The Industrial Marketer Podcast is about the intersection of digital marketing and the industrial and B2B sectors.
Experts and practitioners in the the field, co-hosts Joey Strawn and Nels Jensen discuss how The Industrial Marketer show came about and set the stage to share trends, tips and tools to help stakeholders such as:
The Industrial Marketer Podcast is about the intersection of digital marketing and the industrial and B2B sectors.
Experts and practitioners in the the field, co-hosts Joey Strawn and Nels Jensen discuss how The Industrial Marketer show came about and set the stage to share trends, tips and tools to help stakeholders such as:
Welcome everybody to the industrial marketer Podcast. I am one of your hosts My name is Joey Strawn and I am joined here by my associate Nels.
Nels Jensen:Hi, I'm Nels Jensen.
Joey Strawn:It is wonderful to have you hear Nelson on our very first inaugural spellbinding episode of the industrial marketer podcasts. Are you excited? Today?
Nels Jensen:I am, this is great.
Joey Strawn:Good, I'm excited to have you here. Today, we're gonna be talking about a lot of fun stuff on this show and for our future listeners, but I wanted to give everybody an intro and wanted to talk a little bit about why we're doing this. So you've heard me say, Industrial Marketer a couple times you can go to industrialmarketer.com and find out all about us. But now, why are we doing this show?
Nels Jensen:Well, we're in the industrial marketing business. You know, I'm a content creator. And in the time that I've been doing this, you clearly see gaps in the I'll just call them ecosystems between manufacturing and industrials work versus marketing. And you see gaps in how engineering mindsets are in a lot of manufacturing firms. And you see a lot of current trends in all sorts of digital and technology that on the manufacturing floor that haven't found their way into the marketing mindset. So there's just a lot of gaps that exist, some of which are closing, some of which the pandemic have helped close. And then there's some other gaps that you know, are long term and, and almost growing. So I just think there's lots of opportunities to play in that intersection of those two worlds.
Unknown:I couldn't agree more. And and we started this show for that purpose. We want to dive into the tips, the tactics and the trends that matter for industrial marketers like you and me. And, and we feel that there's a lot of people out there that are asking these questions and need these answers. So we want to make a show for you guys. Now, who am I? Who is Nelson? why don't why does it matter? Well, I'll introduce myself, my name is Joey Strawn. I work at industrial the agencies face of industrial strength marketing, and I've been in the digital marketing game for about 13 to 15 years, specifically in the industrial segment. Over the last eight, I have been dealing with manufacturers and logistics companies and suppliers in the supply chain for years. And I've heard their questions. And I've heard their concerns. And I know the value and the ness, necessity of tying ROI and revenue dollars to marketing activities. And that exists very, very specifically within the industrial segment in its own world. other segments can have fun with vanity metrics and clicks and traffic numbers. But industrials. And people that deal with that RF cues and deals, they have to be able to track things back to dollars. And, and no one's talking about that. And we need to be talking about that. And so from my standpoint, that's where I'm coming at this from I've been an industrial marketer, dealing with either content management, media management, inbound management, or email management for years now. And I want to bring it all together and start giving something back to people who are asking the same questions that I've been asking these last 10 years. And Nels tell us tell the tell people a little bit about yourself and why you're
Nels Jensen:Yeah, so I'm a I'm a content creator at industrial, which ranges from, you know, social media posts, to blogs, and white papers. And it's storytelling. And I've been a storyteller for a long time as a journalist for many, many years and a business journalist prior to the past year when I joined industrial. And I've been writing about manufacturing in industrial space for about six, seven years. And they, there's fantastic stories to tell. But as I mentioned earlier, lots of this in the manufacturing world, that the business models are different than a lot of other industries and sectors that you know, engineering based, it's not the people are not as comfortable relating their stories, and that's why we can help them so much. And I think it's a matter of helping close some of those gaps and fill some of those close some of those circles. It's it's really an opportunity to help them show their solutions as opposed to the products and features and machines.
