Episode Transcript
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Joey Strawn (00:00):
Welcome back
everybody to another episode of
the industrial Marketer Podcastyour place for the tips, tech
trends and tactics as this week.
Thanks is for industrials whocare about driving leads to
their companies. As always, I amone of your hosts Joey Straughn,
fellow niq dude and industrialmarketer advocate and as always
(00:25):
in my co pilot chair is Nelspumpkin spice Jenson. Welcome to
the party Nels.
Nels Jensen (00:35):
Thank you, Joey.
Not a fan of pumpkin spice. Buthey, for those who are go for
it, you know, do your thing.
Joey Strawn (00:43):
You know, what?
Neither am I to be completelyhonest now. So you and I have
that in common. We're antipumpkin spice will stand on that
will stand together. As thehordes of pumpkin spice lovers
come and come after us. I am sohappy to be here with you today.
I know I say that every week.
(01:04):
But this week in particular,because this episode is going
live on Thanksgiving Nels.
Nels Jensen (01:09):
So yeah, and you
know what? I'll be honest with
you, Joey right now, I need anattitude adjustment, because
some of these clients are kindof driving me nuts. What am I
gonna do with these peskyclients? And so, you know, I got
to get that setup going. And Iwas like, oh, yeah, we're gonna
(01:29):
be like giving thanks. So I needto, it's the week of thing, hey,
I need to get squared away here.
Because not every day is hunkydory in marketing world,
especially industrial marketing.
Joey Strawn (01:42):
And it's not we
live in a tough market. I I'm
happy to hear you say that now.
And honestly, and all jokesaside, if you're one of the
clients listening to this, it'stotally not you. But I I'm kind
of with you. And I was talkingabout this the other day with
with some people. And it's beena long, tough two years,
honestly, let's be completelyhonest, it's been a long, tough
(02:06):
year and two years, for a lot ofpeople in the industrial
markets. You know, there someindustries have seen a lot of
growth and a lot of advancement.
And that's good. You know,there's still some, you know,
supply chain industries, andspecifically in driver, you
know, we see shortage driverrecruitment, we see shortages.
(02:26):
So there are industries that arestill having, as you say, you
know, a tough time of it,there's a lot of people that are
in pesky, pesky situations. And,and that's true. And that's
something that we live in everyday. And while I while we're
talking always about strategiesto overcome those hurdles, I
(02:47):
thought this week, on the weekof Thanksgiving, we could try
and identify some things thathave actually come up out of the
year of this year, last year,this time together, that have
been good that we have learnedat the E as either professionals
that we have seen happen in theindustry or movements that we
have seen happen. It's just youknow, this is the week of
(03:09):
Thanksgiving. And I thought whata better time Nelson for you and
I to spread out a smorgasbord onthe table and have ourselves of
our very own industrial marketerThanksgiving special.
Nels Jensen (03:26):
What do you do?
This is where yeah, this iswhere we put in the Charlie
Brown music and that Wow. Thankyou.
Joey Strawn (03:32):
Yes, we need is
like I don't know if that's the
challenge. All I know is theCharlie Brown music from the
Christmas was just the JazzEnsemble. Those are the those
are some great ones. But yes, weneed the Charlie Brown like
we're out in the leaves on therollers are here. They're
falling. There's a big tablewith a lot of latchkey kids
(03:53):
running around it. And and we'rethere to educate all of them on
industrial marketing. And we'vebeen doing that all year now. So
that's one of the things thatyou know, that I have noticed
that is has been something thatI've enjoyed this year is you
and I having a regular touchpoint, to step outside of the
(04:13):
individual pieces of the workthat we do, and really look at
our industry as a whole and lookat ways that we as industrial
marketers can help those otherindustrial marketers that are
out there, whether they're onthe ground floor working, or
they're up in the budget levelthinking of ways to make their
coal company better throughtheir marketing department. You
(04:36):
know, I have really enjoyedhaving this time to really step
outside of ourselves Nels Ooh,that run and and look at what's
going on around us. And so youknow, I will actually start this
off by saying that one of thefirst things one of the biggest
things I'm thankful for thisyear Nels is you in this
(04:58):
podcast. I'm thankful We havegotten to do this, that has been
a good thing for me. And and Ithink it's been a good thing for
clients. And I believe it's beena good thing for the entire
industry, you know, nothyperbolically
Nels Jensen (05:13):
Yeah, well, thanks.
