again this year, and the emphasis weighed heavily towards marketing best practices, with a lighter touch on new product announcements by HubSpot.
Email marketing has been hugely important to fill the face-to-face void during these COVID days, so it's not a surprise that this was a hot INBOUND topic. Speaker Jay Schwedelson from Subjectline.com shared insights into what's really working now. He broke down two specific ways to improve open rates: personalize the sender name, and use special characters in the subject line.
Also popular were the ABM sessions, such as the presentation by Terminus' Justin Keller. He emphasized the importance of sales and marketing alignment for ABM to gain traction, and encouraged companies new to ABM to start with content and personalization
There was also buzz around RevOps, no doubt a focus since HubSpot's product announcements were mostly tied to this topic. The idea is to make the customer's experience with your brand as streamlined and frictionless as possibly, and to accomplish this, you need organizational alignment, data and connected systems. HubSpot Co-Founder Darmesh Shah gave some powerful examples from his own car shopping experience to prove the point that customers expect consistency, but companies are siloed and struggle to deliver a consistent experience.
While these are a few highlights, Julia shares even more during the episode. Also, look for a TREW Marketing blog post on HubSpot's new product announcements coming early next week.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
How well does your company fare at engaging customers online? Find out where you fall in the digital engagement spectrum and why companies with long sales cycles are shifting more spend towards digital sales and marketing programs. Richard Barnett, CMO of Supplyframe, is a self-professed fan of #models. Specifically, models and processes to help global electronics suppliers address engineering and production life cycles, from design to new product introduction. He has recently introduced the Digital Customer Engagement Maturity Model to the industry, which helps companies evaluate their current state in how they engage with prospects and customers online.
According to Richard, "the electronics industry has been fairly stagnant in its approach to embracing a digital transformation over the last two decades" and the COVID shut-down helped executives to begin opening their eyes to the benefits of digital marketing and sales.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
What recurring themes are found in 346 marketing and sales books?
Douglas Burdett, Host of the popular Marketing Book Podcast, inhales one marketing or sales book every week. EVERY WEEK! He then interviews the author for what is typically a lively discussion around key principles or interesting take-aways from the book material.
After recording 346 episodes (and counting!), Douglas has noticed some important recurring themes across these books, including:
- Marketers need to get into the revenue camp
- Marketers and often do themselves a disservice by focusing on the wrong things
- Understand your customer by talking to them...directly
- The experience your customers have with your company/solution is powerful marketing
- Buyers trust reviewers more than companies...and customers have a bigger voice than ever
Through his agency Artillery, Douglas works with manufacturers and industrial companies. He sees technical marketers making some critical mistakes in not understanding their customers, talking about themselves/their products too much, and having unrealistic expectations of marketing set against a long sales cycle. On the flip side, he praised engineer leaders working with marketing on their appreciation of the planning process, measurement and iteration, and the similarities of marketing and a system...both with many moving parts.
During the episode you'll hear many references to helpful B2B books (go figure!) which are listed below with links to each.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
While most marketers have design on their mind, strategic planning and quality content are key steps to creating a high-performing B2B website.
Erin Gleeson, TREW Marketing Account Director, and Jamie Tokarz, TREW Marketing Content Manager, stop by to share often-overlooked or under-appreciated aspects of the website redesign process that have a massive impact on web performance.
Erin walks us through the website redesign strategy process, and why this step is critically important. During the website redesign strategy, you'll set goals and expectations, think through the user’s journey and identify their needs, and map out all of your functional web needs. Design preferences, wireframing, navigation, and CMS selection are also part of this process. Developing a thorough strategy before kicking off the redesign implementation allows you to set a realistic budget and timeline, vs diving into development quickly leads to unplanned activities that increase costs and timelines unexpectedly.
Jamie then gives her perspective on content development. Share shared that to be successful with your content development and minimize the time spent/number of iterations needed, there is a lot of work that needs to be done prior to ever starting a draft. This includes corporate and segment messaging, page templates or wireframes to guide writing, and identifying your writing team and reviewers. When it is time to roll up your sleeves, Jamie recommends using the 4 Cs of web writing: clear, concise, cohesiveness, and consistency.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
As a solo marketer, it can be a daunting task to ramp up (and keep up!) on all things inbound marketing while also wrapping your head around the technical solutions offered by your company.
