December 20, 2022 • 27 mins
With apologies to the Magi, co-hosts Joey and Nels offer up manufacturing marketing holiday gifts from the Indusrti in the form of industrial gold, marketing frankincense, and wisdom myrrh.
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Episode Transcript
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Joey Strawn (00:00):
Welcome back everybody and happy holidays to
the season two finale of theindustrial Marketer Podcast,
your place for the tips, techtrends and tactics for
industrials who care aboutdriving leads and revenue to
their businesses. This is anexciting time. This is an
exciting episode. Welcome,everybody. I am one of your
(00:23):
hosts jolly old Joey, theindustrial marketer, and I am
here as always with my festiveNels on the shelf. Now, how are
you?
Nels Jensen (00:34):
Good, great, Joey.
Just looking forward to thisepisode. This can be fun.
Joey Strawn (00:38):
I think so as well.
And here's what we did. Youknow, every year at the top of
the year, people are alwayslike, oh, let's do the EU, the
trends that we're expecting for2023 are big hypotheses for 2023
and the next year ahead of us,but we didn't really want to do
that we we here at theindustrial Marketer Podcast are
all about giving. We're allabout giving things that are
(01:00):
going to be helpful to thepeople that are at the top of
the food chain all the way tothe practitioners down at the
industrial market or shop floor,we're going to make sure that
you guys are taking care of thisholiday season. And what better
way to do that, than with giftsright now. Yes,
Nels Jensen (01:17):
Exactly. Exactly.
And these are from our, youknow, industrial hearts this
right. He's connects all of ourwonderful worlds and one cheery
package.
Joey Strawn (01:31):
And that's what we're trying to do here. This is
the season of giving. And sohonestly, we decided what better
way than to frame our episodearound the gifts that are given
this season. So welcome to theholiday gifts of the industry I
that's what today's episode iswe're going through three Nelson
I have each brought threeelements, three gifts for all of
(01:55):
our industrial marketerlisteners, you can think of
these as the gold, frankincenseand myrrh of industrial
marketing for the year becausewith gold, we're going to each
bring you one industrial based,very, very valuable piece of
information in the frankincensegift is going to be the more
flowery the more perfumey themore marketing feels gift, and
(02:20):
then myrrh something medicinesomething medicated something to
to ease, ease those long, long20 to 2022 pains. So we're gonna
give you something for generalwisdom, and lifelong forward
thinking for the next yearahead. It's gonna be exciting.
Again, the gifts of theindustry, I come in straight for
(02:40):
your ears. And else. Are youexcited? Are you ready to give
Nels Jensen (02:43):
Our gifts? I am.
All right. Well,
Joey Strawn (02:46):
Let's gather around the tree. And let's get let's
get our first first industrialgold gift. Now, I'll actually
give you the honors of unveilingour first gift of the industry I
this year.
Nels Jensen (02:57):
All right, and this is a phenomenal resource. I know
a lot of you know about it, someof you may not. But you may not
have heard of maybe you have theNational Institute of Standards
and Technology. And NIST, as itas it is known is works behind
the scenes to make sure thatthings work together that their
standards that there's, youknow, basically official ways
(03:21):
that we can do things andthey're they're experts in
cybersecurity, but they havecybersecurity. But they have
business because it's like, youknow, one thing so that all
these parts work together. Orthat if you're you know,
multiple vendors, there'sindustry standards, you know,
are always helpful for a reason.
And NIST is the driving forcebehind that in our country. And
the NIST Manufacturing ExtensionPartnership is just a phenomenal
(03:44):
resource for workforce. Youknow, we tend to industrial
marketer, we tend to focus ongenerating leads, and we talk
about websites and more and moremanufacturing is looking for
marketing help with workforce.
And NIST MEP has a just a ton ofresources here. There's there's
(04:06):
the Manufacturing ExtensionPartnership national network,
that's the home office, there'sthere's at least one in every
state plus Puerto Rico, but theypull together at their
nist.gov/mep. There's amanufacturing innovation blog
that has some really interestingworkforce subjects there. They
(04:26):
have a guide for finding andretaining talent and a
downloadable white paper thathas a compilation of some of the
best practices from around thecountry. They have the America
Works program that has a greatblog, newsletter, they're very
active. The nist.gov/mep Justyou know, search for the
workforce on the different, youknow, avenues in there. Just the
(04:49):
best, it's the best of workforcecontent. It's really good.
Joey Strawn (04:54):
I'll back that up.
You know, we selfishly we'veworked with NIST in the past and
we know a lot of the peopleThey've either work over there
now or have worked there in thepast, it is an organization that
just is dedicated to theindustrial space here in this
country. And that's, you know,that's where we live. That's
where us all of all of usindustrial marketers live. So if
you're not familiar with thenist.gov site, that's definitely
(05:15):
one to check. But I mean,Nelson, thank you for
highlighting their manufacturinginnovation blog, that is a
wealth of a resource. If you'renot already checking that out on
a regular basis, you should,there's no better way to just
kind of have your thumb on thevein of what's happening with
industry.
Nels Jensen (05:33):
Yeah. And I think the workforce such a common it
was they surveyed nationally,and that was easily the number
one issue among manufacturerswas finding it was talent gaps
and finding and retainingworkforce. So a great place for
industrial marketers to go tohelp their clients with
workforce. Well, now
Joey Strawn (05:52):
It's, I mean, you You kicked us off on a great
foot, I mean, what better morevaluable gold worthy gift than
that I'm going to kind of followin a similar vein with mine,
because mine is also veryindustrial focus. But it's also
forward looking, you know, youwere, you're really looking at
the workforce issues that arethat are facing a lot of
(06:13):
companies now. But one of thethings that is has been talked
about for a while and is goingto be very important is the idea
of industry 4.0. And especiallyhow manufacturers and people
that work in the supply chain,really kind of revolve and
update their processes aroundsome of the industry 4.0 And the
(06:34):
automations that are coming, thegift that I've brought today, my
gold gift is actually a webinarthat is being put on by the
semiconductor equipment andmaterials International
Association, so the semi groupand SAP, they have a webinar,
specifically on industry 4.0.