I appreciate that very much.
It's been a lot of fun. And, andthat dovetails right into the
top of my list is I'm thankfulfor the audience. And I, you
know, we don't get we don't geta lot of direct feedback. And,
you know, that sort of, youknow, we're not, we're not like
a consumer social media sitewith, you know, a million
(05:33):
followers, or anything like that
Joey Strawn (05:35):
Not yet. Now,
Nels Jensen (05:36):
I know, to echo
your point, it is cool. When we
hear the topics we're we'vediscussed being put into use
with our clients.
Oh, that is so fun.
You know, and just the otherday, someone on our staff was
talking about how we couldattach certain values to someone
who exhibited certain behaviorsand engaging with the client.
(05:57):
And, and, you know, I'm justlike, hey, implicit, explicit
lead scoring. Hey, it's no, it'sjust, we were just talking about
that. That's right. So it, youknow, so it is cool when you and
we frequently steal fromeverybody else, right? That's a
lot of our a lot of our contentis based on, you know, we learn
(06:17):
from our peers, but it's on NASAand people have succeeded at
this. It's yeah, but it is coolwhen our audience is. I don't
know if it's necessarily puttingwhat we talked about to use,
they may well have known aboutit before, whatever. But it's..
Joey Strawn (06:32):
No, no, they're
getting it from we're leading
the way now. Come on. Now. I youknow what, it's funny that you
mentioned that as I have alsoseen this happen. And I this is
the thing that it wrapped up inthis that I've been thankful for
is that throughout the year,whether it's myself in a meeting
or with a in a clientpresentation, and it just
naturally coming into the foldof something that we have talked
(06:55):
about, I will pull bits andthings that we have discussed on
this show, and put it intopractice and watch it work. And
that has also been very fun.
I've seen other people do it orseen strategies or things that
have worked or case studies of,of elements that have come back
and shown success, where I canlook at it and be like, yes,
what we were talking about theinformation and the the
(07:18):
community that we're building isone of value. And that made me
happy. And so that was why Iwanted to start the list off on
a saccharin note and say thatI'm thankful for yes, you in the
show. And of course, and I loveyou included in yours, the
audience. That's right, themost, the most important part is
that we're helping the communityat large of industrial marketers
(07:39):
out there.
Nels Jensen (07:41):
So what else is on
your list?
Joey Strawn (07:44):
Oh, man. Okay,
here's, here's one thing, I am
thankful that this year hasproven that content remains
King. I in here, I'll explainwhat I mean by that I, you know,
I've been a marketer for awhile, I usually live in the
inbound realms of contentcreation and how it's
distributed. And now so youknow, you know those worlds. And
(08:06):
so, I am happy that as we haveseen more and more eyes and
focus, go to the internet, go tothe digital realms go to
marketing tactics that requirein depth analysis, that we
haven't seen focus go away,we've actually seen long form
content and in depth,educational content do better.
(08:29):
You know, I was reading somestudies that are that are saying
in 2021, companies are morenoticeably seeing results from
their SEO efforts and theircontent marketing efforts. And I
can tell you, I've been in thisgame a while. And for a client
to be able to say, Yeah, contentmarketing and SEO are really
working for us is lightyearsaway from where I've been, you
(08:52):
know, five to 10 years ago. Sothe idea that that content is
remaining a strong force in themarketing mix is good, because
that's a realm that I live in.
And I am thankful that helpful.
Educational, good qualitycontent is still just the center
crux of a good marketingstrategy.
Nels Jensen (09:12):
Yeah. And we've
trotted this stat out before, I
should have it memorized, but Idon't, but it's about 60% of the
research and industrial buyingis done before a contact is made
with the company
Joey Strawn (09:29):
I think it might be
in the 70s. But you're correct.