Sam Morgan, Sales & Marketing Specialist at Morgan Polymer Seals, wasn't always a technical marketer. He started his career in the music industry as both a songwriter and music label advertising coordinator. When he made the switch over to Morgan Polymer Seals as their solo marketer....well, you might imagine he had a lot to learn.
Sam turned to books and podcasts to ramp up on all the ways marketing had changed since his college marketing classes. At the same time, he was taking a self-directed crash course in the business to understand their target personas, solutions, and value proposition.
With all of this knowledge sinking in, Sam began putting best practices into action, measuring, and in some cases failing forward. He brought in expert help to guide him and tapped contractors too to make sure his time is spent in the smartest and most impactful ways.
In the episode, Sam also shares some of his favorite tools and advice for fellow manufacturing marketers.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
If you are considering what CRM to adopt, seeking marketing and sales technology, or a new website CMS platform then this episode is for you. We also walk through how the HubSpot platform has evolved over time.
Andre Leonard, Inbound Marketing Specialist for TREW Marketing, spends much of his time helping clients onboard and be successful with the HubSpot platform. He and I field many questions about HubSpot, running the gambit from what the platform is to which features have the biggest bang for the buck.
In this episode, Andre and I walk through the basics of what HubSpot is, how it's structured, and ways in which the platform has evolved over time. Andre then dives into each Hub, providing highlights of our favorite features. We also talk pricing -- everyone's favorite topic!
The Hubs include:
- CRM - the central connector for all hubs, where contact information is stored
- Marketing - tools include email, social media management, landing pages, blogs, and workflows
- Sales - tools include opportunity management, tasks, and tracking
- Web CMS - drag-and-drop functionality with an inline editor, responsive rendering, and security
- Services - tools include ticket management, surveys, and knowledgebase creation
- Operations - easily integrate 3rd party applications
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
"I'm just a technical guy adapting to the new reality of content marketing."
Chad Pasho, Business Development Director for Mechanical Solutions, has always had one foot in engineering and one foot in business. It was logical then that he joined a vibration testing and monitoring company to help grow revenue and delight customers.
In this role, Chad quickly grasped the importance of telling their story in a way that appealed to buyers. Persona exercises helped get this started, but ultimately deeper understanding over time and empathy provided a different frame of reference and led to more impactful messaging.
For example, MSI engineers create diagnostic videos in their work with customers, which makes for excellent marketing content when woven into a broader story connecting the customer pain and business impact, not just details of the technical problem/solution. These explainer videos have high video retention on LinkedIn and the MSI website.
In this episode, you'll learn about MSI's highest performing types of content and how Chad ramped up and stays current on all things content marketing.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
About TREW Marketing
For more than a decade, we’ve helped engineering and technical companies elevate their brand, engage with their audiences, and generate new opportunities. We base our work on insightful research, unrivaled industry expertise, and detail-oriented execution. We understand that highly technical audiences look past standard marketing tactics, so we take a strategic, nuanced approach to meet the technical buyer exactly where they are and help guide them to your solution.
About Wendy Covey
Wendy Covey is a CEO, technical marketing leader, author of Content Marketing, Engineered, one of The Wall Street Journal’s 10 Most Innovative Entrepreneurs in America...and she holds a Texas fishing record. Over the last 20 years, Wendy and her team at TREW Marketing have helped hundreds of engineering and technology companies build trust and fill their pipelines using compelling technical content.
Imagine you are a worker on an offshore oil rig and your machine goes down. You notice a part has fallen off and is broken. You need to figure out who manufactured the machine (20 years ago!), describe the part to customer service, and hopefully find a replacement. And to make matters more complicated, you don't speak the same language as the manufacturer's service department. Meanwhile, the drilling has stopped, and which has a significant monetary impact on the company. Now envision an alternate scenario where you can snap a picture of the part with your iPhone, upload it to the manufacturer's website, and within seconds identify the part and place a replacement order. This is one of many examples shared during the episode to illustrate the power of visual search for manufacturers and distributors.
Matt Judge, VP of Sales at Vizseek, has found himself in the middle of several intersecting trends in the industrial space. Buyers have moved online for a significant portion of the buyer's journey, applying pressure on manufacturing companies to invest in their websites and digital technology across the enterprise. Artificial intelligence is more accessible and becoming the driving force behind new approaches to work smarter and more efficiently. Then you have consumer-oriented companies such as Amazon and Pinterest training all of us on the power of visual search to find solutions.