And what it means formanufacturing, this is one that
is you can sign up for it, thereis a little bit of a cost if
(06:57):
you're not a member for to thesemi organization, but it's not
very much like $40-45. But thisis a webinar, if you're really
interested in where the futureof industry 4.0 can be going if
you want to hear about it fromexperts in the field, and people
who are doing this day to day,this is a good one, you know,
webinars and audio video, thattype of content. And that type
(07:19):
of educational resource is very,very helpful. And this is a good
group. And this is a good peopletalking about some really
important things.
Nels Jensen (07:28):
That is awesome.
And to connect the dots, yourlocal MEP center actually can
help you with the freeassessment of your 4.0
readiness.
Joey Strawn (07:37):
Wait, did you know free? It can't be it's I mean,
this holiday that's it's areally great gift.
Nels Jensen (07:42):
It's a gift, it's a free assessment, and you know,
at how well does your you know,do your your SAS programs talk
to each other? Right? How, youknow, how well do they connect
your operational system? Youknow, it's, it's, you know,
that's one of the things thatMEP centers do are free
assessments for automationpreparedness for, you know, 4.0
So yeah, there's 4.0 is, youknow, a lot of a lot of your
(08:06):
clients out there are not as faralong with 4.0 journey as you
might think. So that is a greatarea to help as industrial
marketers good one.
Joey Strawn (08:15):
I couldn't agree more. All right, well, let's
move on to our second gift here.
This is the gift offrankincense. In our analogy in
our in our framing device nails.
What we've used is essentiallythis is the perfume, this is the
stuff that makes the area aroundus better and more accommodating
for our for our visitors. Andthis is the marketing gift. Do
(08:36):
you want me to go first or doyou want to Yeah, yeah, go
ahead. I'm gonna give one ifyou're a marketer, in the
digital age, whether you're anindustrial or not, this is the
one that I'm bringing to thetable you likely have heard
about it if you're in the in themarketing space, but there is a
great email newsletter calledthe click. And that's CLI que
(08:56):
que it's not spelled like normalclick because you know, nowadays
everything has to be cool. It isreally, really cool though it is
a great weekly newsletter, theygive you bi weekly sometimes,
but there's great information inthere great stories, they have
case studies, and they presentthings in a very interesting
way. I like them a lot becausewe can watch what they do with
(09:19):
email marketing, and learn a lotby the things that they're
testing that they're learningbecause they'll not only do
weird things with theirnewsletters, but then a couple
months later they'll tell youabout why they did that weird
thing what they were testingwith it and what they found
about it so it's really just aif you're interested in the
world of digital marketing ifyou like to have you know an
(09:39):
updated idea of what people aredoing and testing and learning
from out there. The click is anemail is email newsletter that I
highly recommend subscribing to.
Nels Jensen (09:50):
Yeah, you know, and I'm guessing they spend an
insane amount of time on theiron this newsletter. It's it's
I've gotten used very long andthorough described it how I do
it. Okay, I got you on and it'slike this is this is like a in
itself it's it's a case study ofwalking the talk walking the
(10:10):
talk, whatever it is. It's likeyeah, committed
Joey Strawn (10:13):
They are committed walkers and talkers
Nels Jensen (10:16):
They are committed to Content Marketing yeah yeah
so it so they find some
Joey Strawn (10:21):
Really cool there's one there was one issue that was
completely dedicated to likeKeanu Reeves and one Keanu
Reeves is incredible. But thenthey started like using like,
well Keanu Reeves marketedhimself like this. And this is
how he connects to this. And heconnected to the video game
community and did influencermarketing like this. And it was
just really impressive to seelike, oh, I can see how all this
(10:43):
connects the dots just like yousaid, it's a lot of connecting
the dots. And that's what we asdigital marketers are doing. So
I like to see them walk thattalk.
Nels Jensen (10:51):
They are they're passionate about what they do.
Joey Strawn (10:55):
Shout out to the clikk if you haven't already So
subscribed to that newsletter,that's my marketing gift today.
Now, in your realm, what did youfind that you think valuable and
Nels Jensen (11:05):
Helpful? You know, I'm kind of an old guy and I
might not be as passionate aboutvideo as some of you folks. But
I get it and I understand thenvideo is under utilized in the
industrial marketing sector. Anda lot of us have to help our
clients and ourselves get up tospeed with video. So this
(11:26):
resource is the ContentMarketing Institute. Okay. Love
those a lot of you a lot of youmay know about them may not they
just sent out I believe it wasmight have been this week might
have been last week 27 contentmarketing statistics to help you
succeed in 2023. So it'sbasically a larger article, but
(11:49):
they had a little section onvideo. And there were two links
that I'll put in the show notes.
One of them's is four ways towin with video, who you know,
and they describe video as theit content format for 2023. So
they'll tell you
Joey Strawn (12:03):
If now if we had had an episode that was like the
five trends that you need to beaware of in 2023, we just spent
about half this episode talkingabout video, I feel Yeah, it's
so
Nels Jensen (12:14):
The beauty of the beauty of this articles is this
isn't gonna spend, you know, 15grand on a on a four minute
video, right? This is easy touse, easy to do. Some of its do
it yourself, it's, but it'sbasically you gotta get started,
right, you gotta get started,this is a way to do it. So four
ways to win with video is areally great resource out of
(12:37):
that, you know, article, theseparate article, link in there.
And there's another one that ishow to repurpose video content
for bigger and better results.
And I think that's one of thekeys that we underestimate about
video is the ability that youknow, yes, you produce a 92nd
video, maybe it's a productdemo, maybe it's something about
the machine, maybe it'ssomething about an application
(12:58):
or process, you know, it, it's,it's social content, it's
potential blog content, it's,you know, easily distributed,
it's popular, you know, itdoesn't have to be fancy, you
could have an engineer, youknow, on the shop floor, showing
you how something works.
