Speaker 0 00:04 Make it right. Manufacturing podcast. A global economy offers vast opportunity, but it also offers vast competition and elevating your message above the global den just keeps getting harder. As a manufacturing leader, you're challenged by the day to day operations of the business and chasing sales targets and in all likelihood the marketing of your business isn't getting the attention it requires. Welcome to the makeup right podcast. I'm Janet Eastman and this week on the show we're going to break down that challenge and hopefully share some insights to help you evolve and elevate your B to B marketing strategy. Carmen Pirie is the co founder and lead marketing and sales counsel at Kula partners, a marketing agency that helps B to B manufacturers develop digital experiences that transform how they engage with buyers, serve customers, and outpace the competition online. And I'm excited to talk to you Carmen. So welcome to make it right
Speaker 1 01:04 Janice. So a wonderful to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 0 01:07 My pleasure. So I know that you've done a lot of stuff in the way of marketing, but if you can just give us a bit of a background so we understand how broad your, your experience is before we get into some of the marketing mistakes that manufacturers are making.
Speaker 1 01:22 Yeah. Sometimes I don't know if the, uh, if the, if the, uh, experience or background is broader, if I've just been doing the same thing for, uh, several decades. So it feels like there's a lot of common threads at least. But, uh, I guess my, my, my background, um, you know, I've been a marketing pretty early on. I mean, I, I, I convinced the television station in the Northern Maine. Uh, when I was in university, I convinced them that I wasn't going back to school, uh, and that they should give me a job selling TV ads. And then I, it did, uh, and uh, and I could fax all my orders into this station and stuff. So they actually didn't know how many days I worked in the end of a week. Then I went back to school and still continue to sell TV ads for them. So, um, I've been doing, uh, I've been doing the marketing bit for, for a while.
Speaker 1 02:10 I suppose it could be a bit of a contacts after that. I, um, kind of an odd thing that I think kind of does really inform an awful lot of my approach, uh, especially the selling in some way. Um, is I, I ran to be a, a member of the legislative assembly, uh, here in Canada, um, when I was 20 free. Uh, um, and I, I lost by a 359 votes if my memory serves. Um, and, uh, but I always say like, there's very few opportunities that you have in life, especially at that young age to, um, just kind of go door to door with nothing to sell by yourself. Um, and like, you know, I always say when you're doing that, you can't sell on price, right? Um, you have to find ways in different than ways to connect with people. Uh, and, um, so that was a, I think a trial by fire at a young age that really did inform a lot of my career. I went from there to, uh, uh, just prior to that actually I had been a chief of staff, uh, to a member of parliament and I worked in the house of commons for awhile. Um, so I, I left that political, uh, life behind and went back to marketing and, uh, but my goodness, I see a lot of parallels between them.
Speaker 0 03:28 <inaudible> and you know what, like you talk about, you talk about selling television ads and you talk about, you know, that door to door stuff when you're trying to get yourself elected, that those are probably two of the toughest selling things that you can possibly do. So you really did school yourself on what sells and what doesn't. So you got, you got a good kickoff to your marketing career, that's for sure.
Speaker 1 03:50 Yeah, it was funny. You know, I remember having a struggle selling TV ads, you know, it just wasn't going about it. Right. And that kind of clicked that if I didn't sell TV ads, but rather I sold marketing plans that had TV ads as a part of it, that I could sell all that, you know, sell out all day long. So, uh, I guess that was a fairly, uh, good early instruction for this agency business too, isn't it?
Speaker 0 04:15 Yeah. Okay. So from where, from where you sit, what is the single biggest marketing mistake manufacturers are making?
Speaker 1 04:25 Yeah, sometimes it can seem like there are a lot of them. Um, uh, I, I think, look, probably the, the single biggest marketing mistake that manufacturers writ large I'm making is that they do not, um, properly manage the marketing function. Um, they do not have, uh, the proper KPIs in place. They did not have fully closed loop analytics in place around their marketing efforts. Um, we live in a day and age where it is quite possible to, um, no to with a fairly deep good degree of accuracy. Uh, the level of return you're getting on. Any specific part of your marketing span provides you built the proper framework in place at the start to accommodate that. Give you that information. And, uh, so many manufacturers are hiring marketers, building out marketing teams, hiring agencies, doing a, a wide number of things without that foundational, uh, element in place to say, how are we gonna know if this is a good spend or not?
Speaker 1 05:28 And it's harder even for manufacturers because it's not like the close loop happens, um, you know, in two or three days they can't do a new initiative and see it at the cash register, uh, because it ran a sale this week, you know, for, for manufacturers. So I've an awful lot of them have, um, a sales cycle that's more like 18, 24 months longer or, or more. So, um, you know, it isn't always an immediate feedback to know if you're doing the right thing. Uh, so I think that's really where they, most manufacturers make the biggest mistake is that they just don't have the framework in place for marketing performance.