In this episode, you'll learn more about what visual search is, where it can be applied, and how manufacturers and distributors can leverage this technology as a competitive differentiator.
Visit TREW Marketing for more industrial marketing resources:
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Take an inside peek into the rebranding process used to give life and focus to a multi-company acquisition. Mergers and acquisitions are an effective way to quickly achieve economies of scale, improve operational efficiency and expand into new market segments. They are a fast-track to diversification through organic group that helps mitigate risk. But from a marketing perspective, there are several key considerations to evaluate before moving forward with a full-scale rebranding launch.
On this episode you'll hear details of a business rebrand initiative which was triggered by a business acquisition from three unique perspectives: Genuen CEO Jeff Gray, Genuen SVP of Business Development Todd VanGilder, and TREW Marketing President Lee Chapman.
We cover everything from internal alignment, company naming and brand messaging development, and the external brand launch. You'll hear what the Genuen team enjoyed most about the process, and what surprised them along the way. If you are considering a rebranding effort or have one underway, there is a ton of insightful information on this episode to help with your own plans.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
About TREW Marketing
For more than a decade, we’ve helped engineering and technical companies elevate their brand, engage with their audiences, and generate new opportunities. We base our work on insightful research, unrivaled industry expertise, and detail-oriented execution. We understand that highly technical audiences look past standard marketing tactics, so we take a strategic, nuanced approach to meet the technical buyer exactly where they are and help guide them to your solution.
About Wendy Covey
Wendy Covey is a CEO, technical marketing leader, author of Content Marketing, Engineered, one of The Wall Street Journal’s 10 Most Innovative Entrepreneurs in America...and she holds a Texas fishing record. Over the last 20 years, Wendy and her team at TREW Marketing have helped hundreds of engineering and technology companies build trust and fill their pipelines using compelling technical content.
Research shows that diversity and inclusion leads to higher revenue and profits. How can corporations start from where they are to improve in these areas? Jackie Mattox, Founder and President of Women in Electronics, has experienced first-hand the triumphs and tribulations that come from working in the male-dominated field of electronics. Her passion now is to support women of all stages in their careers through mentorship, education, and leadership development. She also wants to educate companies on the benefits of investing in women leaders, and help them identify ways to get started or improve.
During this episode, you'll learn about Jackie's career path that led her to start Women in Electronics, more about the mission of the organization, and where they are focusing their marketing efforts in 2021.
For show links and more, visit the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast blog
https://bit.ly/CMEPodcast
Learn more about TREW Marketing
https://www.trewmarketing.com
Order the book! Content Marketing, Engineered
https://bit.ly/contentmktgeng
About TREW Marketing
For more than a decade, we’ve helped engineering and technical companies elevate their brand, engage with their audiences, and generate new opportunities. We base our work on insightful research, unrivaled industry expertise, and detail-oriented execution. We understand that highly technical audiences look past standard marketing tactics, so we take a strategic, nuanced approach to meet the technical buyer exactly where they are and help guide them to your solution.
About Wendy Covey
Wendy Covey is a CEO, technical marketing leader, author of Content Marketing, Engineered, one of The Wall Street Journal’s 10 Most Innovative Entrepreneurs in America...and she holds a Texas fishing record. Over the last 20 years, Wendy and her team at TREW Marketing have helped hundreds of engineering and technology companies build trust and fill their pipelines using compelling technical content.
With a helpful mindset, EECO uses content marketing to educate and highlight the achievements of their "heroes" who build things and keep them running. Chris Grainger, Engineering and Services Manager for industrial automation and power supply distribution company EECO, has an unusual job. In addition to the many typical responsibilities you'd expect in his role, he is also deeply passionate about helping customers through content marketing.
On this episode, learn why EECO calls customers "heroes" and how thoughtful messaging, blogging, video, and the EECO Asks Why podcast have helped them serve those heroes and grow revenue in a scalable way.
Chris shares a ton of content marketing tips and success stories, and one that stands out is the tight-knit relationship between marketing and the engineering and services team, resulting in a shared commitment to publishing quality content that converts. We have a chuckle over the buyer's journey mindset when crafting a content marketing strategy, which has led him to look at other websites through a very different lens.
You'll also hear a touching story about Chris' personal ministry to help young (and not-so-young) people take control of their personal finances.