Everybody loves watching howthings are made. So there's
Joey Strawn (13:20):
What's that show, it's called how it's made. Yeah.
Nels Jensen (13:23):
So that, you know, we are industrial marketers have
a chance to help their clientsbecome a little bit more
digitally active, maybe notsavvy, or, you know, maybe
they're not, you know, maybewe're not the wise men of video,
but we can all help, you know,we can we can help you get
(13:45):
there. And I would justencourage industrial marketers
to help their clients dip theirtoes in the water, get into your
ankle, whatever analogy ormetaphor you want to use. But
video doesn't have to beexpensive and difficult. So the
Content Marketing Institute hassome resources for you to help
encourage people to become moreactive with video.
Joey Strawn (14:09):
And that's great, because I would also guess that
some of our listeners, some ofthe people that are out there
have wanted to do video ifthought about doing video,
whether you're a CEO at the youknow, at the top of the pyramid
and you're just thinking it'scost restrictive. Or you're, you
know, you're working in thefield of digital marketing and
you want your superiors to giveyou the budget or approve the
(14:31):
budget for video. There are alot of ways that it feels like
it's cost prohibitive to getstarted. But nowadays, it's
really not. And yeah, I wouldheavily heavily encourage
everybody like the articlethat's going to go along with
this episode and especially thearticle that's going to be
written on industrialmarketer.com for this month is
going to have all of these linksthat you guys can go look at and
(14:53):
go download can go read through.
These are very, very valuable,thought provoking articles.
about how to use video withoutbreaking your bank and without
destroying and rethinking yourwhole marketing.
Nels Jensen (15:06):
Exactly. And in the Content Marketing Institute
where I started with this hasresources that you can use to
make your argument. There's lotsof data. There's lots of
industry specific, it's, some ofit is b2b, but they also dive
into some things, you can findsome great things on there
specific manufacturing. So, youknow, yes, it's, you know, arm
(15:30):
yourself with with data whenyou're when you're pitching for
money to do something, or whenyou're going to, uh, you know, a
client and suggesting you know,how to spend their money.
Content Marketing Institute hastons of information to help you
make the case.
Joey Strawn (15:46):
I love it. That's a great, I mean, the links that
you got for everybody, fortoday's conversation, I think
are incredibly valuable. But thegift alone could just be if you
haven't gone to ContentMarketing Institute, go there
right now. And that's yourthat's how you can spend your
Christmas break. Like, guys, Iknow that we're marketers, I
know we're looking forward tobeing off for the holidays. But
(16:06):
I know that your brains aregoing to be churning, I know
that you're going to be thinkingabout what you need in place for
2023. So this is great stuffthat if you have some downtime,
read it. duck away from thefamily when they're annoying you
and go read some ContentMarketing Institute. Enjoy
Nels Jensen (16:21):
Some eggnog with your Clikk newsletter. Exactly.
Joey Strawn (16:26):
Oh, man. All right, well rounded out we've we've
gone through our goal, we'vegone through our frankincense,
we're here at the myrrh no onereally knows what Myrrh is, but
we looked it up. Myrrh is anaromatic, medical, aloe. So it's
basically medicinal. And this isour general information, we want
to bring you something that'sgoing to make you feel good,
make you knowledgeable and helpyou in the next year. So I'll
(16:50):
get this one started, I broughta fun infographic for this one
is actually put together oh manwho made this. I was just
looking at, oh, it's aptean, theapp TN and they put together
five profit driving prioritiesfor North American
manufacturers, especially in theage of, you know, COVID, supply
(17:11):
chain issues 2022 and beyond.
And this was one that has fivereally interesting things that
people haven't thought of, orthe realities that we're dealing
with now of you know, how tohave better visibility into your
supply chain resilience, youknow, knowing what your supply
chain paths look like, and how,you know, you can increase and
better engage with that, youknow, really looking at your
(17:34):
inventory and aligning it withthe customer demand, and the
customer journeys, how toempower your own workforce. I
mean, now, so you talked aboutworkforce being an issue in, in
manufacturing, and in theindustrial world, you know, this
talks about that, and looking athow you can empower your
workforce and really focus onsome of that. So yeah, this
(17:55):
infographic is one that Ithought was fun, it really dives
into the industrial world, butspecifically looking at ways
that in the marketing realm andeven outside of the marketing
realm, in your tech stack, youknow, is your inventory tracking
technology? Does it have gaps inyour data? And how to look for
that? And how to think aboutthat. So this was just one that
(18:17):
I was I was really thinking ifwe're going to focus on 2022 and
beyond in the realm of industry,industry 4.0, what are things
that manufacturers need to bethinking of? And this one I
thought summarized it reallywell. So I was like, man, what
better gift than to do thesearching for people and give
them this information?
Nels Jensen (18:37):
Yeah, driving priorities for driving profit.
That's a that's what a greatreminder to get people to hone
in on, you know, growthstrategies, and don't take your
eye off the target, so to speak.
That's
Joey Strawn (18:51):
One of the things from this, from this article is
saying 80% of manufacturers havealready invested somewhat in
technology to overcome criticalbusiness challenges of this
modern day era. You know, if ifyou're one of those companies
that is invested in thattechnology and isn't using it
correctly, then you definitelyhave a priority that to focus on
(19:11):
in 23. If you're one of the 20%,who is still like, oh, man,
we're stuck in spreadsheets, andwe've got a, you know, we're
stuck outside of the digitalrealm, then this may be the year
to start thinking about some ofthose investments, because, you
know, behind the time, sothere's a lot of really
interesting insights to begleaned from some of the studies
(19:32):
that have already been done.
