Navigating B2B Marketing: Insights with Dave Charest

B2B Expo Marketing Advice: Prioritize, Take Action, and Don’t Rely on Social Media Alone (with Dave Chire, Constant Contact)

At the B2B Expo, Meredith interviews Dave Chire, Director of Small Business Success at Constant Contact and host of the Be A Marketer podcast, about what small businesses are struggling with in marketing. Dave says many feel overwhelmed by noise and pressure to be everywhere, so he encourages prioritizing based on business goals, ignoring cookie-cutter advice, and scheduling non-negotiable time—even 15 minutes a day—to take imperfect but consistent action. He emphasizes momentum, repeating core messages with clarity, and staying consistent because audiences aren’t thinking about your business as much as you are. Dave shares how he uses AI daily to repurpose transcripts and ideas into posts and blogs. His key takeaway: don’t expect social media to do it all; real progress comes from follow-up, one-to-one conversations, and intentionally guiding engagement to next steps.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Dave, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Thanks for coming on the night.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Super excited. We are we're at the B2B expo, but I'm really excited to chat with you about what you're seeing, what you think is working or not working, especially for our B2B friends. Sure. With uh you're from Constant Contact, so I'm guessing a thing or two. Good shit. Um but a couple of things. But please introduce yourself and and share with our comparison marketing audience who you are, and we'll dive in.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Yeah, sure. So my name is Dave Charest. I am the director of small business success at Constant Contact. Um, also the host of the Be a Marketer podcast for Constant Contact as well. Prior to this role, I was also director of content marketing, and that's really where I kind of started in this industry. I've been with Constant Contact for 14 plus years now. Started as a content developer and now doing what I do now. And my primary function really is to go to events like this and speak with small business audiences. And primarily, I think these are the folks that I, as we all know, folks that have an idea, start a business, and then realize, oh, I'm gonna market that thing too. Right. Right. And uh and so I really try to help make it make them make sense of this, help them turn this marketing chaos into some clear, confident actions that they can take and actually move the needle for their business. And that's really what I'm focused on.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Yeah. I love what you were saying about now I gotta grow the thing. Yeah, yeah. I've had some conversations like that where they've said, I've got this thing, I've got this idea, we've started to do some stuff, and now I need to go out and get more people to know who I am. And I said, Yes, you do, as a matter of fact. So are you what kind of conversations are people coming up to you with, or what questions are they bringing to you at your roof with constant contact about email?

SPEAKER_00 1:47

Yeah, I'll frame it in the idea of just some of the conversations I have after presentation, right? Because that's my role here at Ben Today, less so than the booth conversations. And really what it boils down to is that there is so much noise right now. There's and there feels like all of this pressure to I need to do this and I need to do that and I need to do this, and it right. And you're I often describe it as even if you just think of social media, right? All of the different channels that exist, and you feel like you have to be everywhere, and everybody says you gotta do it, and so you end up doing this here, doing this there. Yeah, and you're spinning your wheels, but you're not getting any traction. And I think what I try to impress upon people is that you don't have to do everything. Yes, and ignore the people that tell you do, unless they've asked you some questions. What is it that you're trying to do? All right, what's working for you already, right? So you really need to review where you are in your business and where it is that you're trying to go. And it's through understanding that you can then start to prioritize what it is that you actually need to do, and then kind of the tough love portion of it is then you got to put time in your calendar to do it. Yes, figure out that plan, and that's what I try to help people do is let's prioritize what it is that you need to do. Let's figure out what that plan looks like. And if it's 15 minutes a day that you have to devote to marketing, cool. How do you actually then take action? Because we all know what happens, right? You people are gonna come here to this event, they come to your sessions, they come to my sessions, they hear things that they're like, yeah, I need to do that. And then they leave here, and then life happens, right? And the business and the 17 different hats that you have to wear as a small business owner come into play, and then three months from now you're going, like, oh yeah, I wanted to do that thing. Yeah. And so I really try to, I don't even care if it's something that they heard from me, if it's something that they heard that they're like, I need to do that, put the time in the calendar now. That's non-negotiable time to work on the thing. And then it doesn't have to be perfect, but it needs to be something that moves you a closer step to having it completed. And then that all compounds on itself over time. And I I'm a big believer in doing something is better than doing nothing. Because believe it or not, like you're gonna get a result of it. I I even think of like the work that I do in the in the you know, content, and maybe this is a content mentality, right? All I can do is if I'm creating something, all I can do is give people the best information that I have and the best way that I know at this particular moment in time. Three months from now, I may look it back and go, ew, right? Or I have, oh, I know so much more now that I can share with you. But it doesn't negate the fact that that piece of content or the thing that I created or the thing that I did had value in that particular moment. But if I think if I didn't do it, I wouldn't have gotten that benefit. And I think it's the same thing when you think about what's happening from a marketing perspective. Yeah, there's this tendency to want to wait for things to be right or perfect, and that just doesn't exist.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Yeah, that's really hard for people that are chasing. You sort of you you have to accept good is good can be done.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Yeah. Like, look, you have to have a a quality level that you want to hit, right? Because you don't want it to be garbage, right? But you also don't want to hold on to it because you just don't think it's good enough. Have it check the marks that you need it to hit and then move.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Right? Because it's it's through that movement that you're gonna get so much more benefit from it.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Yeah, there's something about the momentum that's created, even just from one step in the right direction. Yeah, it's that one step.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