Understanding the customer, taking on one initiative at a time, and measuring results were key to ushering inbound marketing into an Acoustic Engineering company. Sabrina De Veylder-Pahwa, R2Sonic Marketing Director, has accomplished something which many industry peers struggle greatly with -- shifting her highly technical engineering company into an inbound marketing model. During this episode, she shares her journey, including the fantastic results they've achieved.
One of the most interesting parts of this episode was hearing about the close relationship she has with the global sales and technical support teams. R2Sonic invested in a sales enablement platform where Sabrina can efficiently share content, and salespeople know they have the latest assets at their fingertips.
You'll also hear about website improvements, content assets that perform well, and which vehicles Sabrina has found most and least effective for promotion.
After a year of working virtually the vaccinations are here, which means companies can shift the field sales force back to their road-warrior ways. But should they? Michael Knight, President of the TTI Semiconductor Group, is a naturally curious person. He asks a lot of questions, which leads to new ideas, and he invariably finds himself serving as a change agent for the company. When it comes to TTI's sales model, this was no different.
Back in those blissful pre-COVID days, Michael was already questioning the traditional field sales model. It started with Applications Engineers (AEs), who were in high demand and spread very thin, leading to lack of coverage for important customer engagements. The TTI team set up a formal pilot program, complete with demo kits and Zoom accounts, to provide more AE coverage with the same personnel through virtual meetings.
Having successfully implemented the pilot and adopting the Virtual AE model is their norm, TTI was well-positioned when COVID hit and field sales was grounded to keep business moving with little disruption. Now that vaccines are in arms and people are headed back to the office, I was curious to hear from Michael how TTI planned to approach the future of field sales.
I won't spoil all the surprises from the episode, but I'll summarize Michael's response in this way: there are five unique generations in the workplace today, and not all of them learn or want to interact the same way. Just as our marketing should be tailored to meet the buyer where they are, so should our field sales approach.
Check out the full episode to learn more about TTI's plans for field sales, lessons learned from a year of social selling, and their biggest marketing investments for 2021.
Tie your brand to a current event to boost brand recognition and reinforce corporate values.
Lance Looper, TREW Marketing Brand and Content Strategy Director, has watched newsjacking evolve from a PR best practice to a well-honed content marketing strategy since his early days in the business. In that time, he's seen many successes but some BIG crash-and-burn attempts as well.
In this episode, Lance and I debate the benefits and risks of newsjacking, and he shares four questions every marketer should consider before jumping in:
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Is there a tie between this event and my brand?
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Did someone get hurt?
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Is the timing right?
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Is this funny or offensive?
Review key takeaways from the March LinkedIn Madness Miniseries and get the scoop on recent marketing features offered on the LinkedIn platform. Julia Fellows, TREW Inbound Marketing Specialist, set a personal goal this quarter for improving her knowledge of all things LinkedIn and this LinkedIn Miniseries was timed perfectly to help as a resources. Through listening to each episode, combined with Julia's own independent research and experience, she has distilled key themes and takeaways every marketer should know.
During the episode, Julia also shares some of LinkedIn's new marketing features, such as stories, articles and newsletters.
Whether you've listened to all the previous miniseries episodes prior to now, or are looking for some cliff note takeaways first, you'll gain helpful new tips to improve your LinkedIn engagement and performance for your personal and professional brand.
A whooping 88% of technical buyers find LinkedIn valuable, so it is no surprise that TREW Marketing clients are seeing success leveraging the platform as part of their marketing strategy. On this episode of our March LinkedIn Miniseries, TREW Marketing Account Director Erin Moore walks me through specific examples of how TREW clients have seen success leveraging LinkedIn. Each client's business is different and so are their goals, including start-up disruptor looking to educate the market on a new way of designing a product, an electronic components supplier using a meaty white paper to generate leads, and an engineering association running a contest to improve of their dataset storage solutions. For each example, Erin outlines the campaign goals, calls-to-action, and results achieved. We also touch on other LinkedIn success in sales and recruiting.
Erin provides specific examples of budget spend, leads generated, and cost per lead which can be helpful datapoints when approaching your first/next LinkedIn Ad campaign. She also offers advice on how to make sure your investment pays off.
LinkedIn provides a powerful, pricy platform for reaching technical buyers and it pays to take the time to plan your ad and measure performance early to maximize ROI. AJ Wilcox, Founder of B2Linked and Host of the LinkedIn Ads Show podcast, has managed some of the world's largest LinkedIn Ads accounts. He's seen the triumphs and the terrible, and shares advice on how to improve ad performance.
