Episodes

  • Olympics: B2B Marketing Lessons on Making Big Content Investments with the VP of Marketing at AppsFlyer, Carolyn Bao

    Olympics: B2B Marketing Lessons on Making Big Content Investments with the VP of Marketing at AppsFlyer, Carolyn Bao
    Nov 19 2024
    Making big marketing investments is a huge deal. But lucky for you, we’re here to help.We’re bringing you five keys to deliver on a big investment.And we’re taking those lessons from the Olympics with the help of our special guest, VP of Marketing at AppsFlyer, Carolyn Bao.Together, we’re talking about capitalizing on a cultural moment, committing to the long haul, ensuring activation is fully prepared, and so much more.About our guest, Carolyn BaoCarolyn Bao serves as the Vice President of Marketing for AppsFlyer, for the North America region, driving multi-channel efforts for the AppsFlyer mobile attribution and marketing analytics platform. She is an accomplished marketing executive with over 20 years of leadership experience at technology companies, specializing in software and SaaS marketing go-to-market strategy, data-driven business innovation and building high-performing marketing teams. She has deep domain knowledge of marketing tech stack and advertising technologies. Beyond her commercial role, she nurtures the entrepreneurial spirit as an MBA@Rice faculty member and a founding board member of Silicon Valley Leadership Community.Recognized with accolades such as LinkedIn’s “Top Voices” and Product Marketing Alliance’s “Top 100 PMMs,” Carolyn is celebrated for bringing products like Facebook Attribution to global markets, building high-performing marketing teams, and thought leadership in ‘women in leadership,’ ‘marketing management’ and ‘mobile growth strategies’ through key speaking engagements for educational and professional events. Carolyn built her career portfolio through leadership roles at technology powerhouses including Moomoo, Facebook, Visa, and Yahoo.What B2B Companies Can Learn From The Olympics:Capitalize on a cultural moment. Pick something in the cultural zeitgeist to inspire your content. If it’s already resonating and getting talked about, your content will too. Carolyn says, “I think leveraging critical cultural moments is one of the key growth drivers for any marketing department.” And she adds, “Really think through for your category, what is that cultural moment that we really want to capitalize on? In B2B marketing, not everybody competes in the Olympics. But we do compete in terms of how many in-person interactions we have with other practitioners. And that's where these in-person conferences immediately became popular again after we came out of COVID. So I think that's maybe something to really think about, is what is your Olympics equivalent.”Commit to the long haul. Big investments in content mean lots of planning for the pre-, during and post periods. How can you maximize the campaign and make the most of the big investment? Carolyn says, “Not a lot of companies have the ability to plan in massive time horizons, like every four years. A lot of marketing teams are probably working one to three quarters out for most of it. But I do think it's interesting to think of like, what are the big, massive bets that you can make that you might not be able to make every year that can show who you are as a brand.”Ensure activation is fully prepared. Don’t sell yourself short by creating content without planning through distribution and activation. Make sure it’s fully considered and you’re making the most of that investment. Carolyn says, “To activate marketing around the Olympics at this scale is massive. This is sort of our Coachella for marketers, because we don't get to have this many dollars to spend for the majority of us. And meanwhile, even if we are with a huge brand, it is not often that we have this kind of massive celebration. So the scale is super important. The second piece that's very interesting is in terms of how to ensure marketing is done right. There is a great deal of discipline in running a smooth marketing operation, which I think everyone can still also relate to because no matter big or small, for our marketing campaigns to be successful, we have to also wear that operational hat. And I think there's a lot to be unpacked from studying how the Olympics have been done.”Commit to the production cost. Big ideas come with a cost. Follow through with the full potential of the project, including the price of it. But the good news is that marketers have become a lot more efficient. Carolyn says, “Savvy marketers are not doing marketing content production the same way as old time marketers. Because they create these stories, they run it on mobile marketing channels, they run with a very small dollar amount, and they already got data to tell them what stories resonate with who. It pulls their feedback loop a lot shorter.”Know your ICP. Ensure your content will land with its intended audience by truly knowing your ICP. This means understanding their values, what motivates them, and the value you can offer them. Carolyn says, “Deeply understand whom it is you're really trying to influence. Knowing ...