Nels Jensen (19:34):
Yeah, it's, uh, it's interesting. So so my
wisdom, my piece of wisdom is alittle bit on the opposite end
of the spectrum, but it all tiestogether really nicely. And
that's basically do notunderestimate the power of
reducing friction, wherever youcan. You know, it's one of the
biggest trends in manufacturingis what they call quality
(19:59):
management. systems wheremanufacturers are more and more,
making sure that they haveefficient processes, whether
it's for payroll, whether it'sfor purchasing, whether it's for
inventory controls. And one ofthe reasons is that you talked
about supply chain resiliency ismore and more OEMs are looking
(20:20):
to their suppliers and saying,We want to know that you are
running a sharp business, and wewant to make sure you're going
to be able to deliver, as youpromise. So there's increased
transparency, you referred tothat, you know, there's
increased visibility into thesupply chain, all the way down
(20:41):
to, you know, we want you to becertified, you know, the
International automotivetechnology, something I ATF, you
know, it's like, this is astandard, you have to meet to
work with an auto OEM and nowthey're basically telling that,
you know, what the tier onesuppliers are saying to their
tier twos, hey, that needs toflow down to you. And hey, that
needs to flow down to thecontract manufacturers? Well,
(21:04):
there's a massive, you know,effort to build in transparency
for that resiliency. And whatthat comes down to my original
point here, reducing friction.
You know, continuous improvementis a really powerful mindset for
any organization, whether it's amanufacturer, whether it's a
marketing agency, whether it's abank, right, you can always make
(21:24):
improvements. So this could beecommerce for manufacturers,
it's like, you know, reduce thefriction that somebody's going
through on their customerjourney on their buying journey.
Right? It's, we've talked aboutthis a lot in the past year,
take a virtual trade showapproach to your website, you
know, make it easier forprospects and customers to find
(21:47):
what they need, look at, youknow, overall equipment
efficiency, you know,manufacturers like, man, they
dive into their operation, andthey, you know, they know how to
save 20 seconds on the, youknow, on the hour long process,
and what that means, take thatsame approach to their back
office operations, right? Youknow, do you do, you know, some
(22:09):
people do batch processing ofinvoices in their back office,
and you know, what, that reallyscrews up the can screw up the
inventory, if people aren'tpaying for things or ordering
things, when they need to, asopposed to oh, well, I wait till
my pile is, you know, I got 12or 15 things to, you know,
transactions to document, whatoh, if you, you know, whatever,
(22:32):
whatever the right process is,maybe it's do it right away,
because other people in yourorganization are depending upon
it. So whatever you can do toreduce friction is going to help
your organization, the more youcan document it, the better off
you'll be, especially with thisincreased transparency. And
that's not just going to be Ipredict, you know, I could be
wrong, it's not just going to befor manufacturing, I think
(22:54):
there's a lot of people who wantto know from their partners,
that they're going to bereliable, and that they're going
to be able to meet the demandsthat are expected of them.
Joey Strawn (23:04):
And I couldn't agree more. I mean, you know,
Nels here at industrial MarketerPodcast, one of our guiding
principles is Kaizen, you know,it's getting better. Yep, it's,
yep, it's incrementalimprovement. It's incremental
progress. And that is a goodtheme for a lot of this.
Because, you know, going back tosome of the tangible things we
talked about earlier in theepisode, let's say video, is
something that his is enoughthat you guys have wanted to
(23:27):
crack in your marketingstrategy. But you've had, you've
had resistance against eitherbudget, or the time it would
dedicate to create theresources, take those kinds of
approaches, and look for easybaby step opportunities to kind
of dip your toes in thosewaters, find little successes
and then grow off of those. Imean, now's what you were
(23:47):
talking about in reducingfriction is it I mean, in hell
in the supply chain world, ifyou can shave a second or two
off of every part that's createdor divert or whatever, you're
saving hours of production timelike little incremental
improvements, exponentiallygather to create massive
(24:09):
opportunities. And so that'sreally a you know, the the idea
of reducing friction is findingthose little things that you can
do that over time willcumulative cumulatively improve
your either operations, yourorganization, your relationships
with your customers, and thoseare the those are the little
(24:29):
wins that you can do every dayto really
Nels Jensen (24:31):
Push push these as as industrial marketers, how can
you be more efficient in thethings that you're doing and
then how can you make thingseasier for your customers as
well?
Joey Strawn (24:41):
Right exactly. I mean, we're here giving you guys
these gifts of the industry Ibut you can turn around and then
pay it forward, make workingwith you in 2023 easier for your
customers than it was in 2022.
And what ways can you do thatlook for ways and min nails
that's great wisdom, just say Ifwe can make working with us, our
brand, our company and ourservice better in 2023, than it
(25:03):
was in 2022, that I bet youbusiness returns come right on
the tail end of that.
Nels Jensen (25:13):
Yeah, it's amazing the lessons we can learn from
lean and Kata and Kaizen andeverything in the manufacturing
world is it's all applicable tous.
Joey Strawn (25:23):
It's almost like we love it and live it every day
now, I I've been excited this isthis has been so fun i I love
being able to come together andtalk about happy and joyful
things I love more than anythingfinding helpful resources that
our audience of industrialmarketers will be able to use.
(25:44):
You know, if you're listening,hopefully you've subscribed to
the show. If you haven't alreadysubscribed to industrial
Marketer Podcast and make surethat you have, we're coming out
with new content every month,and making sure that throughout
2023 that you always have newinformation on the industrial
marketing, space, tips andtactics that you guys can use.
(26:05):
If you're already subscribed,email us at podcast at
industrialmarketer.com and letus know topics you want us to
talk about or guests that weshould have on the show or
questions that you want us todive into. This is a community
that we're building and we loveall of the interactions that we
get from you guys and from allthe listeners and in that vein,
(26:26):
go to industrial marketer.comengage with the content share
the content, share it on socialmedia follow us anywhere that
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we're out, we're out there inthe world. So find us follow us
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community and we want to hearyour voices and share your
(26:46):
stories as well. I mean, now,any any final words of wisdom
and things to look forward toand think about in 2023?
Nels Jensen (26:55):
Yeah, you know, gifts of the industry, you know?