During the episode, we contrast budget spend and how it relates to measurement. You'll hear us discuss which types of ads perform the best, and how ad copy and calls-to-action targeted to your persona are key. You'll also learn where the LinkedIn Ads platform is headed and how best to keep abreast of changes.
What are best-in-breed sales and marketing people doing to engage and grow their LinkedIn networks? It all starts with understanding a simple, meaningful metric. Scott Ingram is a busy guy. He hosts three marketing and sales-focused podcasts, has authored three books, and holds down a quota-carrying day job as a Relationship One Account Director. Lately though, he's gotten a lot of attention due to his LinkedIn Sales Stars list and companion ebook, Finding Sales Success on LinkedIn. As you might imagine, this episode is full of LinkedIn tips. That being said, the way Scott went about tapping top performers for their knowledge and networks in order to create value for himself, the participants, and the consumers of that content is nothing short of content marketing star performance.
Expand your reach, make human connections, and positioning yourself as a trusted sales advisor using LinkedIn as your engine. Nick Capozzi, CEO of Sales Pitching helps companies improve their conversion sales rate, and on this episode I get into his head about the importance of flexible scripts, making human connections, becoming a trusted advisor, and how LinkedIn can be a powerful engine for accomplishing those goals.
After twenty years in high pressure marketing and sales in the cruise industry, Nick has turned his expertise towards helping B2B companies improve their sales pitches. He does this by sitting in on tons of sales conversations, and in that time, he's seen some common mistakes and missed opportunities, including:
- Too much pitching and not enough listening
- Focus on solution specs versus customer benefits
- Missing the opportunity to make a human connection
- Sales scripts are rigid, not taking into account variations for persona, application
- Lack of teamwork with marketing
- LinkedIn is not fully utilized
Nick goes on to talk about the antidotes to each of these issues, with a deep-dive into how salespeople can more fully leverage LinkedIn. Using his own consulting business as an example, Nick walks through how he uses the platform to grow awareness into new audience groups through strategic relationship building with complementary partners. He posts videos weekly, always with the same format and background, to build up his reputation as a trusted advisor. Prospect research is also quick and fruitful - he was once short-listed for an opportunity because of a mutual connection.
More and more salespeople have turned to LinkedIn to network and connect with prospects, and aided by automation, the volume of outreach has gone up exponentially. How do salespeople cut through the noise and make real connections with prospects?
In this episode, Susan and I discuss key ways salespeople can leverage LinkedIn, and how marketing can help.
Key takeaways:
- Marketing focuses on one-to-many communications while sales focuses on one-to-one; the approach to LinkedIn should follow this same principle
- When it comes to LinkedIn prospecting, you'll produce better results with quality, not quantity, thus having tightly defined target personas are a key start
- Salespeople need to start conversations focused on the buyer's challenges, not the the company's solution; leverage marketing-produced content speaking to these challenges
- People go to LinkedIn to connect with people, not brands; pick the most influential people in your company and focus on crafting their presence with a point-of-view, not auto-posts of blogs, etc.
- There are three different sales
conversations follow the stages of trust building; you have to earn the right to talk about yourself (don't start there!)
How can you improve your reach and engagement on LinkedIn? It all starts with your content. John Espirian, Technical Copywriter and author of Content DNA thinks that boring is the new risky. He's seen too many companies and individuals crank out mediocre and often self-promoting LinkedIn content on an inconsistent basis, and then those same folks wonder why they aren't getting value out of the platform.
Think about the last time you were on LinkedIn. What prompted you to visit? I imagine you spinning the scroll wheel on your mouse at a rapid pace, and then something makes you stop. What was it about the content that drew your attention? Was the post from a company or a person?
John shared a research finding that LinkedIn visitors are more likely to interact with people in their network rather than businesses. Add to this the expansive nature of personal networks over business, the case is compelling that your company's LinkedIn strategy should have employees, not the company, at the forefront.
Successful LinkedIn engagement springs from consistently posting on-brand content that follows the XX rule of challenges, inspires or draws a chuckle.
In the most recent LinkedIn algorithm change, posts that cause people to linger longer than x seconds are prioritized, giving advantage to video and long-form content. John shares an interesting hack for this utilizing PDF documents.