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    45 mins
  • Modern Family: B2B Marketing Lessons from the Emmy Award-Winning Show with CMO of Altimetrik, Jeff Fleischman

    Modern Family: B2B Marketing Lessons from the Emmy Award-Winning Show with CMO of Altimetrik, Jeff Fleischman
    Nov 12 2024
    “A rare thing.” That’s what co-creator Steve Levitan called “the incredible alchemy of elements coming together” that was Modern Family.He and Christopher Lloyd, who he’d worked with on Frasier, wanted to create a show that felt real. A show with heart. And it took the right writers, characters, and actors to play them to make it happen. And it happened for 11 years, winning 22 Emmys.And in this episode, we’re taking B2B marketing lessons from it with the help of our special guest, CMO at Altimetrik, Jeff Fleischman.Together, we talk about being passionate about your brand, showing persistence and grit, and the art of making “a rare thing.” About our guest, Jeff FleischmanJeffrey Fleischman is a seasoned senior executive with over 35 years of experience spanning the financial services, banking, insurance, and technology. As CMO of Altimetrik he manages the company’s brand, marketing, lead generation, public relations, and communications functions. Jeff brings a wealth of expertise to the role. Previously, he served as Chief Marketing & Digital Officer at Penn Mutual, driving omni-channel campaigns and advancing digital initiatives. His leadership journey includes key roles at renowned companies such as Citi, American Express, TIAA-CREF, and Chase.Jeff’s passion lies in creating innovative, customer-focused strategies and experiences that integrate data, technology, and design. His extensive expertise covers areas like omni-channel marketing, data analytics, product management, and business transformation. He holds a B.S. in finance from Syracuse University and an MBA in finance, investments, and banking from Hofstra University. He has or held board positions with Artemis, Zenmonics Inc., Hornor, Townsend & Kent, Telera, and IEP Youth Services.Jeff is an author, advisor, investor, and speaker. His book, "Advice To My Younger Self," reflects his commitment to empowering others to achieve their aspirations.Beyond his professional achievements, he expresses creativity through painting and crafting unique art pieces, breathing new life into old furniture, and has a passion for music.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Modern Family:Be passionate about your brand. Jeff says, “On the passionate and competitive side, Jay Pritchett’s archenemy was Earl, his former partner of Closets, Closet, Closets. And they were at odds with each other, trying to outdo each other, trying to out-innovate each other. It’s that competitiveness and that passion that you need as a marketer. That passion really does have to come through.”Show persistence and grit. A lot of marketing is about trial and error. You find out what works with your audience by keeping things fresh and building your momentum. So don’t let the things that don’t work slow you down; just keep going. Jeff says, “Both Jay and Phil shared that kind of grit to be the best of what they can be, to beat everyone else out, whether it be another realtor, whether it be Earl from Closets, Closets, Closets. And as marketers, it's a very noisy world out there. Everyone's pushing content out. Everyone's trying to be everything to all customers. So how do you stand out? Not everything's going to be a home run. Not every piece of content, every blog, every white paper is going to resonate. But you need to just stick to your focus on how you take your brand and elevate it. And you don't stop trying. And if it works, great. If not, move on to the next one.”Focus on the heart of your content. Work on the emotion you want your audience to feel when they experience your content. That’s how you know your message will hit home and stick. And then you can start to chop it up for use across channels. Ian says, “So often in B2B marketing, we get so caught up in trying to create the asset and then chop it up and do all these things that you’re trying to do all the motions of the thing rather than the actual sentiment that is in the clip.”Quotes*”You need to create opportunities for your community and your audience to talk about you to other people. They're not just sitting around all day thinking of your software. The number of people who are just thrilled with [your product] are not just going to sing it from the rooftops every second of every day. You need to cultivate those things and allow them to share it as much as you can.”*”For marketers, tie what you're doing back to the company strategy. And if you do that, you don't have to push people. They're going to be pushing you to do more, and want more from you. If you don't know numbers, you don't know how to measure, you don't know ROI, it's a serious blind spot. Bring back what you're doing to numbers, bring back to ROI, talk like a CFO.”*”Take a bite-sized approach. We never start off with a big bang. Our approach is tiny. Let's do a proof of concept. Let's get a quick win. We won't disrupt your customers. We won't disrupt your business. It's within your environment. And I ...