It's, it's, it's good stuff,Joey. So, nice job and Happy
Holidays to you and yours andall the people out there in the
industrial marketing world,
Joey Strawn (27:12):
and I hope you and yours have a happy holiday as
well. And here's looking forwardto us and all of our industrial
marketing community having asuccessful and very, very
industrial 2023
Welcome back everybody and happy holidays to
the season two finale of theindustrial Marketer Podcast,
your place for the tips, techtrends and tactics for
industrials who care aboutdriving leads and revenue to
their businesses. This is anexciting time. This is an
exciting episode. Welcome,everybody. I am one of your
(00:23):
hosts jolly old Joey, theindustrial marketer, and I am
here as always with my festiveNels on the shelf. Now, how are
you?
Nels Jensen (00:34):
Good, great, Joey.
Just looking forward to thisepisode. This can be fun.
Joey Strawn (00:38):
I think so as well.
And here's what we did. Youknow, every year at the top of
the year, people are alwayslike, oh, let's do the EU, the
trends that we're expecting for2023 are big hypotheses for 2023
and the next year ahead of us,but we didn't really want to do
that we we here at theindustrial Marketer Podcast are
all about giving. We're allabout giving things that are
(01:00):
going to be helpful to thepeople that are at the top of
the food chain all the way tothe practitioners down at the
industrial market or shop floor,we're going to make sure that
you guys are taking care of thisholiday season. And what better
way to do that, than with giftsright now. Yes,
Nels Jensen (01:17):
Exactly. Exactly.
And these are from our, youknow, industrial hearts this
right. He's connects all of ourwonderful worlds and one cheery
package.
Joey Strawn (01:31):
And that's what we're trying to do here. This is
the season of giving. And sohonestly, we decided what better
way than to frame our episodearound the gifts that are given
this season. So welcome to theholiday gifts of the industry I
that's what today's episode iswe're going through three Nelson
I have each brought threeelements, three gifts for all of
(01:55):
our industrial marketerlisteners, you can think of
these as the gold, frankincenseand myrrh of industrial
marketing for the year becausewith gold, we're going to each
bring you one industrial based,very, very valuable piece of
information in the frankincensegift is going to be the more
flowery the more perfumey themore marketing feels gift, and
(02:20):
then myrrh something medicinesomething medicated something to
to ease, ease those long, long20 to 2022 pains. So we're gonna
give you something for generalwisdom, and lifelong forward
thinking for the next yearahead. It's gonna be exciting.
Again, the gifts of theindustry, I come in straight for
(02:40):
your ears. And else. Are youexcited? Are you ready to give
Nels Jensen (02:43):
Our gifts? I am.
All right. Well,
Joey Strawn (02:46):
Let's gather around the tree. And let's get let's
get our first first industrialgold gift. Now, I'll actually
give you the honors of unveilingour first gift of the industry I
this year.
Nels Jensen (02:57):
All right, and this is a phenomenal resource. I know
a lot of you know about it, someof you may not. But you may not
have heard of maybe you have theNational Institute of Standards
and Technology. And NIST, as itas it is known is works behind
the scenes to make sure thatthings work together that their
standards that there's, youknow, basically official ways
(03:21):
that we can do things andthey're they're experts in
cybersecurity, but they havecybersecurity. But they have
business because it's like, youknow, one thing so that all
these parts work together. Orthat if you're you know,
multiple vendors, there'sindustry standards, you know,
are always helpful for a reason.
And NIST is the driving forcebehind that in our country. And
the NIST Manufacturing ExtensionPartnership is just a phenomenal
(03:44):
resource for workforce. Youknow, we tend to industrial
marketer, we tend to focus ongenerating leads, and we talk
about websites and more and moremanufacturing is looking for
marketing help with workforce.
And NIST MEP has a just a ton ofresources here. There's there's
(04:06):
the Manufacturing ExtensionPartnership national network,
that's the home office, there'sthere's at least one in every
state plus Puerto Rico, but theypull together at their
nist.gov/mep. There's amanufacturing innovation blog
that has some really interestingworkforce subjects there. They
(04:26):
have a guide for finding andretaining talent and a
downloadable white paper thathas a compilation of some of the
best practices from around thecountry. They have the America
Works program that has a greatblog, newsletter, they're very
active. The nist.gov/mep Justyou know, search for the
workforce on the different, youknow, avenues in there. Just the
(04:49):
best, it's the best of workforcecontent. It's really good.
Joey Strawn (04:54):
I'll back that up.
You know, we selfishly we'veworked with NIST in the past and
we know a lot of the peopleThey've either work over there
now or have worked there in thepast, it is an organization that
just is dedicated to theindustrial space here in this
country. And that's, you know,that's where we live. That's
where us all of all of usindustrial marketers live. So if
you're not familiar with thenist.gov site, that's definitely
(05:15):
one to check. But I mean,Nelson, thank you for
highlighting their manufacturinginnovation blog, that is a
wealth of a resource. If you'renot already checking that out on
a regular basis, you should,there's no better way to just
kind of have your thumb on thevein of what's happening with
industry.
Nels Jensen (05:33):
Yeah. And I think the workforce such a common it
was they surveyed nationally,and that was easily the number
one issue among manufacturerswas finding it was talent gaps
and finding and retainingworkforce. So a great place for
industrial marketers to go tohelp their clients with
workforce. Well, now
Joey Strawn (05:52):
It's, I mean, you You kicked us off on a great
foot, I mean, what better morevaluable gold worthy gift than
that I'm going to kind of followin a similar vein with mine,
because mine is also veryindustrial focus. But it's also
forward looking, you know, youwere, you're really looking at
the workforce issues that arethat are facing a lot of
(06:13):
companies now. But one of thethings that is has been talked
about for a while and is goingto be very important is the idea
of industry 4.0. And especiallyhow manufacturers and people
that work in the supply chain,really kind of revolve and
update their processes aroundsome of the industry 4.0 And the
(06:34):
automations that are coming, thegift that I've brought today, my
gold gift is actually a webinarthat is being put on by the
semiconductor equipment andmaterials International
Association, so the semi groupand SAP, they have a webinar,
specifically on industry 4.0.