We also cover how to strengthen you LinkedIn profile and even touch on Clubhouse (an up-and-coming invitation-only social networking platform).
Take a sneak peek at our upcoming miniseries focused on all things LinkedIn, from crafting that perfect post or ad to expanding your reach through deeper network engagement.
COVID-19 continues to make a big impact on business operations, and one clear trend for marketing and sales is a greater focus on LinkedIn. To help you learn more and perform better with your LinkedIn efforts, I'm kicking off a month-long series studying trends and best practices across different facets of the platform.
Here is the line-up:
- Introducing the March LinkedIn Madness Miniseries
- Don't be Boring with John Espirian, Technical Copywriter and Author of Content DNA
- Stop the Sales Noise with Susan Tatum, Managing Partner & Pipeline Specialist for The Conversion Company
- Becoming a LinkedIn Sales All-Star with Nick Capozzi
- Measuring and Mastering Engagement with Scott Ingram
- Advertising that Converts with AJ Wilcox
- TREW Client Success Stories with Erin Moore
- March LinkedIn Madness Miniseries wrap up with Julia Fellows
Morgan Norris, TREW Senior Brand & Content Strategist is passionate about writing and creating really strong content. The 2021 State of Marketing to Engineers research found that 62% of engineers and technical professionals complete more than half of the buyer's journey online. They are seeking multiple pieces of information along their buyers journey for education, to find solutions, and build trust in potential vendors and suppliers.
The barrier is much higher for technical content than your average B2B pieces. Technical audiences are skeptical and analytical, and do not want to be "marketed" or "sold" on a solution. Education, including deeply technical subject matter, is what they are seeking.
In this episode, Morgan walks through the proven technical writing process that she uses to create content that builds trust and converts.
Hear from the marketing strategists responsible for the 2021 State of Marketing to Engineers research report as they discuss key findings, their biggest surprises, and give advice on how marketers should approach the dynamic year that is 2021. Engineers can be a tough audience to crack, which is the catalyst for the State of Marketing to Engineers Report. For the fourth year in a row, TREW Marketing, which focuses exclusively on marketing to technical audiences, and GlobalSpec, a provider of data-driven industrial marketing solutions, have collaborated to research and survey the tactics, digital content types, and social platforms that are most effective for reaching engineers.
2020 brought unprecedented challenges with the COVID-19 crisis, and this year’s report included questions about how engineers are navigating the unexpected emphasis on virtual events and how they’re finding new ways to learn about new products and trends.
What is digital transformation, how can it help your business, and how do you get started? Douglas Karr, Founder of Martech Zone and VP of Highbridge, has seen decades of digital transformation. From his time in the US Navy programming PLCs (shout out to the industrial engineers and marketers!), realigning satellite feeds for newspaper digitization, and pushing the envelope for personalization with a certain pro football team, he has seen how digital technology can truly transform the customer experience and usher in intelligence and efficiency for companies small and large. The challenge lies in going from idea to successful implementation, and it is no small feat. Douglas talks about the high failure rate of technology implementation, and typical mistakes companies make during the process. He gives smart advice on how to gain approval, get started, and gain executive approval.
Break through dated attitudes and misconceptions about video, and learn how to get started and make the most out of your video content assets. Bryan Fittin, Founder of Go Rogue X, believes B2B marketers are missing a BIG opportunity. Video is a powerful tool to create a human connection between your brand and your customers. By showcasing company leadership and staff on video versus in written form, many additional aspects of your brand can be communicated, such as company culture, personality, and dare I say, endearing human imperfection.
On this episode I'll take a look back at some of the episodes that were most liked and downloaded by our listeners, including a few of my own favorites. This will be a great short-cut if you are new to the podcast.
You'll also get a sneak peek at episodes coming in early 2021, including a short series on LinkedIn and coverage of our newly published research report, 2021 State of Marketing to Engineers, conducted in partnership with GlobalSpec.
Being a solo marketer at a technical company can be lonely and challenging. Hear tips for gaining influence, working efficiently, and how to stay sane wearing all those hats. If you are a solo marketer, Julia Fellows has walked in your shoes. In her former role at a technical engineering company before joining TREW Marketing, Julia was responsible for all things marketing....all by herself.