Nels Jensen (09:33):
So that feeds into
my next item of thing. And
actually, I'm going back andforth here. Yeah. So this is
going to be a double dipper. I'mgoing to do tonight here so
Okay, so then I get to do next.
Okay, so, yes. I'm so thankfulthat ROI has become a bigger
part of conversations. Yeah,marketing. You know, it's the
(09:53):
promise of years ago. It's like,well, you know, the old
fashioned TV ad In print ads,you know, you didn't really know
what you're getting. And, and wereally have seen case studies,
real life examples of howmarketing automation has allowed
us to track leads and attributerevenue to specific marketing
efforts that you, you can show,hey, when we did version A
(10:17):
instead of version B, or when wetook away display, budget and
put it into, you know, ad, youknow, search, whatever that, you
know, you can adjust the tacticdials and see the results. So
I'm very thankful that analyticsis getting a bigger, that's I
was gonna mix my metaphorsgetting a bigger seat at the
(10:41):
table, is getting a seat at thetable, or getting a larger piece
of the allocations because ROIis very real. And marketing
technology can be amazing, ifyou use it to its capabilities,
which brings me to the next one.
Joey Strawn (11:01):
Okay, well, I was
gonna say before you go to the
next one, I, you that pointmakes me think of that old adage
of I waste 50% of my advertisingdollars. But the problem is, I
don't know which 50%. And it istrue. And I actually think we've
referenced that on the on theshow before but it is true to
your point where we're sort ofemerging into a world where if
(11:25):
you can only attribute 50% ofwhat you're doing, it's not good
enough. No, like we're living ina world we are living in the
areas of efficiencies andtechnologies where that sort of
stuff is not only possible, butat least in our worlds nails and
the b2b industrial marketingworld is necessary and expected
(11:46):
if you can't tell me what myadvertising and marketing
dollars are bringing to thetable that you won't have that
money. So I am i That's a goodone now. Okay. You said you had
two though.
Nels Jensen (11:59):
Yeah. So Mark,
marketing technology can be
amazing if you use it to itscapabilities, right. So, yes. So
my next point is, I'm thankfulthat CRMs are getting the
attention that they deserve aswell, right? It's, yeah, I've
used I've used this sort ofanalogy a lot in the course of
(12:20):
the past year, but manufacturersbetween lean continuous
improvement, whatever, they'realways willing to open up the
hood on their operations andtake a look at how can we do
things better, right? It's also,you know, ERPs, you know, now
are part of a successfulstrategy to streamline your
inventory and your productionschedule and become more
(12:42):
efficient in the office. And ascompanies have opened up the
hood and looked underneath attheir marketing and sales
operations, they have figuredout that you know, what, if we
do a better job of leveragingour CRM, we're going to actually
be able to attribute thisrevenue and we're going to be
able to tell you what happenedwhen, you know, between a
(13:04):
qualified lead and actually adeal, right, it's, you know, you
can really get into looking atyour close rates or getting it
why deals don't close and youcan find more obstacles in your
process to streamline to reducefriction, there's the you know,
CRMs are a powerful tool. And aswe've seen, you know, industrial
(13:25):
marketers, you know, industrialshaven't been the fastest to
embrace a lot of Yeah, you know,modern marketing technology, but
we're starting to see it becauseit pays off.
Joey Strawn (13:36):
We really have and
I know people that have listened
to we you know, our sister,podcast, industrialist, and with
with James Soto have heard himtalk with even people who work
at HubSpot, talking about theimportance of the MAR tech stack
and marketing technology and,and what it is allowing brands
(13:56):
and companies to do, I mean andNels, to put it like let's we
can put it into very groundedterms as as a content creator,
how cool is I? I can't think ofa better word. How cool is it?