And what it means formanufacturing, this is one that
is you can sign up for it, thereis a little bit of a cost if
(06:57):
you're not a member for to thesemi organization, but it's not
very much like $40-45. But thisis a webinar, if you're really
interested in where the futureof industry 4.0 can be going if
you want to hear about it fromexperts in the field, and people
who are doing this day to day,this is a good one, you know,
webinars and audio video, thattype of content. And that type
(07:19):
of educational resource is very,very helpful. And this is a good
group. And this is a good peopletalking about some really
important things.
Nels Jensen (07:28):
That is awesome.
And to connect the dots, yourlocal MEP center actually can
help you with the freeassessment of your 4.0
readiness.
Joey Strawn (07:37):
Wait, did you know free? It can't be it's I mean,
this holiday that's it's areally great gift.
Nels Jensen (07:42):
It's a gift, it's a free assessment, and you know,
at how well does your you know,do your your SAS programs talk
to each other? Right? How, youknow, how well do they connect
your operational system? Youknow, it's, it's, you know,
that's one of the things thatMEP centers do are free
assessments for automationpreparedness for, you know, 4.0
So yeah, there's 4.0 is, youknow, a lot of a lot of your
(08:06):
clients out there are not as faralong with 4.0 journey as you
might think. So that is a greatarea to help as industrial
marketers good one.
Joey Strawn (08:15):
I couldn't agree more. All right, well, let's
move on to our second gift here.
This is the gift offrankincense. In our analogy in
our in our framing device nails.
What we've used is essentiallythis is the perfume, this is the
stuff that makes the area aroundus better and more accommodating
for our for our visitors. Andthis is the marketing gift. Do
(08:36):
you want me to go first or doyou want to Yeah, yeah, go
ahead. I'm gonna give one ifyou're a marketer, in the
digital age, whether you're anindustrial or not, this is the
one that I'm bringing to thetable you likely have heard
about it if you're in the in themarketing space, but there is a
great email newsletter calledthe click. And that's CLI que
(08:56):
que it's not spelled like normalclick because you know, nowadays
everything has to be cool. It isreally, really cool though it is
a great weekly newsletter, theygive you bi weekly sometimes,
but there's great information inthere great stories, they have
case studies, and they presentthings in a very interesting
way. I like them a lot becausewe can watch what they do with
(09:19):
email marketing, and learn a lotby the things that they're
testing that they're learningbecause they'll not only do
weird things with theirnewsletters, but then a couple
months later they'll tell youabout why they did that weird
thing what they were testingwith it and what they found
about it so it's really just aif you're interested in the
world of digital marketing ifyou like to have you know an
(09:39):
updated idea of what people aredoing and testing and learning
from out there. The click is anemail is email newsletter that I
highly recommend subscribing to.
Nels Jensen (09:50):
Yeah, you know, and I'm guessing they spend an
insane amount of time on theiron this newsletter. It's it's
I've gotten used very long andthorough described it how I do
it. Okay, I got you on and it'slike this is this is like a in
itself it's it's a case study ofwalking the talk walking the
(10:10):
talk, whatever it is. It's likeyeah, committed
Joey Strawn (10:13):
They are committed walkers and talkers
Nels Jensen (10:16):
They are committed to Content Marketing yeah yeah
so it so they find some
Joey Strawn (10:21):
Really cool there's one there was one issue that was
completely dedicated to likeKeanu Reeves and one Keanu
Reeves is incredible. But thenthey started like using like,
well Keanu Reeves marketedhimself like this. And this is
how he connects to this. And heconnected to the video game
community and did influencermarketing like this. And it was
just really impressive to seelike, oh, I can see how all this
(10:43):
connects the dots just like yousaid, it's a lot of connecting
the dots. And that's what we asdigital marketers are doing. So
I like to see them walk thattalk.
Nels Jensen (10:51):
They are they're passionate about what they do.
Joey Strawn (10:55):
Shout out to the clikk if you haven't already So
subscribed to that newsletter,that's my marketing gift today.
Now, in your realm, what did youfind that you think valuable and
Nels Jensen (11:05):
Helpful? You know, I'm kind of an old guy and I
might not be as passionate aboutvideo as some of you folks. But
I get it and I understand thenvideo is under utilized in the
industrial marketing sector. Anda lot of us have to help our
clients and ourselves get up tospeed with video. So this
(11:26):
resource is the ContentMarketing Institute. Okay. Love
those a lot of you a lot of youmay know about them may not they
just sent out I believe it wasmight have been this week might
have been last week 27 contentmarketing statistics to help you
succeed in 2023. So it'sbasically a larger article, but
(11:49):
they had a little section onvideo. And there were two links
that I'll put in the show notes.
One of them's is four ways towin with video, who you know,
and they describe video as theit content format for 2023. So
they'll tell you
Joey Strawn (12:03):
If now if we had had an episode that was like the
five trends that you need to beaware of in 2023, we just spent
about half this episode talkingabout video, I feel Yeah, it's
so
Nels Jensen (12:14):
The beauty of the beauty of this articles is this
isn't gonna spend, you know, 15grand on a on a four minute
video, right? This is easy touse, easy to do. Some of its do
it yourself, it's, but it'sbasically you gotta get started,
right, you gotta get started,this is a way to do it. So four
ways to win with video is areally great resource out of
(12:37):
that, you know, article, theseparate article, link in there.
And there's another one that ishow to repurpose video content
for bigger and better results.
And I think that's one of thekeys that we underestimate about
video is the ability that youknow, yes, you produce a 92nd
video, maybe it's a productdemo, maybe it's something about
the machine, maybe it'ssomething about an application
(12:58):
or process, you know, it, it's,it's social content, it's
potential blog content, it's,you know, easily distributed,
it's popular, you know, itdoesn't have to be fancy, you
could have an engineer, youknow, on the shop floor, showing
you how something works.
Everybody loves watching howthings are made. So there's
Joey Strawn (13:20):
What's that show, it's called how it's made. Yeah.