Unknown:I agree. I couldn't agree more and honestly, it's nice to tell the people a bit a little bit about us, but for all intents and purposes this show is speaking to a certain group of people. So I want to talk a little bit about who this show is for some of the questions that you might be asking yourself, you're like, Oh, is this show for me? Am I an industrial marketer? Let's find out. I mean, there, there are definitely types of people that we think we're speaking to with this show. Honestly, for me, one of the big ones that I see is people that kind of straddle that fence between sales and marketing. You know, you were a sales leader for years, and you've been thrust into the position of marketing and you're trying to balance those two worlds, you're kind of on the fence a little bit. And you know, your turf, you know, your history, you know what you're doing. But you don't really know what the trends in the marketing world are the tools in the marketing world, and you're saying, How do I align what I'm doing on the sales side? And how I got success, right sale in the sales world, to this marketing world that I kind of know, but not really. And you probably grew up in the trade show, sales network, where that's where your leads came from. And there was a Rolodex, you knew who you were talking to. Right. Absolutely. And, and then they are very comfortable in the, we'll just call it the industrial space. Oh, yeah. And so I mean, and honestly, those people will probably come to this show and come to this community with knowledge from the sales world that can help benefit everybody. But we want to be able to tie and connect some of those dots together to say, this is what was successful for you. And this is how you can tie it into either marketing tech. Yes. So their marketing strategies, or just some simple tactics may need to be in the mix.
Nels Jensen:Yeah, the strategy and the trends, you know, but if somebody says, Hey, what are what should we be doing on Tick Tock? These are not the people who are doing, you know, posts on Oh,
Unknown:Well, Nels are we talking to doers on the show? I guess we are. All we need to we're doers. You're doers. I'm a doer. We all do. We all are doing marketing. And we want to be able to help the people that are in the trenches. Are you in the sendible? Are you in Hootsuite? Are you trying to figure out HubSpot for your direct supervisor who doesn't really know what HubSpot is? Or how marketing automation connects? You know, are you that person that's writing and trying to get those things out into the world, we want to be able to give you tips and tricks and articles that that help you make that more sustainable, and help you expand what you're able to do really bring some value to that doing and that effort,
Nels Jensen:And hopefully give you some things that you can forward to your peers or your manager or other people in the organization about, Hey, what about x, or what about y, or we want to arm the doers with tools and tool sets and best practices.
Unknown:Honestly, at here at the industrial marketer, podcast, Nels, I are all about making heroes, we want to build heroes out of doers, and we're going to help you do that. And honestly, if we're speaking on the big terms, we want to talk to you know, we're agency professionals. We've been living in this world for a long time. And we know there's b2b and small, small to mid sized business marketers out there that have just been the pros for years. And we want to talk to you about the strategies and how to tie everything together on either an accounting level or a leadership level, and making sure that all of the strategies and all of the tactics are leading up to what really matters is making you guys money,
Nels Jensen:Right. And especially as those agency professionals may have a lot of experience and obviously, they have a lot of experience in in marketing and the tactics, but they may be if we could provide help in terms of understanding the manufacturing space, you know, the buying cycles are a lot different than they are in other industries. The the people who are researching this are very different, perhaps than some other industries. You know, we we want to bring our industrial and manufacturing expertise to help the agency pros.
Joey Strawn:Well, and when you look online, you see all this information about here's five tips on how to do email marketing, or here's the seven best ways to get found in search engines. But most of those and people who have scoured the internet looking for this information know this, most of that information is not built for the b2b or the logistics sales cycle. There. We're talking huge purchases, we are talking 10s of 1000s of dollars, hundreds of 1000s of dollars, month long months long sales cycles. These are not impulse buyers, these are not things that you're going to send out one coupon and make a million dollars off of these are things that need tracking. These are the things that need strategy, and these are things that need interconnected touch points across multiple people within a company And how do you plan for that? How do you market to that? Those are questions that we're going to be diving into. Those are the things that really matter to industrials that aren't just specific to, oh, here's some happy, flippant marketing advice. Don't you wish you had more Facebook followers, we want to tell you how to get revenue on your industrial presses from Facebook followers. And there's a big difference there because for industrials, you're looking at different metrics, you're looking at different priorities. It's not the same as the consumer world or the b2c world.
Nels Jensen:Exactly. You know, we, you know, I've, I've done work with one client, where some of their machines sell for$250,000, you know, qualifying those leads is really, really important. And knowing where they come from is essential. You know, it's not just, oh, we spent x and got this many leads, it's where did those leads come from? What is the tracking of, you know, that the messaging that led to those leads?