That it you could sit down andsay okay, well of the blogs that
I've written, and of the sitepages that I've written, and of
(14:17):
the white papers that I'vewritten and of the ebooks that
I've written, I can tell youexactly what has performed well,
and how much money it's broughtin for the clients that are
wrote them for. That's a prettycool thing. If you connect the
dots the correct way, we haveentire episodes in our back
catalogue and trust me nextyear, we're going to be diving
(14:37):
in deep in tech stacks, andtalking about some of this
plumbing and piping because thatis an ever increasing more and
more important element is beingable to connect the dots between
activities and revenue andbottom line and just as you were
saying now the ROI. I see whythose work together now is
(14:57):
having a Mar tech stack andhaving the tech Knology stack is
a is one of the things that'sallowing our better
understanding and betterutilization of ROI tactics. I
like that well, well groupedNels well grouped indeed.
Nels Jensen (15:14):
Thank you.
Joey Strawn (15:15):
i Okay, well, then
I guess that that leaves is my
turn, I need to take up too,though. And, you know, luckily,
I think I have to this sort ofwork together. So one of the
things that I am thankful forthis year, and one of the things
that I have seen grow out ofsome of the, the trials and the
(15:35):
toughness of how the marketshave been lately, is, are the
recent adaptations ofinnovation. Companies are really
looking at ways to adapt andinnovate around their offerings
around the ways they make moneyaround the ways they think of
themselves. You know, one of thethings that I remember this a
(15:57):
long time ago, but there werestories that that I was saying
is like, why did the railroadsfail, as like? Well, because
they were in the railroadbusiness, and they needed to be
in the transportation business.
And it was just a simplethinking, well, we make
railroads No, you maketransportation devices, that get
people from A to B. So ifrailroads are phasing out, then
you need to phase into what theyou know what it is. So I've
(16:20):
always really enjoyed thatanalogy and that story, and this
year, especially because of thetrying times, a lot of companies
have been forced into rethinkingabout how they do things. So
looking at things like uptime asa service for maintenance
companies, you know, looking atit, making sure that you're
keeping machines that your yourvalue is in keeping other
(16:42):
people's machines online andrunning, or equipment as a
service engineering as aservice. All these as the
services that have been poppingup are a lot of the result of
people looking at theirbusinesses looking at the ways
they make money with a criticaleye and seeing the ways they can
provide additional value. Andthat to me is exciting.
Nels Jensen (17:08):
Can I jump in with
a relative with a relay? Yes. So
what this is all about, we threwthis we threw this one out early
in the pandemic, fictive did asurvey of 400 leaders in the
industrial sector, a lot ofmarketers and executives. And
this was done in spring, it wasdone last May. So people were at
(17:29):
the, the, the troughs of, youknow, the pandemic impacts. And
it was like 80 80% had alreadybeen directly impacted by the
pandemic and figured more, but91% of these executives said,
there are already opportunitiesthey see coming out of this. So
(17:51):
disruption does equalopportunity. Now, that's not to
say yay, disruption. No, no.
Right. But But that's part of,you know, great business,
cultures, adaptability,flexibility, and being
opportunistic. So, yeah,absolutely.
Joey Strawn (18:08):
So I've been it's
been, it's been encouraging to
see because and, and selfishly,it's given us new things as
marketers, to, to buildnarratives around to build
campaigns around is to think ofways that we can then expand and
do better as industrialmarketers, for the new and
growing needs of the businessesthat we service like, that has
(18:30):
been really exciting. And thenit's the one of the reasons I'm
thankful for, but again, I loveto see people be not shifty, but
you know, crafty and agile andreally, really critical about
improvement. Um, you know, youand I are big advocates for the
Kaizen method, we'd love smallimprovements over time. But you
know, as you said, times ofpressure times of disruption can
(18:54):
cause some of that to speed up,and I definitely have seen that.