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    56 mins
  • Days of Thunder: B2B Marketing Lessons from the 1990 Tom Cruise Movie with Director of Content Marketing at Fictiv, Ricky Frohnerath

    Days of Thunder: B2B Marketing Lessons from the 1990 Tom Cruise Movie with Director of Content Marketing at Fictiv, Ricky Frohnerath
    Nov 5 2024
    What do a marketer and a racecar driver have in common? You’re about to find out. One thing we can say is that going as fast as you can leads to burnout. That’s one of the things we’re talking about in this episode.We’re taking marketing lessons from the 1990 Tom Cruise flick Days of Thunder with the help of our special guest, Director of Content Marketing at Fictiv, Ricky Frohnerath.Together, we talk about being strategic instead of fast, speaking the same language as your team, and building contingency plans in case your campaigns don’t go as expected.About our guest, Ricky FrohnerathRicky Frohnerath is Director of Content Marketing for San Francisco-based Fictiv, leading comprehensive content strategy and execution for all marketing campaigns, across all funnel stages and audiences. He specializes in building and managing cross-functional marketing teams for manufacturing and technology organizations. He's the A proponent of agile marketing methodology, servant leadership, self-management principles, and empowerment, his focus is on people first, then process, and then technology. A longtime resident of the Tampa Bay area, his education includes the Pinellas County Center for the Arts, St. Petersburg College, and the University of South Florida. Ricky is an amateur racing driver and avid enthusiast of electric vehicles, who believes in the power of uniting personal and professional values to drive positive change. Thus, he's passionate about accelerating sustainability by sparking and sharing conversations with leaders in electrification, motorsport, and industry.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Days of Thunder:Be strategic, not fast. If you try to go as fast as you can, you burn out or make mistakes. Slowing down just a bit to make sure your work is high quality and highly effective actually means you’ll work faster in the end. In Days of Thunder, Ricky says that Cole Trickle’s “quest is to find ultimate speed. He's actually over driving the tires and he's driving faster than [his competitors] can. And what happens when you're over driving the tires is that they get greasy and they start to degrade faster. So this is a problem because if you destroy your tires, then you have to come into the pits and that takes time.” So instead Cole learns to drive more efficiently by speeding up or slowing down strategically based on his coach’s advice. So slow down to work more efficiently and effectively.Speak the same language as your team. Communication becomes so much more efficient and effective when you share shorthand and jargon. Ricky says, “When you're on a team, you need to be speaking the same language. You need to have a shared lexicon so that there is this transmission of understanding. You need to know what's working, you need to know what's not working, and you need to know what you're talking about.”Build in wiggle room in case things don’t go right. If you hit a bump in the road, giving yourself a little extra time in the planning process for your campaign takes the pressure off. Ricky says, “Things are not going to go according to plan. You need to build in some agility and the ability to kind of compensate when it comes time to actually execute.” So give yourself room to breathe with your next campaign timeline. That way, you can correct any issues without stressing over deadlines. In Days of Thunder, it’s like when they plan, design and build Cole Trickle’s car and then it gets destroyed in an early race and they have to figure out how to pivot.Quotes*”I think it's fairly common for there to be conflict, especially between marketing and sales. One of the ways that you can overcome this is by having a shared language. Understand and adopt the KPIs that the sales team are going after. So, for example, one area where marketing and sales become misaligned is marketing likes to talk about big metrics, like impressions, eyeballs, even things like conversions. But these are KPIs that really don't translate well into the sales world. Like they are interested in leads and they're keeping an eye on sales and revenue and things like that. So make those metrics, your metrics and understand how the marketing activities roll into those KPIs. It's not to say that you don't keep track of impressions and a lot of other things that kind of get labeled as vanity metrics, but understand how you go from an impression down into revenue.”*”If you're overdriving the tires, you're effectively leading to burnout. I think the same is true when we think about high performance teams. The best that somebody can perform is at the limit of their abilities. There is no 110%. You can only do the best that you can at the peak of your ability. You can't give that extra 10%. So forcing you to do that is actually going to have a detrimental effect. So I think that's super important to keep in mind for marketing teams.”*”Marketers in general just need to have a very good understanding ...