Nels Jensen (13:23):
So that, you know, we are industrial marketers have
a chance to help their clientsbecome a little bit more
digitally active, maybe notsavvy, or, you know, maybe
they're not, you know, maybewe're not the wise men of video,
but we can all help, you know,we can we can help you get
(13:45):
there. And I would justencourage industrial marketers
to help their clients dip theirtoes in the water, get into your
ankle, whatever analogy ormetaphor you want to use. But
video doesn't have to beexpensive and difficult. So the
Content Marketing Institute hassome resources for you to help
encourage people to become moreactive with video.
Joey Strawn (14:09):
And that's great, because I would also guess that
some of our listeners, some ofthe people that are out there
have wanted to do video ifthought about doing video,
whether you're a CEO at the youknow, at the top of the pyramid
and you're just thinking it'scost restrictive. Or you're, you
know, you're working in thefield of digital marketing and
you want your superiors to giveyou the budget or approve the
(14:31):
budget for video. There are alot of ways that it feels like
it's cost prohibitive to getstarted. But nowadays, it's
really not. And yeah, I wouldheavily heavily encourage
everybody like the articlethat's going to go along with
this episode and especially thearticle that's going to be
written on industrialmarketer.com for this month is
going to have all of these linksthat you guys can go look at and
(14:53):
go download can go read through.
These are very, very valuable,thought provoking articles.
about how to use video withoutbreaking your bank and without
destroying and rethinking yourwhole marketing.
Nels Jensen (15:06):
Exactly. And in the Content Marketing Institute
where I started with this hasresources that you can use to
make your argument. There's lotsof data. There's lots of
industry specific, it's, some ofit is b2b, but they also dive
into some things, you can findsome great things on there
specific manufacturing. So, youknow, yes, it's, you know, arm
(15:30):
yourself with with data whenyou're when you're pitching for
money to do something, or whenyou're going to, uh, you know, a
client and suggesting you know,how to spend their money.
Content Marketing Institute hastons of information to help you
make the case.
Joey Strawn (15:46):
I love it. That's a great, I mean, the links that
you got for everybody, fortoday's conversation, I think
are incredibly valuable. But thegift alone could just be if you
haven't gone to ContentMarketing Institute, go there
right now. And that's yourthat's how you can spend your
Christmas break. Like, guys, Iknow that we're marketers, I
know we're looking forward tobeing off for the holidays. But
(16:06):
I know that your brains aregoing to be churning, I know
that you're going to be thinkingabout what you need in place for
2023. So this is great stuffthat if you have some downtime,
read it. duck away from thefamily when they're annoying you
and go read some ContentMarketing Institute. Enjoy
Nels Jensen (16:21):
Some eggnog with your Clikk newsletter. Exactly.
Joey Strawn (16:26):
Oh, man. All right, well rounded out we've we've
gone through our goal, we'vegone through our frankincense,
we're here at the myrrh no onereally knows what Myrrh is, but
we looked it up. Myrrh is anaromatic, medical, aloe. So it's
basically medicinal. And this isour general information, we want
to bring you something that'sgoing to make you feel good,
make you knowledgeable and helpyou in the next year. So I'll
(16:50):
get this one started, I broughta fun infographic for this one
is actually put together oh manwho made this. I was just
looking at, oh, it's aptean, theapp TN and they put together
five profit driving prioritiesfor North American
manufacturers, especially in theage of, you know, COVID, supply
(17:11):
chain issues 2022 and beyond.
And this was one that has fivereally interesting things that
people haven't thought of, orthe realities that we're dealing
with now of you know, how tohave better visibility into your
supply chain resilience, youknow, knowing what your supply
chain paths look like, and how,you know, you can increase and
better engage with that, youknow, really looking at your
(17:34):
inventory and aligning it withthe customer demand, and the
customer journeys, how toempower your own workforce. I
mean, now, so you talked aboutworkforce being an issue in, in
manufacturing, and in theindustrial world, you know, this
talks about that, and looking athow you can empower your
workforce and really focus onsome of that. So yeah, this
(17:55):
infographic is one that Ithought was fun, it really dives
into the industrial world, butspecifically looking at ways
that in the marketing realm andeven outside of the marketing
realm, in your tech stack, youknow, is your inventory tracking
technology? Does it have gaps inyour data? And how to look for
that? And how to think aboutthat. So this was just one that
(18:17):
I was I was really thinking ifwe're going to focus on 2022 and
beyond in the realm of industry,industry 4.0, what are things
that manufacturers need to bethinking of? And this one I
thought summarized it reallywell. So I was like, man, what
better gift than to do thesearching for people and give
them this information?
Nels Jensen (18:37):
Yeah, driving priorities for driving profit.
That's a that's what a greatreminder to get people to hone
in on, you know, growthstrategies, and don't take your
eye off the target, so to speak.
That's
Joey Strawn (18:51):
One of the things from this, from this article is
saying 80% of manufacturers havealready invested somewhat in
technology to overcome criticalbusiness challenges of this
modern day era. You know, if ifyou're one of those companies
that is invested in thattechnology and isn't using it
correctly, then you definitelyhave a priority that to focus on
(19:11):
in 23. If you're one of the 20%,who is still like, oh, man,
we're stuck in spreadsheets, andwe've got a, you know, we're
stuck outside of the digitalrealm, then this may be the year
to start thinking about some ofthose investments, because, you
know, behind the time, sothere's a lot of really
interesting insights to begleaned from some of the studies
(19:32):
that have already been done.