So my second wood does sort ofrelate to this. And it is more
of built out of the times thatwe're in, but I've been thankful
that more people and it's becomemore natural, and inherent in
our working is virtualcollaboration and virtual
events. Seeing the trade showmarket get stripped and gutted
(19:18):
in 2020 was was devastating asespecially for a lot of our
clients. A lot of clients we'veworked with in the past, a lot
of the industrial sectors,heavily heavily rely on in
person sales gatherings and inperson conferences and in person
in trade shows. And to see thatin a single year just get ripped
(19:38):
out was was scary was not great,to put it mildly. And so this
year to see more virtualcollaboration, virtual events,
some of those conferences comingback online and having duel in
person and virtual abilities. Ithas been nice to not so much see
(19:58):
things get back to normal Butsee some of the normal
conversations that I'm used tohearing around the industry
start to happen again. Andthat's been a nice thing to hear
is, you know, people, peoplegoing to the different
conferences and coming back withdifferent learnings and people,
you know, sending out a speakerrequests. And it's just been,
(20:18):
it's been nice to see now.
Nels Jensen (20:20):
Yeah, it's an
evolution. You know, what, and a
lot of people are acknowledgingnow that you know, what, we're
not going back to the old world,right? The new world of trade
shows is going to be different.
Yes, there's still tremendousvalue of face to face
networking, relationships,right? The trade shows will
still be there. Right? Right.
But they will not be the same.
And they'll have more visualcomponents. And you may even
(20:42):
have more conferences where,okay, there is a opportunity for
the people who can be there, butthere will be a much more robust
experience for the people whocan't sew.
Joey Strawn (20:55):
And for nothing
selfishly nails. One of the
reasons I'm thankful that thisis come to fruition, and this
year is back in January, on ourpredictions episode of what were
the trends that we think aregoing to happen in 2021 virtual
events was one of the thingsthat you and I said, and so I'm
thankful we were right, youknow, I not for nothing. I'm
(21:18):
thankful that that came tofruition because it was a trend
that we saw that we predicted.
And then it happened, Just as wesaid, so, you know, kudos, hey,
kudos to you. As well, I think,man, I think we're, we're coming
to the end of our feast here, weeach have, I think you've done
123. But you got like one
Nels Jensen (21:40):
or two, I'll get
you one more. So all right, I
got one more for us. Right. Andthis is I'm gonna say, supply
chain solutions. And really,this again, this is well, this
is where, you know, this is notyay, we've gone through a lot of
pain to reach this point. But,you know, it's like,
(22:01):
distributors, for example, youcan't just succeed, any this
speaks to your innovation point,you can't just succeed anymore
with inventory and price. Right?
How do you add value? Right?
This is the same for the supplychain, it was a race to the
bottom how, you know, yes,things were done more cheaply.
Labor was cheaper in Asia andMexico and other issues. But
(22:22):
people have come to therealization that cheap is where
innovation goes to die. And thatno matter what we have to add
value, one of the ways to addvalue, of course, is to reduce
friction. But, you know, we'regetting to the point where
people understand partnershipsrevolve around adding value.
(22:42):
It's not just cutting costs. Andso distributors are seeing it,
you know, up front in their faceall the time, right? How do they
provide more custom solutions?
How do they provide more advicesupply chains are looking at,
okay, how do we redo you know,secondary sourcing? And how do
we have to work with ourpartners to improve product
development, you know, so therace to the bottom is over. And
(23:05):
we've, in my estimation, I'mthankful that we've turned a
corner. And now we are focusingagain, on adding value and
reducing friction, as opposed tojust cheaper is going to be the
way to go.
Joey Strawn (23:20):
Exactly. I mean,
one of our ongoing mottos, and
this is internally around wherewe work, but is, you know, we
want people to actually improvefor having worked with us and
around us, you know, and so now,so you and I hold that very dear
to be able to say, well, thework that we have done, has
shown value, true real value tocompanies. And that is the idea
(23:44):
that, you know, those moves arebeing made, those innovations
are happening, thoseconversations are happening to
allow companies to make thosemoves to see those benefits, is
encouraging. And I'm thankful.
And I'm glad that you broughtthat up. I mean, it is again,
it's not a saying that it'severything is over. But it's
been a tough time. And from thattough time, some good things
(24:05):
have sprouted, we're stillworking through it. And we're
still finding those solutionstogether. But it is encouraging,
especially in this time of thisweek of Thanksgiving to to be
able to say you know what, therehave been solutions that are
being moved towards. And that issomething that we can all be
happy about.