Exactly. And it's that commitment to that one step. And that's all everything is, right? It's just one step after the other. Yeah. And eventually, next thing you know, you're looking back going, Whoa, how the hell did I get here? Right? Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

And that's and leaving a place. It's uh it's so true what you said about leaving the sessions and events and expos and being so excited and jazzed, and like you feel like you're re-infused with something, and for whatever reason, that dies at the airport or whatever. Yeah, and you totally miss the opportunity to seize on that excitement and that enthusiasm that you have.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

That's a bit I I even try to get myself in the habit if I'm going to an event as an attendee. Is as I've taken the notes. Like I know there's a very short period of time where I'm I have that energy where I'm getting with my team to say, like, okay, what did we learn? Boom, boom, boom. Let's say, okay, what are the action things that we need to do? And that we we keep that momentum to at least do something with that information, right? Because otherwise, then it gets away from you. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

You said something else that I thought was really important about sort of all the noise and somebody telling you to do everything or be everywhere, which is impossible. And sort of chasing the bright shiny objects of the moment, right? And there's a lot of them. Yeah, there's a lot of them. But there was I I really liked what you were saying about getting advice from someone that isn't bothering to find out what you're trying to do to begin with.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Because there is a lot of noise out there, and there's a lot of advice from experts.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

And I think it's incredibly important advice to not take someone's input without them having heard anything about what you do, because there's a lot of cookie-cutter films out there, and it's I think that leads to a lot of that sense of frustration when they're like, why isn't it working? Well, it's not working because they didn't understand what you were trying to do.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Right. Yeah. I think there's, you know, there's a point too with if somebody's listening to you on a regular business, someone's listening to me, whatever it is, I think it's finding maybe one to two people. Maybe three, but no more than that. That that you say, like, okay, this resonates with me. They I I'm able to connect with what they're saying and understand how I can apply that with to my business.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

And then stay there with their systems and their processes and the frameworks and they've designed to help people execute against the stuff, because it's becomes the same situation, the same way you feel like you're spinning your wheels with actually doing something. Well, you actually end up spinning your wheels and trying to get the information to help you do something, right? And so it's this vicious cycle where it's like the folks that download all of the content and then like they have the PDFs on how to do the things. And this I've been I've it's a big thing that I've learned though myself. Like, I need to say this is when I'm gonna actually I'm gonna do the thing. I'm not just gonna read the thing and not do the exercises, but I'm actually gonna do the exercise, right? So, for example, this year I was like, okay, it's a big year for me where I'm gonna embrace AI and I'm gonna really focus how I can use it as part of what I do, right? And how I can use that to help me move forward whatever I'm trying to do. And I've committed to it. So pretty much on a daily basis, I'm using some form of AI to help me accomplish something. And you have to kind of make that commitment to whatever that is, right? That's my priority right now. So similarly, it's by identifying the priorities that really make things blatantly obvious, right? Because there is so much, and like, yeah, all of it has meaning and there's all purpose behind it. But if you really look at okay, what do I need right now? That's you know, it changes the dynamic because you say, I need that. Okay, great. So what needs to be done, so you have that, and it just changes your frame. And I think that's the big thing, and I think that's that's really I and I think you know this, right? As somebody that like educates and shares information with people, the best response you can get from somebody, like it's great, like that. I get that, that made sense. Any kind of the best you could possibly hear from somebody is I did that thing that you said, and this is what happened.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

Oh my god. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

You got the win. Yes, you got the win.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

Like that's because that that's what you want at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

Yeah, the progress. He said the one step forward and the commitment to doing that, yeah, that combination really does have some magic in it. And it sounds so practical and just sounds so obvious, but it the fact of it is that it isn't.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

Because if it was Why do you want to make it?