Nels Jensen (19:34):
Yeah, it's, uh, it's interesting. So so my
wisdom, my piece of wisdom is alittle bit on the opposite end
of the spectrum, but it all tiestogether really nicely. And
that's basically do notunderestimate the power of
reducing friction, wherever youcan. You know, it's one of the
biggest trends in manufacturingis what they call quality
(19:59):
management. systems wheremanufacturers are more and more,
making sure that they haveefficient processes, whether
it's for payroll, whether it'sfor purchasing, whether it's for
inventory controls. And one ofthe reasons is that you talked
about supply chain resiliency ismore and more OEMs are looking
(20:20):
to their suppliers and saying,We want to know that you are
running a sharp business, and wewant to make sure you're going
to be able to deliver, as youpromise. So there's increased
transparency, you referred tothat, you know, there's
increased visibility into thesupply chain, all the way down
(20:41):
to, you know, we want you to becertified, you know, the
International automotivetechnology, something I ATF, you
know, it's like, this is astandard, you have to meet to
work with an auto OEM and nowthey're basically telling that,
you know, what the tier onesuppliers are saying to their
tier twos, hey, that needs toflow down to you. And hey, that
needs to flow down to thecontract manufacturers? Well,
(21:04):
there's a massive, you know,effort to build in transparency
for that resiliency. And whatthat comes down to my original
point here, reducing friction.
You know, continuous improvementis a really powerful mindset for
any organization, whether it's amanufacturer, whether it's a
marketing agency, whether it's abank, right, you can always make
(21:24):
improvements. So this could beecommerce for manufacturers,
it's like, you know, reduce thefriction that somebody's going
through on their customerjourney on their buying journey.
Right? It's, we've talked aboutthis a lot in the past year,
take a virtual trade showapproach to your website, you
know, make it easier forprospects and customers to find
(21:47):
what they need, look at, youknow, overall equipment
efficiency, you know,manufacturers like, man, they
dive into their operation, andthey, you know, they know how to
save 20 seconds on the, youknow, on the hour long process,
and what that means, take thatsame approach to their back
office operations, right? Youknow, do you do, you know, some
(22:09):
people do batch processing ofinvoices in their back office,
and you know, what, that reallyscrews up the can screw up the
inventory, if people aren'tpaying for things or ordering
things, when they need to, asopposed to oh, well, I wait till
my pile is, you know, I got 12or 15 things to, you know,
transactions to document, whatoh, if you, you know, whatever,
(22:32):
whatever the right process is,maybe it's do it right away,
because other people in yourorganization are depending upon
it. So whatever you can do toreduce friction is going to help
your organization, the more youcan document it, the better off
you'll be, especially with thisincreased transparency. And
that's not just going to be Ipredict, you know, I could be
wrong, it's not just going to befor manufacturing, I think
(22:54):
there's a lot of people who wantto know from their partners,
that they're going to bereliable, and that they're going
to be able to meet the demandsthat are expected of them.
Joey Strawn (23:04):
And I couldn't agree more. I mean, you know,
Nels here at industrial MarketerPodcast, one of our guiding
principles is Kaizen, you know,it's getting better. Yep, it's,
yep, it's incrementalimprovement. It's incremental
progress. And that is a goodtheme for a lot of this.
Because, you know, going back tosome of the tangible things we
talked about earlier in theepisode, let's say video, is
something that his is enoughthat you guys have wanted to
(23:27):
crack in your marketingstrategy. But you've had, you've
had resistance against eitherbudget, or the time it would
dedicate to create theresources, take those kinds of
approaches, and look for easybaby step opportunities to kind
of dip your toes in thosewaters, find little successes
and then grow off of those. Imean, now's what you were
(23:47):
talking about in reducingfriction is it I mean, in hell
in the supply chain world, ifyou can shave a second or two
off of every part that's createdor divert or whatever, you're
saving hours of production timelike little incremental
improvements, exponentiallygather to create massive
(24:09):
opportunities. And so that'sreally a you know, the the idea
of reducing friction is findingthose little things that you can
do that over time willcumulative cumulatively improve
your either operations, yourorganization, your relationships
with your customers, and thoseare the those are the little
(24:29):
wins that you can do every dayto really
Nels Jensen (24:31):
Push push these as as industrial marketers, how can
you be more efficient in thethings that you're doing and
then how can you make thingseasier for your customers as
well?
Joey Strawn (24:41):
Right exactly. I mean, we're here giving you guys
these gifts of the industry Ibut you can turn around and then
pay it forward, make workingwith you in 2023 easier for your
customers than it was in 2022.
And what ways can you do thatlook for ways and min nails
that's great wisdom, just say Ifwe can make working with us, our
brand, our company and ourservice better in 2023, than it
(25:03):
was in 2022, that I bet youbusiness returns come right on
the tail end of that.
Nels Jensen (25:13):
Yeah, it's amazing the lessons we can learn from
lean and Kata and Kaizen andeverything in the manufacturing
world is it's all applicable tous.
Joey Strawn (25:23):
It's almost like we love it and live it every day
now, I I've been excited this isthis has been so fun i I love
being able to come together andtalk about happy and joyful
things I love more than anythingfinding helpful resources that
our audience of industrialmarketers will be able to use.
(25:44):
You know, if you're listening,hopefully you've subscribed to
the show. If you haven't alreadysubscribed to industrial
Marketer Podcast and make surethat you have, we're coming out
with new content every month,and making sure that throughout
2023 that you always have newinformation on the industrial
marketing, space, tips andtactics that you guys can use.
(26:05):
If you're already subscribed,email us at podcast at
industrialmarketer.com and letus know topics you want us to
talk about or guests that weshould have on the show or
questions that you want us todive into. This is a community
that we're building and we loveall of the interactions that we
get from you guys and from allthe listeners and in that vein,
(26:26):
go to industrial marketer.comengage with the content share
the content, share it on socialmedia follow us anywhere that
you have socials a Facebook'syour Twitter's your Instagrams,
we're out, we're out there inthe world. So find us follow us
and share. It's going to be wewant you as part of this
community and we want to hearyour voices and share your
(26:46):
stories as well. I mean, now,any any final words of wisdom
and things to look forward toand think about in 2023?
Nels Jensen (26:55):
Yeah, you know, gifts of the industry, you know?
It's, it's, it's good stuff,Joey. So, nice job and Happy
Holidays to you and yours andall the people out there in the
industrial marketing world,
Joey Strawn (27:12):
and I hope you and yours have a happy holiday as
well. And here's looking forwardto us and all of our industrial
marketing community having asuccessful and very, very
industrial 2023
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