Nels Jensen (24:25):
So excellent.
Joey Strawn (24:26):
My my last one is
actually a little bit similar to
one of the ones you mentionedearlier. But and it also relates
to an episode we had a handfulof weeks back, but one of the
things I am thankful for is themovement towards account based
thinking when it comes tomarketing in the b2b sector, not
Account Based Marketing as thebuzz word. And you know, we dove
(24:49):
into that element of it a fewweeks back, but the idea that as
an industrial community asindustrial marketers together,
we are now more We're focused onwho are the exact people that
our clients need to be workingwith? And how can we track our
communications with those peopleand those companies, because,
(25:12):
again, we've mentioned that ahandful of times this episode,
but we are strive to providethat value. And one of the
quickest ways that I have seenhistorically, provide that value
is get the exact right person atthe exact right company, to talk
to whoever our client needs themto talk to. And so and that
relates directly to your ROIconversation is this is the
(25:35):
fastest way that we can see ifsaying, we know that this money
was brought in by this contractfrom this company, and we
attract that company, we wentafter that company and provided
helped provide that value. Andso I am very happy that we have
moved in the realm ofconversations of okay, well,
these content pieces that we'recreating and these emails that
(25:57):
we're creating and the sitepages, that we want to rank for
certain keywords, how are wegetting those in front of the
companies and the people thatneed to benefit from them? And
so that I am happy that thoseare the conversations that we've
been having, because a waste isnot possible right now.
(26:18):
Marketing, waste, engineering,waste, vision, waste, and none
of it's possible right now, inthe worlds in the budgets that
we live in is everything has tobe thought through. And
everything has to bestrategically used. And I am
glad that that we are now havingthe conversations of saying,
okay, Ah, great. You got 8million impressions. So what,
(26:40):
what did that do? Yep, that isthe world that I love to live
in. And I'm glad that we aredoing it more and more now.
Nels Jensen (26:47):
We'll put the
ability to match, you know,
different engagements and honeour messaging more specifically,
it's very powerful, so very wellput.
Joey Strawn (26:59):
Thank you, sir. Man
I have, I felt like we brought a
lot to this face. So I feastedquite a bit on this on this. It
was a cornucopia of good ideasand good thoughts.
Nels Jensen (27:11):
I'm kind of fired
up,
Joey Strawn (27:12):
You know, and
that's and that's just the gravy
on top of all of this. I knowI'm running out of Thanksgiving
puns Nels Do you have any finalwords or final final things to
say before we wrap up for theholidays for people?
Nels Jensen (27:26):
You know, if you
put it after Thanksgiving, if
you if you put it a week and goback to where we started. If you
put enough whipped cream onthere, pumpkin pie will work
though.
Joey Strawn (27:35):
That is true.
That's you know what that isgood advice. And with that, I
think we can wrap That's greatadvice. Whipped cream on top of
it. Let's do this, everybody.
Thank you. As always forlistening to an episode of the
industrial Marketer Podcast. Wecan't wait until the next
episode. And if you can't waituntil the next episode, be sure
(27:56):
to subscribe. However you listento podcasts, subscribe, you're
going to be around your familythis week at Thanksgiving, just
gather all their phones and sayhey, I'm going to put these in
another room so we can have somefamily time. But when you're in
the other room, subscribe all ofthem to our podcast, and then
come back in and say let's doThanksgiving and then have a
great Thanksgiving. Thank you somuch. Once again for listening
(28:18):
to our show for supporting thiscomment on social and Facebook
and on the posts online if youwant us to talk about topics
that you want to hear, but ifyou haven't already check out
industrialmarketer.com we have alot of articles and a lot of g
eat, helpful advice. So until nxt time, thank you guys for l
stening and Nels, thank you fr talking with me.
Nels Jensen (28:40):
Thank you Joey.
Joey Strawn (28:41):
Have a good one,
everybody.