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    45 mins
  • Pro Women Athlete Sponsorships: B2B Marketing Lessons on Leveraging Athlete Ambassadors with CEO of PARITY, Leela Srinivasan

    Pro Women Athlete Sponsorships: B2B Marketing Lessons on Leveraging Athlete Ambassadors with CEO of PARITY, Leela Srinivasan
    Oct 29 2024
    There’s an athlete right now that uses, knows and loves your product. So why aren’t you partnering with them to promote your brand? The global sports sponsorship market is expected to grow to almost $108 billion by 2030.And there’s around $1.3B in projected revenue this year from pro women athlete sponsorships. Feel like you’re missing out yet? The message is clear: sponsor a pro woman athlete (or two). In this episode, we’re talking about B2B marketing lessons from professional women athlete sponsorships with the help of our special guest, PARITY CEO Leela Srinivasan.Together, we talk about experimenting with new channels, finding your match, and much more.About our guest, Leela SrinivasanLeela Srinivasan took the reins as CEO in May 2023, when Parity had amassed a network of over 800 women athletes and paid out over $2 million in sponsorships. Under her leadership, the company is poised to increase both numbers exponentially – and become a household name – as it enters its next phase in the fight against gender pay disparity in sports.Prior to joining Parity, Leela served as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) for three-high-growth companies: digital payments provider Checkout.com; Momentive, the maker of SurveyMonkey; and recruiting software company Lever. She developed her initial passion for community, customer centricity and data-driven marketing earlier in her marketing career at LinkedIn and OpenTable. She serves on the board of Upwork and on the board of advisors for the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, where she earned her MBA.Leela lives in North Carolina with her husband Joel and three middle-school girls. There are no dull moments.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Pro Women Athlete Sponsorships:Experiment with new channels. Keep a budget to try new things. Whether it’s simply posting to a different social channel or sponsoring a pro athlete, the Leela says, ”As a marketer, your livelihood depends on being able to find new channels to replace channels that were once working really well that suddenly stopped working, to find ways to stand out from your competitors. Because what happens is if you're doing one thing, then six months later, everyone else is probably trying to do it too. So you have to keep things fresh. It doesn't mean you have to devote your entire budget to experimentation, of course. You need to certainly put money where you know things are working, but over time that mix is going to change as a marketer. And so I think it's smart. It's actually self preservation in some ways, to keep trying to just find ways to experiment on the edges and tap into something that can really give you a fresh perspective in the market.”Find your match. There’s an athlete out there right now who would align strongly with your brand values. Use them as the face of your brand to humanize the name. Leela says, “Find something that really feels right for the brand and allows them to kind of carve out their own space. There are so many directions that you can now run in; New leagues springing up, new sports coming to the fore, new athletes with incredibly interesting stories.Quotes*”When you get those people, those athletes, those influencers talking very naturally about something that they find joy in or that they believe in, it's just another level of awesomeness when it comes to ambassadorship or testimonial.”*”There are so many stories waiting to be told. If you're willing to be creative about the types of athlete that you work with, there are always athletes that can be within budget that can do some incredible storytelling for you.”*”I always had some money in what I called my rainy day fund or my slush fund. That budget was mine to make discretionary investments where I wanted to try things, where maybe the ROI was less proven or the path was a little less trodden but it was worth the opportunity, worth that risk to try something different because, God forbid you just become this terrible vanilla marketer that is doing the same as everybody else. You have to find ways to break through. I mean, that's the fun part of marketing. Why wouldn't you? So I always had some experimentation budget just tucked away for when these types of opportunities came up.”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Leela Srinivasan, CEO at PARITY[2:03] Leela's Journey to PARITY[5:17] Understanding Pro Women Athlete Sponsorships[9:55] History of Pro Women Athlete Sponsorships[14:27] Current Landscape and Opportunities[24:07] The Gender Disparity in Sports[24:51] The Influence of Women Athletes on Marketing[27:00] Creative Campaigns and Athlete Partnerships[28:16] The Importance of Originality in Marketing[29:56] Investing in Women's Sports[32:38] Engaging with Brands and Athletes[35:37] The Power of Authentic Athlete EndorsementsLinksConnect with Leela on LinkedInLearn more about PARITYAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service ...