Build brand trust and shorten the sales cycle using a one-two punch of rich content combined with derivative micro-content. Jason Swenk, host of the Smart Agency Master Class podcast and coach to growth-oriented agencies nationwide, does not enjoy writing blogs. And he's certainly not alone in that sentiment! But what Jason does enjoy is helping businesses grow through education. He's developed a one-two content marketing punch that capitalizes on his strengths and expertise, with rich podcast content at its core.
When launching a product to a new market, think of your company as a stranger entering into a strange world, talking to other strangers about strange things. In short, you have a lot to learn. Sean Sheppard, Founder of GrowthX and GrowthX Academy, has over 20 years of experience bringing new products to market, and has started and sold 5 businesses. Through his work with GrowthX, Sean helps entrepreneurs find product-market fit and grow a profitable business.
Learn why marketing technology powered by artificial intelligence, not a Marketing professional, might be your best next hire. Paul Roetzer is on a mission to educate marketers about how AI technology, applied to marketing applications, can help companies reduce costs and accelerate revenue growth. He's CEO and Founder of the Marketing Artificial Intelligence Institute, which offers courses, certifications, and a ton of free education to help demystify the AI marketing landscape. He's also a veteran marketing leader as the CEO and Founder of agency PR 20/20.
James Mulvany, Founder of Podcast.co and it's flagship solution MatchMaker.fm, believes in offering value first in foremost to grow a community. To prove out his community concept and value proposition, he started with a test utilizing Google forms and sheets to connect podcast hosts and podcast guests. From these small beginnings he has developed a platform for this community, and is about to achieve a big milestone of 10,000 members.
The voice of the customer provides powerful insight for messaging and content development. Learn how to conduct productive customer interviews. Morgan Norris, TREW Marketing Brand and Content Strategist, knows when she has nailed a customer interview, and the impact it can have on a company's messaging. She uses data from interviews to inform persona development, reinforce or debunk company differentiators, and uncover surprises (good and bad) touching everything from product quality to operational execution
What does sales appreciate most about marketing, and where do the wheels come off in the quest for forging an aligned revenue team? What does sales appreciate most about marketing, and where do the wheels come off in the quest for forging an aligned revenue team?
Personal branding can help companies gain a thought leadership position and help company leaders grow their careers. Doc Williams, CEO and Founder of the Brand Factory, has worked with many leaders to hone their personal brands, from pro athletes to technology company executives. Through this work he has developed a framework to breakdown the process into clear steps.
Without a solid business strategy and plan, marketing is dead in the water. Jack Barber, Senior Business Consultant at Exotek, has been a long-time advisor to company leaders in the system integration industry. As such, one of the most confounding things he has run across are businesses trying to operate and grow without a business strategy and plan.
For new companies or ventures into new segments, one of the most challenging and time consuming tasks is getting those first qualified names into your database.
Narrow your focus to grow your business. It is easy to say but not always easy to do. Learn how one marketer uses a niche-focused strategy within the metalworking industry to provide tailored content and grow business.
If you feel marginalized in your marketing role within your company, there is a good chance you are the cause your own problem.
Retargeting is practically a staple of B2C digital advertising campaigns, but should B2B technical companies adopt this tactic too?
Co-marketing is a powerful way to boost two complementary brands with half the effort. How do you evaluate and engage potential partners to get started, and what types of activities should you pitch?
Why are industrial marketers hesitant to add videos and podcasting to their content mix, even when trends show that technical buyers are seeking this content more than ever? Learn how to overcome obstacles to make it happen.
Retargeting is practically a staple of B2C digital advertising campaigns, but should B2B technical companies adopt this tactic too? Let the debate begin.
If you are thinking of starting a podcast for your B2B company, learn shortcuts to get started quickly from a fellow B2B marketer who is also a podcast host about podcasts.
A key member of technical buying teams is the purchasing agent. Their content needs are quite different than engineer specifiers, but many marketers don't understand how to craft targeted messages to this unique persona.
The newly launched Content Marketing, Engineered Academy offers on-demand courses for marketers and writers in technical industries. Our first course, Content Writing, Engineered is an 8-hour, self-paced course that walks you through a proven technical research and writing process. You'll learn how to write content that converts, diving into specifics for eight of the most popular content types. The course includes how to collaborate with subject matter experts, manage the internal review process efficiently, and very specific editing tips. You'll also learn how to enhance content with images, optimize content for search, and other content packaging best practices.
Adopting a content marketing model can be a daunting undertaking. What are the most important activities in the first year, how do you measure success?