Speaker 0 06:08 Right. And as you say, if it takes 18 months to figure out if it's working or not, there's a lot of investment going on there to not really know if anything's really happening.
Speaker 1 06:19 Yeah. If your measure is to say, okay, I'm going to do this and I'm going to wait to see if I notice it on the bottom line. And that bottom line can't possibly be impacted for 18 to 24 months. That's a silly way to approach it. Obviously you have to look at other, uh, items that are kind of leading indicators of, uh, of your success, uh, of any kind of change or pivot that you've made in your marketing. And of course the, you know, the technology is available to do that. Or you know, we live in a world where you can close the loop on that, but so many manufacturers just don't and they don't them. I don't know if that's because they maybe don't value the marketing function as strongly as other disciplines in the firm or, or potentially, um, it's just not as, um, a well-developed.
Speaker 0 07:01 Right. So I'm going to ask you a crazy question here, but do you think that, I mean, you get marketing, you've always gotten marketing from, from what I can understand of your background, but I think for some people, marketing seems to be a bit of a voodoo thing. Like they just don't really know how it all works. And so they're kind of scared of it. Do you think that's part of the problem?
Speaker 1 07:24 Uh, yes. Um, I think that they don't maybe, and, and therefore they don't feel like they're equipped to evaluate it. Um, uh, you know, and, and, uh, you know, an awful lot of manufacturers, uh, feel that like if we just build a good quality product and we service it, wow, well that'll speak for itself. And, you know, there's some truth to that. It certainly will. It doesn't mean that marketing won't add the, uh, gasoline to that fire. However, if done properly
Speaker 0 07:52 <inaudible>. Okay. So our marketer or rather manufacturers using their websites to their, their maximum potential to, to market effectively?
Speaker 1 08:01 Well, I, you know, um, uh, I think, uh, this is an area where an awful lot of manufacturers could, uh, could stand to gain. I mean, if, if we were to just pull up, uh, uh, 20, uh, random manufacturing websites, unless even if they were companies that are, say, ah, you know, 150 million to 500 million in revenue or something like that would be significant size firms. You know, um, if we were to do that, we would find on those 10 or 20 sites, um, uh, well over half of them, uh, would not have any search optimization at all. But the site architecture, um, the on page SEO, just some of the bearing foundational elements, um, uh, that we've known to be foundational for proper digital marketing performance for, you know, over a decade now, way longer than that. In fact, um, the, you know, those elements aren't in place, let alone, um, uh, finding ways to convert interest in a more, um, a intentional way.
Speaker 1 09:04 So some, if we're looking at that same sample of sites, in addition to not showing any of the degree of search optimization or digital savviness in that respect, a chance, desire, the only <inaudible> point of conversion that would be available in most of those sites would be like a contact us form or something of that sort. So something that's very down funnel, if you will, um, and does not capture people at a time when they're actually able to be influenced and, and nurtured into a sale. So it, um, so, so no, uh, manufacturers aren't using their websites typically to their maximum potential. Um, and uh, and this is at a time when we know, uh, B2B buyers, uh, now more than ever, are doing a huge chunk of the research online before they ever reach out and talk to a salesperson. And, and that was the case before, uh, our current reality in the world around COBIT. And it's certainly going to be the case after. So in this ever changing landscape, how is baby buying changing and how can you keep that B2B marketing fresh to meet those changes?
Speaker 1 10:11 Well, it's changing in a lot of ways. Um, the people that are a part, a part of it are changing. Um, we know that there's a generational shift in the B2B buying community there. You know, that people are retiring and they're being replaced by folks in their thirties with very different points of view about how, uh, information not to be gathered and, uh, um, how they ought to interact with suppliers. Um, uh, beyond that, the uh, uh, buying process, uh, is, uh, has gone from being an individual decision to being very much a team sport. And we know that that buying committee is getting larger and larger and larger. Um, Gardner is probably done the most research on that and, uh, and they've seen a lot of, uh, examples where, um, the, not only is the buying committee getting larger across most of these organizations, but as it gets larger, uh, their propensity to buy, to buy, nothing goes up.
Speaker 1 11:05 The stake decision to just choose to do nothing, um, uh, becomes more and more common. Uh, so it's a, it was a challenging world, I think for a lot of, of B to B marketers and B2B sellers. So how do they meet that, uh, you know, how, how do they kind of address that and, and, and ensure that they're, um, that what they're doing from a marketing a sales perspective is kind of, uh, changing or moving with the times. Well, um, uh, one is, uh, being cognizant, frankly, of just the points that they just raised. But then the other is, what are you doing? What level of your marketing and sales budgets are you actually carving out, uh, for those experiments, for those initiatives that you, um, are, are channeling towards new buying reality to see if, um, if you can make it stick. I mean, an awful lot of, uh, manufacturers are, you know, if you looked at their marketing budget this year, it'll look exactly the same as it did the previous year. And it's exactly the same as it did the year before. And it's all going to the same, stopped at the same trade shows who did the same things. And they aren't always the most, uh, inclined for marketing experimentation.