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    49 mins
  • When We Were Young Festival: B2B Marketing Lessons from the Festival to Remember with Head of Content Marketing at CoreWeave, Brooke Gocklin

    When We Were Young Festival: B2B Marketing Lessons from the Festival to Remember with Head of Content Marketing at CoreWeave, Brooke Gocklin
    Oct 22 2024
    Morrissey, Taking Back Sunday, Alkaline Trio, Streetlight Manifesto…For dedicated fans, these are bands that bring back memories of checkered Vans shoes, studded belts, and paper wrist bands from each show.But some of them haven’t toured in years.So to see them all on one festival poster 20 years after their heyday made fans think it was too good to be true. It wasn’t, and it lived up to the hype.So in this episode, we’re talking about all the good - and questionable - marketing that went into the When We Were Young Festival.With the help of our special guest, Head of Content Marketing at CoreWeave, Brooke Gocklin, we’re talking about painting the picture, building a community of advocates, and delivering on the hype.About our guest, Brooke GocklinBrooke Gocklin is the Head of Content Marketing at CoreWeave. Prior to joining the company in July 2024, she was the Editor-in-Chief at Contently, where she led content strategy and editorial direction for The Content Strategist and The Freelance Creative. Brooke is a recognized expert in content marketing, with a particular focus on the evolving role of AI in business. At Persado, an AI-language generation company, Brooke honed her skills in content creation for AI-driven solutions. Her deep understanding of technical products positioned her as a subject matter expert in the evolving AI space. Her work, featured in Adweek and Content Marketing Institute, reflects her deep understanding of how to craft impactful content strategies and engaging narratives that resonate with target audiences.What B2B Companies Can Learn From the When We Were Young Festival:Paint the picture. Show your audience what doing business with you would look like. When they’re able to visualize the tangible benefits of becoming a customer, it makes it that much easier for them to sign on the dotted line. For the When We Were Young Festival, the organizers made a poster with album covers of all of the bands who would be performing. Ian says, “[It’s] brilliant, right? You have to show people what it would look like. I have found over the years that if you can mock something up, it’s so much easier, right? It's much harder to get an idea of something in a Google doc.” So paint the picture. Mock up an idea of what your product looks like for your audience.Build a community of advocates. Bands like Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance and Taking Back Sunday have created communities of fiercely loyal fans. Brooke says, “And so that means that when you see all of these bands coming together, the reaction is, is this even real? But two, it gives you a sense of like, ‘Oh my gosh, I have to be there. And I have to tell my friends about this.’ And so I think that for B2B marketers, you know, really leveraging customer advocates or people who are just really excited about your product or service to amplify your message builds trust in a wider audience. So choose customers who love you, who love your product, who love your service and leverage them to tell others about you.”Deliver on the hype. You can tease about a product or service as much as you want, as long as it delivers what it promises. Brooke says, “When We Were Young created a massive buzz with a huge lineup. They also did a lot of teasers, but most importantly, they really backed it up with a well organized incredible event. Credibility is so important. So you can't just hype something up whether that's your product or service. And not have it live up to expectations. So as marketers, I think it's really crucial when you're thinking about B2B, to build trust and credibility from the get go. So whether that means that you're creating content that is factually accurate and all of the products and features, functionalities live up to what you're selling them as. That is important, right? So you need to establish your brand as a go-to resource, but you do that by being credible.”Quotes*”As far as how I think about content, it's really like connective tissue. I think it's at the core and at the center of a brand story. So, you need content to be able to bring people into the funnel. You need content as they're exploring, getting to know you. You need content when they're at that purchasing stage, or even after they become a customer, you still need them to engage with you. And you need to be putting out ideas that provoke some sort of thought and that's valuable to them.”*”Really good content marketing is about creating value for your audience and really helping them solve their problems. So my approach has always been: start with the audience. What do they care about? What are their challenges? And then craft content that speaks directly to those needs. I think that that is a key differentiator when it comes to content strategy.”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Brooke Gocklin, Head of Content Marketing at CoreWeave[3:10] When We Were Young Festival's Unique Marketing Tactics[8:11] Nostalgia and Community Building[...