SPEAKER_00 9:54

You want to complicate it? Okay, do it standing on one leg. I don't know what to tell you. Why does it need to be complicated? You just need to do it. That's the complicated part. Yes. Getting out of your own way to do it.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Yeah. With your you mentioned AI is you've heard that you're you're making a daily commitment. Yeah. What's the coolest or biggest thing you've learned in that commitment to yourself? Like what have you pulled away from that?

SPEAKER_00 10:18

So I use it a lot. So I'm a content creator, right? So I am creating things. I have these ideas, I do these presentations, I do things like that. I think one of the coolest ways that I've started to really work with it is to say, because I'm a big believer in, I was talking about this earlier today, is this idea of doing double duty, which means it's not about figuring out, like, all right, now I gotta figure out what all this content to create. It's like actually, like, I'm creating a lot of that content all the time. Like, this is a conversation right now. Shoot, I should have been recording this right now. I right I left my recorder over there. Because I can take that transcript and I can say to AI, I can say, here's a transcript of this conversation that I had with Meredith. We talked about some things, and I can say, Find me how many marketing lessons can you find in this transcript? And then it will go through and it will analyze that and be like, here's what I found. One through whatever. Let's say there's 50 excellent marketing bits in here, right? Of course, right? But then I can take that and then say, like, oh, that one, right? And then, oh, what did I say about that? All right, I want to expand on this a little bit and I want to create a LinkedIn post on it, or I want to create a full blog post, I want to blow that idea out. Like, what what would be the questions like my audience would have, right? So I can start to build these things that again, I'm not trying to have it do the work for me as much as I'm trying to get it to identify things that I can then repackage my original thoughts and ideas to use and get them in front of other people. So that's been a big thing for me that I'm just like, oh man, like this is this is great because I'm already doing the work and now I'm just finding other ways to use it.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Yeah, and to think about it differently from different perspectives and giving you that that helping hand in just thinking about it differently, which when it comes to content creation, the more you can do with everything that you that you have, the more uses or the more applications that you can get out of one thing that you make, yeah, the better.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

And that's the thing that I you know, having run content teams in the past, there aren't a lot of original ideas. I think everything from a marketing perspective, there's just original kind of ways into the idea. But the foundational things are the things that I'm always really focused on because those are the things that move the needle and allow you to kind of play and do those other things if you've got those things working for you. And you know, I would always say that we're gonna be saying the same things over and over again. And like people will come up and be like, yo, I'm really tired of I'm like, Yeah, I've been doing it for 14 years. Yeah. Over 20 when you think about just what I've been doing before constant contact, too, right? And it's just yeah, but it's just you're finding different angles in, and the way in sometimes is like helping somebody, like, what does that mean for somebody who's paying attention? You kind of, I think the game of content is a lot of times you've got an idea, you put it out there, then you've got to pay attention to who shows up to consume that content. So then once you start to know that, you want to have conversations with people. Oh, what resonated with you? What was your favorite part of that? Then you can actually apply that to the lens of as an example. So let's take this generic concept. Now, what if we applied it to this type of business, which is the business that in right, and then they see extreme value in it, but then somebody else will see it and be like, oh, that makes sense. Yeah. Now how can I apply that to my business? And then guess what? When I write that same article again, I can say, What's this application for this type of business? Exactly. And so it's like, yeah, you're it's just finding all of those ways to consistently repeat yourself, but feel different but the same at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

It's like copy paste, copy, paste, copy, paste, but not written.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

But not, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

It's one of the one of the things that I've talked about a lot is it's like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy. Eventually it loses what it originally was. Right. Eventually the resonance is gone, the definition is gone, the clarity is gone, and that's one of the things that I see sort of in that recycling, is you gotta make sure that you maintain the clarity the core of it of that first thing, and it doesn't completely dissolve away.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