Do you have what it takes to be an excellent technical content writer? Expert Lance Looper shares how resourceful conversationalists, trusted SME partners, and thorough-but-succinct composers are top on his team.
Now more than ever, webinars are a fantastic way to engage potential buyers and grow your lead pipeline. Learn best practices and tips on how to get started or tweak your webinars for better performance.
Content marketers focused in deeply technical industries have unique challenges, from breaking down the complex into the consumable, managing SME writing anxiety and striking the right educational/promotional balance...while making it all interesting.
Hitting it big in search results isn't luck. There is a methodical process behind writing optimized content, and it starts with empathy.
On this episode I'm joined by CME podcast regular Morgan Norris (who's also TREW Senior Brand Strategist and was a close collaborator to me throughout the book writing process). Morgan interviews me on all things Content Marketing, Engineered..the book. You'll learn why I took on this big project, who the book is written for (looking at you, marketers and curious executives at technical companies), and how to get the most out of each chapter.
On this episode we explore emerging and tried-and-true strategies to target key accounts and grow adoption and revenue within those accounts.
Over half of B2B industrial buyer specifiers are Millennials, and this group seeks information differently than their older counterparts. Beyond features and benefits, they need third-party validation to support recommendations. How can you serve up this content effectively?
System integrators, today we are talking directly to you! Stop neglecting your dated websites and double-down on digital marketing. Discover 5 marketing investments to get rolling, many of which are low-cost.
As marketers, we are always on the lookout for new ways to add value to the buyersexperience and if possible shorten the sales cycle for our own companies. If you are a manufacturer of electronic or industrial parts, you may want to consider adding CAD content to your marketing mix. In this episode you’ll hear some suprising data around just how much engineers value this type of content, and the stats around conversion to purchase are staggering.
On this episode you hear from self-professed skeptic turned marketing addict Jeff Olsen, CEO of Hiller Measurements, and get ready --we cover a ton of ground. He discusses the CEO’s responsibility to defineand adopta company’s value propositioninto the culture first, and how without full adoptionmarketing is dead in the water. You’ll also hear about Hiller’s new YouTube Channel AE2, which stands for Artists, Engineers and Entrepreneurs, one of many initiatives underway as part of Hiller’s adoption of content marketing and new media channels.
Finding and keeping top-notch content marketing professionals is not an easy task for technical companies. Learn about the top traits of an A-player, recruiting the perfect purple unicorn, and how to keep your marketing staff motivated and equipped to do their best work.
What is the ROI of inbound marketing? HubSpot COO JD Sherman thinks of inbound as building a factory, where assets are created versus rented, and the investment pays off as an annuity over time.
In the face of crises, whether on a global scale like COVID-19 or local scale such as an accident onsite at your facility, communication is paramount. What messages need to be crafted both internally and externally, and how should those be delivered?
We all want to attract qualified visitors to our website and provide them with an amazing experience, one that builds trust and reflects positively on our brand. Learn how to assess the performance of your website, weave SEO and usability into content planning, and tips for fast fixes to simple issues your site may have.
Video is growing rapidly in its importance within the content marketing mix. So why haven’t marketers gone all in? Learn easy, accessible ways to create and manage technical video content that will earn trust with your buyers.
With so much digital marketing data at your fingertips, it is easy to spend too much time on what is easy to grab and not enough time on what needs to be analyzed. Hear misconceptions digital marketers have and advice to guide measurement tradeoffs.
Templated websites have come a LONG way this past decade in functionality, aesthetics, and ease of use. Explore different factors that tip the scales towards templated versus custom.
Shifting your marketing model from outbound to inbound can be a daunting task. Hear how Ken recently tackled this for Qosina, and his advice for getting it right.
When do you know it’s time to revamp your company’s brand, and what are common traps that marketers fall into during the messaging process? Hear from a brand storytelling expert as she shares trade secrets and a well-honed approach.
How do engineers use content to make purchase decisions? Hear the most (and least) surprising findings from recent research conducted by IEEE GlobalSpec and TREW Marketing, Smart Marketing for Engineers: Critical Insight to Engage Engineers in a New Decade including focus on the Millennial engineer.
This podcast is focused on you, the marketer in a technical company. Meet Podcast host Wendy Covey and preview the types of strategic and tactical topics to help you get motivated, work smarter, innovate and produce better results