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    47 mins
  • Bad Sisters: B2B Marketing Lessons from the Irish Dark Comedy with the CMO at D2L, Brian Finnerty

    Bad Sisters: B2B Marketing Lessons from the Irish Dark Comedy with the CMO at D2L, Brian Finnerty
    Oct 15 2024
    Hooking your audience is one thing, but keeping them emotionally invested in your content is another. So for this episode of Remarkable, we’re taking marketing lessons on doing just that from the Irish dark comedy, Bad Sisters.It’s a show about four sisters who plot to kill their diabolical brother-in-law, and the season starts with his funeral.Series creator, Sharon Horgan, says, “We had to keep an audience with us for 10 episodes and keep them wanting the same outcome." That is, the death of their brother-in-law, John Paul. So with the help of our special guest, D2L CMO Brian Finnerty, we’re talking about hooking your audience, knowing your target, and doing trial and error. About our guest, Brian FinnertyBrian Finnerty is a B2B marketing specialist with over 25 years experience leading enterprise marketing teams. He currently serves as CMO at D2L. His expertise includes brand strategy, B2B demand generation, and global customer acquisition from mid-market to Fortune 500. He previously served as VP of Revenue Marketing for Udacity. Prior to joining Udacity, Brian served as VP of Growth Marketing at Demandbase, where he was responsible for demand generation, field marketing, and customer marketing at Demandbase. Brian has also been a marketing leader at two ad tech companies, Marin Software and Smaato. He co-founded an e-learning startup that specialized in software developer training, with a rules-based code judging engine. He is an active Customer Advisory Board member for both 6sense and Sendoso.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Bad Sisters:Start with a hook. Bad Sisters grabs viewers’ attention because it’s about four sisters plotting to kill their brother-in-law, and it starts with his funeral. So the question is: “How did he die?” This is what drives viewers to keep watching. So how can you get your audience invested in your content? What question do you want to inspire them to ask?Know your target. This is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but just like the sisters truly knew their brother-in-law and all the ways they could potentially do him in, so should marketers get to know their audience so they can appeal to them. Brian says, “The sisters do a lot of research and they really know their target audience. Like, what does JP like to eat? What does he like to drink? If you were to poison him, how would you do that? So they really do research, like, ‘What are the ways that we can do this and get away with it, and free our sister from the prison of her marriage?’ So they really do their kind of their targeting and their research, which I think any good marketer does.”Do trial and error. Try different marketing strategies and keep dialing it in based on data you get from the tests. Brian says, “[The sisters] do that right throughout the show. Like, they're testing ways to bump this guy off. Some of them end in sort of miserable failure and some of them have some potential of succeeding and you're never quite sure. Not unlike a lot of digital campaigns, where you're trying to find that perfect balance and the right approach.”Quotes*”I think for marketers, if you're not pushing the envelope, testing new messaging and testing new approaches to your website, conversion, optimization, your customer journey, your buyer's journey, then you're not trying hard enough. You're not getting enough data from the market to optimize and improve.”*”In a B2B context, it is tough to really identify a villain. And that kind of marketing turns me off. Some companies will identify their competitors as villains and really go after them. As a marketer, I would say instead of identifying your competitors as a villain, which I think is a mistake, you look at either the cost of doing nothing, or like, ‘What is the counterpoint to your mission?’”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Brian Finnerty, CMO at D2L[3:02] D2L and Brian's Role as CMO[4:04] How Bad Sisters was created[9:30] Authenticity and Cultural Representation[22:18] B2B Marketing Takeaways from Bad Sisters[22:21] The Importance of a Good Hook[23:00] Research and Targeting in Marketing[24:08] Trial and Error in Marketing[28:30] Creating a Great Villain[33:48] Brand and Content Strategy[36:10] Effective Content Marketing[38:34] Leveraging Content Across Teams[42:58] Favorite Campaigns and Final AdviceLinksConnect with Brian on LinkedInLearn more about D2LAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something ...