Unknown:Well, and even on, even on the flip side of that is, there are a lot of companies out there, and we've worked with a handful of them Nels that one or two deals a year is average, is what they get to sustain themselves. And so if you don't know where those one or two sales are coming from, there is a big gap in the knowledge there. And if you can at least, maybe increase that by one a year, you're tripling your income. So if it's a matter of are we really focused on the one or two that matter? And how do we get to that?
Nels Jensen:Exactly, exactly.
Joey Strawn:And so we've talked a lot about industrials. Now, Nels and I have said industrial marketing. And I know that that's not a term that everybody's familiar with. So I wanted to at least define, before we go any further, take a step back and define what we're talking about when we talk about industrial marketing. So as an agency industrial where you and I work now, we deal with the industrial sectors. And when we say that we need manufacturers, small to mid size manufacturers, large manufacturers, people that work within the supply chain, logistics companies, and quite frankly, anyone who works behind the scenes to make move and manufacture this world, we want to be working with the companies that are in the supply chains at the tier two or tier three level people that you know, aren't recognizable brand names, but are really important to the infrastructure of our company. That's what we mean, when we say industrial, you know, the b2b covers some of it, but it's even a little bit more specific than that it is people who are building and fabricating and helping people who were doing those things, and then moving things across the country. Yeah, and that's where we're really, really focused
Unknown:in the service industry, that's a part of that, for example, you know, ERP software, you know, you know, your enterprise resource planning. Right. Right. It's, it's about how you manage your business, it's, you know, in the, the manufacturing world is changing a lot. You know, we're talking about an avalanche of data and information from an equipment perspective, but one or the other, you know, and how do you what, when all that data, what do you do with it, people have used lean manufacturing and various, you know, people have investigated how their operations with a with a fine, you know, they've looked at it really granularly and figured out how to improve their operations. And interestingly enough on the knowledge side of the business, whether it's HR or accounting, you know, sales marketing a little bit slower to look at the the granular how do we improve our operation? And one of the big things that's happened recently to that manufacturing for many, many years existed on networking, trade shows, and sales networks it Who do you know, and who do they know and it was a sort of a closed circle of here's how we generate leads is through the personal networks that these sales and marketing people built themselves. Yeah, and I'll tell you 2020 threw that into a tailspin. Yeah, they have like going to trade shows and getting out networking and go to lunch and all that. I mean, that's a different world this year.
Nels Jensen:It is and and it also dovetails with another trend, which is how people research these extended buying cycles, right? Let's say that you were going to get it by a stamping press or you are going to, you know, look at some automation equipment, some kind of parts loader or something like that. You know, the And this has been happening for years, it's was accentuated by the pandemic in the quarantines. But, you know, engineers are searching for solutions. And in the past couple years, there's been a lot more online searches than in the past. Some of that is just, there's more information out there. Some of it is younger engineers, some of it a younger researchers or companies who work in purchasing departments. But there was, even prior to the pandemic, the effectiveness of trade shows was declining, because of that different behavior on the part of the people who are buying.
Joey Strawn:Well, and even there's a stat that that we hear a lot around the office, but one of the things that's come up recently is customers or people that reach out to you will have seven to eight touch points with you already, before they reach out to you, they could be as far as 70% of the way through the decision making process, before they even reach out to you. Because we're trained now to search for things online or ask our smart home devices, exactly information about things. And that is just the changing paradigm of how we look for information. It's not green books anymore, it's not Yellow Pages anymore. It's online Rolodex is its directories. It's searching for, as you said, features and benefits and not brand names, you search for what you need, not for who you think you need,
Unknown:Right? And the solution mindset, you know, is not engineers, or their their DNA is to figure out solutions. But their DNA, unfortunately, is not how to communicate about those solutions to potential buyers, they get excited, because, hey, we developed X and Y to do z. And in the previous generations, it was like, you were talking to people who knew what X and Y did. So you said, Hey, we have a new x and a new y in this machine. Well, now you have a lot more people who are researching online. So it's talking to the changing nature of the, you know, manufacturing ecosystem to where we're, we're talking about a lot more agility is necessary in today's manufacturing world, some of it driven by the pandemic and disruptions in supply chains. But to get opportunities in emerging marketplaces, you know, you need to scout out beyond your traditional networks. So that's part of what we're talking about in terms of what is industrial marketing, And just thinking of the, you know, not to make a pun out of it. But like the Industrial Revolution 2.0, if you will, you know, we are seeing another revolution with the industrial sectors, all towards automation, and systems and technology and devices and interconnectedness. And that is different from how these machines and how these processes and how these infrastructures worked in the past. We can't talk about them the same way we can't market ourselves the same way. And how do you combat that? And I think there's a lot that not only in the industrial ecosystem that's changing, but I mean, now, on the marketing side, just think of everything that's come out in the last 10 years between, you know, social scheduling tools and marketing automation systems and programmatic audience targeting for, you know, banners, and now it's even like you're sitting at home, and you're talking out loud about some products that you want, and all of a sudden they're in your Facebook feed. You know, it's how are people targeting? How are marketers getting there, to your point there stories? Sure, people that need to hear those stories. And, you know, the marketing ecosystem Not only is changing within itself, but changing within the industrial sector, because the industrial sector is moving more towards automation and big data and understanding things on a much grander level than just how is this single machine performing? We have a lot more information to pull from now.