Yeah, and I think it actually ends up, at least I look at it from my perspective, then I'm like, sometimes you don't softly don't like that. You don't have the examples. So what do you do? You make them up. Yeah. But then imagine, so this is how we used to run the content team. So we had written a book called Making Sense of Online Marketing, and that was our North Star, right? So here's the general way to think about it, here's what you're doing, and this is some of what I teach today, right? Like you try to think about it. But then each of those tips. So if I talk about email or social or text, there's of course you can go much deeper into each of those things, but that became the framework, right? So here's the overall thing, here are the examples of how that would look. Now we're gonna go deeper into this email piece of it. Here's an example of what that would look like. But then as people, as we talked about people taking the action, now I've got now I can swap out this fake example for what this looks like for a real example, right? And then you're gonna see that the people that apply the actual work to it, they don't get it 100% right. But it still works. Yeah, and then you can say, all right, here are the further adjustments I would make to this for next time, right? This is it all pulls everything that we've been talking about here together. And and I think that's just it. You've got to I don't know, I have a brain for it to think of it that way, and I think that can be overwhelming to other people where they just don't see those connections. But I think it's just that it's just finding that like you've got so many things that you're doing within your business that may seem commonplace or uninteresting to you, but to somebody who doesn't do that thing, they're fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

It's fascinating, yeah. And you may, I think it's a great great observation around in marketing, we know that you've got to say it over and over and over and over and over and over before somebody's gonna or have it resonate with them. But I think the other part of that conversation is that it's somebody's first time seeing it. Yeah, it may be the seven hundredth time you've said it, yeah, but it is the first time that they're being exposed to it.

SPEAKER_00 16:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

And that can be the difference making.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Well, that's a huge realization moment when you have it too, right? When you're like, when you know you've been talking about this, you've been talking about this, you've been talking about this, and then you meet somebody, and like even if it's to your friends, right? If you're posting something on like your Facebook page, it's just a personal update or something, and then they're like, Oh yeah, I knew I had no idea that happened. Like, how do you know? I've been talking about it for months, right? Like, how do you not know? But that's it, right? And I think part of that comes from too, that idea that I think I say this in the presentation a lot too. Uh a big secret I'll reveal to you right now is that not everyone is thinking about your business as much as you are. Yes. And so they're not gonna pay attention until they're ready to pay attention. Yeah, and so you have to be there, and then when they're ready, they actually are looking for that consistency. Is this person or is this business saying seven different things and doesn't have any clarity on what it is that they do, or are they consistently talking about this idea that I found that is resonating with Nint. And so all of that just really comes into play, and that their joke, right? Is like, yeah, there's 10 years of consistency behind that overnight success, right? Absolutely, and that's what the people don't see. Yeah, because they're only seeing it in the microcosm of their interaction with you.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

Yeah, it's like the highlight reel is great. Yeah, the highlight reel took a really long time to get to. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

But when they take that next step to dig deeper, yeah, whoa, this breadth of stuff that you have revealed is is amazing.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Yeah. So we've touched on a lot of really important things. What do you think is the like the one take-home message that you would want people to think about in terms of prioritizing what they're gonna do, committing to do it, and then being patient to stick to stick it out for results. Like what's the thing they need to keep in mind?

SPEAKER_00 18:12

So I think the big thing I would say is how strongly expecting don't expect uh social media to do it all for you. What I mean by that is melting and I'll tell you a story. I'm gonna pay with working in the office, corporate job. I was worried, I had somebody on my team, and we were trying to get somebody from another department to do something for us, and we were following up on that work. And I was asked, Oh, where are we with that? And she said, Yeah, I sent her an email, but I haven't heard back from her. Sleeping. I said, Okay. I go, Well, she sits right there. Could you go over and just talk to her about the thing to see what we can find out? And I think we're all seduced by this idea that if we get on social media and we post about the thing and then all the clients and or all the business will come to us. When the reality is that I'm even realizing myself I'm falling into that trap as I've become more focused on building my own brand online and and really trying to get more people into my sphere of influence, right? Is that it's really more about sure, if somebody saw something and then they engage with it, and then or somebody comes here today, right? I need to do the magic is happening in the conversations I'm having one-to-one in the DMs, right? And I'm talking to people, and then I'm making a concerted effort to say, like, okay, when I'm marketing, these are the people that are really engaged with what I'm doing, and so I'm gonna focus on how can I help be most of service to them to get move them to the next stages of things. And I think that's the work that people don't see that it's gonna eat people just expect it to be I'm gonna post this and then the magic happens. Like, no, that's just the first step, right? So plan from what are you gonna do when somebody engages? What's the next thing you're gonna do? And so you're in the driver's seat on getting your business to where it needs to go. So don't wait for others to do it for you. Don't wait for the platform to save you, but figure out what you're gonna do to get to that next step.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

I love that. That's such a great take-home message. Like you you are in control of this, and you it's going to go where you steer it. That's amazing. I love that. That's that's where we're gonna take it home. That's such a great that's such a great way to end. Mic drop on that moment to I really appreciate all those insights. This was such a fun conversation.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Thank you so much for the