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    47 mins
  • The Wager: B2B Marketing Lessons from the Epic True Story of the Shipwrecked HMS Wager with Former Director of Content Marketing at Authentic8, Shannon Ragan

    The Wager: B2B Marketing Lessons from the Epic True Story of the Shipwrecked HMS Wager with Former Director of Content Marketing at Authentic8, Shannon Ragan
    Oct 8 2024
    “Each man carried, along with a sea chest, his own burdensome story.” - Excerpt from The Wager, by David GrannThis is true not only for the men that sailed on the HMS Wager, but your audience and customers (minus the sea chests). Just as David Grann took those burdensome stories from journal entries to write The Wager, so too can you use the burdensome stories of your customers in your marketing.This is one of the things we’re talking about in this episode of Remarkable with the help of our special guest, former Director of Content Marketing at Authentic8, Shannon Ragan.Together, we draw marketing lessons from David Grann’s book, The Wager, including going to the source, shaping your stories as stranger than fiction, and sourcing those stories from the smallest footnote.About our guest, Shannon RaganShannon Ragan is the former Director of Content Marketing at Authentic8. She joined the company in September 2020 as Content Marketing Senior Manager. She is also a producer and co-host of NeedleStack: the OSINT podcast. She previously served as Senior Marketing Communications Manager at Skybox Security. She has been blogging in the cybersecurity industry for ten years and vows to never write another Patch Tuesday update again.What B2B Companies Can Learn From The Wager:Go to the source. Talk to your customers to understand what matters most to them. And use that in your messaging. Shannon says, “Experience it yourself, as authentically as you can. I think that is a huge thing in content marketing. I feel like there is often a lot of gatekeeping between sales and marketing to customers that it's like, ‘No, I don't want the marketing team to talk to my customers.’ It's the practitioners, the people using your tool, your product, that you need to talk to the most. And so any amount of time that you can get with them [is valuable].” In The Wager, David Grann actually sailed the same route that the crew of the HMS Wager did to see what it was really like. That was the only way he could write authentically about the experience.Shape your stories as stranger than fiction. When you do talk to your audience or your customers, get their war stories about the struggles they’ve had that your product will solve. Shannon says that having a podcast has been a great platform for sharing those stories. She says, “I think the true stories are the most interesting. And so getting people that live it, walk the walk, do it every day to kind of tell their war stories and their learnings along the way, and be able to share those with our audience under our brand without really having to talk too much about ourselves has just been a great brand builder and gotten people into our orbit. And then once they know us and like us and love us, then it's really easy to be like, ‘By the way, we have this great product I think you'll like.’” It’s like how The Wager is a true story that, in David Grann’s telling, feels closer to fiction because of the detail and expressive voices he includes. And he was able to do that through the use of primary sources. So use your primary sources - your audience and customers - to write your marketing messages. Stories can start with the smallest footnote. When David Grann was doing research for The Wager, he was looking through lists of people who boarded the ship. And next to many names, he saw “DD,” which he discovered meant “Dispatched Dead.” It was through researching the deeper story behind this two-letter abbreviation that he uncovered stories of scurvy and the overall human toll of the voyage. Look for the small footnotes that could tell you a much deeper story for use in your marketing.Quotes*”Kill your darlings. It is the thing that is most difficult to do to your own work, because it's the thing that you're like, ‘But I grew this babe in my womb. I can't get rid of it.’ And it's like, you do it in service of the rest of the thing that you have tended and grown. And it's such a hard lesson to learn and you have to teach it to yourself over and over again. Like David Grann had to teach it to himself again. But it makes a good writer.” - Shannon Ragan*”One of my biggest pieces of advice is that part of your strategy should be co-creating content with your prospects and customers. Like, that should be a pillar of your strategy. And all of the people who can't give you testimonials, who aren't legal approved to give you a quote, who can't do all that stuff, can come on your podcast and talk about everything but the thing.” - Ian Faison*”Think about where you want to end up. Like, do you want people to thank you for your content marketing? And if so, how do you build the path to get there? So yeah, think about where you want to end up, and then build your strategy and your editorial path to get there.” - Shannon RaganTime Stamps[0:55] Meet Shannon Ragan, former Director of Content Marketing at Authentic8[3:50] Content Marketing Insights from ...