Nels Jensen:And we have a lot more to offer, as industrial marketers to these companies in terms of even workforce in HR, just the the technical advances in recruitment, in onboarding in retention, you know, these are things that, you know, there's a huge manufacturing skills gap. People, you know, the old operator machine, that's what, you know, manufacturing is there. So, you know, there's been a challenge filling job openings in manufacturing for years, and those job openings are changing, they're becoming much more technical. And there's a whole art to how do you position people to be, you know, to show that your job really has a lot more to do with programming and software than it does operating a machine. So there's, what is industrial marketing, there's a whole lot of marketing that can be done to holistically help these businesses.
Unknown:I agree and that's, that's what one of the Things that we really want to espouse here on the industrial marketer podcast is that there are opportunities because of these changing infrastructures, there are opportunities for any business, in any sector working with any product to connect their story and their brand and their benefits to their audiences. It's just how do you do it? How do you connect those dots? Is it setting up the right technical systems on the website? Or do you have a big enough search visibility, but no one truly understands what you do? And how do you convert those leads into revenue better? Those are all the things that we're going to be touching on, because those are all the things that matter to industrial marketers like you and me.
Nels Jensen:Yeah. And if just the phrase inbound marketing, or what's your tech stack, if, if those kind of have you going, ooh, you know, well, then this could be the show for you. Because we know we are going to demystify some of these labels, some of these technologies, some of these tools, and help show you how they can help drive your business, how you can help marketing become the strength of your business.
Joey Strawn:And honestly, this is going to be a journey. So this isn't a matter of listen to one episode and you're going to be an expert, we're going to Kaizen this guy's we're looking for incremental improvements. We're going to be here every couple of weeks, we're going to be telling you tips, tricks, tactics, we want you to follow along on this journey and get better and get stronger as we do. And as the market evolves, and we're going to learn this all together. So it's going to be a fun ride. And we hope that we hope that you join us
Unknown:And we're gonna bring some, some fun to the show is to as well. And you know, we'll we'll be diving into the, you know, developer world and the paid media world. And, you know, there's a lot of areas here for us to touch on. So we've got a lot of ground to cover, and we'll just have to pace ourselves, Joey because I know we'll we'll want to try to get too much out there all at once. But this is the journey is a good word. This is going to be fun. I agree. And so guys, if this sounds like the show for you, and I promise you that it is you need to follow along, subscribe to the show. Wherever you listen to podcasts, Apple podcasts, Stitcher Google Play, wherever that is subscribe to this podcast, we're going to be coming out with weekly episodes, we're going to be giving you insights from inside the systems inside the industries inside the companies are gonna bring any case studies follow us on social media is we're going to be sharing information from around the web, industry information industry news and trends and tactics, you can just search industrial marketer on any of your favorite social media sites, and follow us along there. And as always, industrial marketer.com is going to be your hub for all the information, articles and expertise that that doesn't fit into this show. So go to industrial marketer.com bookmark it, save it, sign up for the email list, subscribe to this show. We want you to be part of the industrial marketer Podcast Network. All right. Well, until next time, have a wonderful week and we'll talk to you about some industrial marketing next week. Solo