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    45 mins
  • Doctor Who: B2B Marketing Lessons from the Long-Running BBC Show with the CEO of WorkProud & Online Rewards, Michael John Levy

    Doctor Who: B2B Marketing Lessons from the Long-Running BBC Show with the CEO of WorkProud & Online Rewards, Michael John Levy
    Oct 1 2024
    Doctor Who has been around for over 60 years and attracted over 12 million viewers.In our book, that makes it ripe with marketing lessons. Because wouldn’t you also want your brand to be around for over 60 years, and to have that many eyes on your content at once?So in this episode, we’re talking about the long-running show with a cult following, Doctor Who.Together with the help of our special guest, CEO of WorkProud & Online Rewards, Michael John Levy, we’re talking about keeping the essence of your branding through the years, using jingles, and using time travel in your storytelling.About our guest, Michael John LevyCEO Michael Levy leads both Online Rewards and WorkProud and has achieved 13 consecutive years on the Inc. 5000 Fastest-Growing Companies list. His company is a leading provider of workplace culture and people success solutions who believe employees are a company’s greatest asset.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Doctor Who:Keep the essence of your branding through the years. As your company ages, refine and modernize your content. But keep the essence of what makes your brand or company unique. Ian says, “There's an importance of continuity that is a great lesson for Doctor Who, which is like, there's certain things that can change, and there's certain things that don't. And once you establish it, then that needs to be the way it is.” It’s like how the evil robotic beings, the Daleks, first appeared on Doctor Who in the 1960s. But then Michael says, “they then continued to exist like a multiverse, and they kept appearing over time. And as modern production techniques continued to improve and various doctors would appear, they would still, however, be stuck with the original form of the Dalek suit from the 1960s.” But they became iconic as part of the Doctor Who brand. So decide what is unchangeable, and what you can continue to dial in, refine and improve.Use jingles. Jingles aren’t used that much in B2B marketing, but in Doctor Who, music is an important part of the show. Michael says, “A small melody snippet as part of the intro and closure was a key anchor component.” And Ian adds, “Jingles are like one of the most underused marketing devices of our modern era. Back in the day, everything had a jingle.” The more senses you appeal to, the deeper, more multifaceted your brand identity becomes, and the more easily your audience will recall your company when making a purchasing decision.Elicit nostalgia through time travel. Send the characters of your marketing back in time and invite your audience to relive the good old days. Ian says, “We always talk about wanting to elicit nostalgia. Why not make a character, make your key persona, you know, CHRO, and send them back in time. Send them back five years ago. Send them back 10 years. You need someone who is doing the traveling to these other places so that they can experience it. It's ripe for discussion and you don't need to land the plane like you do like Marvel had to land the plane when they did the Multiverse and went back in time. As a marketer, you don't need to finish the story. You just need to start the conversation.”Quotes*”WorkProud is a 22-year-plus company of which this concept of recognition and appreciation and the corresponding tools that we've built have been a backbone of the culture of the organization. It's so foundational that there are eyes on that stream and that feed on a daily basis with an expectation that you will read some positive things about somebody's joined the company, somebody's had an accomplishment, somebody completed training, somebody's celebrating some birthdays. We have a positive place inside the business and that is part of the culture.” - Michael John Levy*”Once you've built that positive place where people can go, it's about capturing and accelerating the telling of those stories by helping them get crafted, and then sharing them. And ideally, those people want to share those things on third party sites or to their friends, in private group chats, or whatever it is. But as a marketing team, if you can help as the crafter of stories, it can help with retention. It can help with recruiting.” - Ian FaisonTime Stamps[0:55] Meet Michael John Levy, CEO of WorkProud and Online Rewards[2:32] Michael Levy's Journey with Online Rewards and WorkProud[4:02] The Power of Storytelling in Business[8:42] The Origins of Doctor Who[15:06] The Evolution of Doctor Who's Characters and Branding[19:47] Comparing Doctor Who to Modern Brands[27:31] Exploring Doctor Who's Production[29:24] The Power of Soundtracks in Marketing[30:39] The Impact of Jingles in Advertising[33:12] Time Travel in Marketing[51:48] The Role of Storytelling in MarketingLinksConnect with Michael John LevyLearn more about Online Rewards and WorkProudAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and ...
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    55 mins