Speaker 0 12:17 Yeah. You talk about, you know, there's no change and then you talk about almost this paralysis on making a decision. So you don't bother to make a decision. And correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I would think that in the past, um, a lot of why are decisions were made based on, um, you know, relationships. The person who was selling you, you knew them, you trusted them, you'd always bought from them, and so you continue to buy from them. That's completely changed. So now, you know, we have these things called buyer personas. I mean, do buyer personas actually work when you're trying to figure out who to market to and how to do it? Right?
Speaker 1 12:58 Uh, yeah. I, I've, uh, I can speak from a lot of experience in this, of having done it wrong in the past. I can tell you that. So I've, I've tried. So, uh, I think there's two different things in your comment though. I would say the relationships selling dynamic, um, and, and personas, yes, there's some connectivity but one isn't necessarily a replacement for the other. But, um, uh, I have seen, uh, content strategies for a variety of different types of brands over the years that have been, um, have evolved without the North star of a buying buyer personas, uh, that have been documented. And, and it's interesting because over time, even the best marketers and the best content teams, if they didn't have that buyer persona a really well articulated, um, they, they end up drifting. Um, your, your content strategies ended up not being as focused on your buyer over time.
Speaker 1 13:57 You kind of look in the rear view mirror after 12 or 18 months. And I've seen this. It doesn't seem like, you know, we're not, you know, why isn't our, uh, our blog strategy really driving the, the, the organic search traffic that we had intended. How come it doesn't seem to be resonating as we're posting those posts, um, uh, and promoting them in our social feeds. You know, why is it the MQL quality not quite what we would've expected. And then you turn around stick it has because it's drifted away from, from not having that, that personas and North star. So I, I, I, I've seen that in our early days as an agency and when we try frankly try to do that type of work without using buyer personas, um, and, uh, I've learned from, uh, from, from, from that, that um, they, they serve an invaluable, uh, function.
Speaker 1 14:44 They really do keep you grounded in what you're trying to accomplish. And I think if buyer personas are done right, they don't just have demographic and psychographic information to help you kind of get in the that, that the suit of clothes, if you will, to be a customer. But they, they also ought to identify what are the marketing triggers that folks are experiencing as they, um, uh, are a kind of going through their day to day that lead them to actually seek out your brand and the seek out the types of solutions that you provide. Um, and what are the objections that those personas often have in the early stages of that type of exploration. If you can identify that as part of your personas that can really help inform your entire kind of front end of your marketing approach.
Speaker 0 15:32 Okay. So I'm going to ask you questions about developing these buyer personas.
Speaker 1 15:37 Are they
Speaker 0 15:38 based on the buyer you want to have the buyer you currently have and how many personas should you really have that you're targeting?
Speaker 1 15:48 That's a really good question and it's a good question for a variety of reasons. One is, is that from a content strategy perspective or what have you, I always say that the act of coming up with buyer personas is the act of writing a check that your content strategy needs to cash in a way. So, you know, yes, you can have all of these different personas. And I had one, um, a former client who insisted, I think it was 23 different personas at the end of it. And I'm like, you know, if you, at the end of the day, if you want us to articulate, uh, various nuances across these 23 personas, we can do that. But I know for a fact that as a marketing organization, you do not have either the money or the wherewithal to actually create content any way that's customized or bespoke to those that many different personas, especially when you think of creating content at an awareness stage, consideration stage, decision stage, and even post sale.
Speaker 1 16:53 So, okay, we have four or five different types of content that we need to be creating. So five different types of content, 23 different personas, five times 23, it's like, yeah, good luck with that. So, um, I, I think that you ought to be looking at, um, uh, at the, the typical buying committee that you're encountering. I do think that if you're in the situation, uh, I'm working with a client right now as an example, who, you know, they're, they, if they look at their existing customer base, they're looking to move a bit up market from that, right? Um, and as they're looking to move a bit up market, uh, and there are early indications of that. They've seen that the buying committees are slightly more complex and uh, um, and there's a few other people at the table and they've also found that getting access to the C suite as they move higher up is getting more and more difficult.
Speaker 1 17:44 So, um, yeah, you ought to be taking that into account of kind of where you want to go, not just where he's been as you're creating those personas. I am, and I would tend to at least create top level personas for each member of the buying committee that you typically encounter and then whittle it down from there as to what's really important. You usually having lead economic buyer, um, uh, kind of a lead research, uh, person and then one or two people that could be the nail in the coffin of the deal. Um, so, you know, you ought to be able to narrow it down from like an eight or nine person buying committee down to the two to three personas, maybe four personas that truly, truly matter. Um, and I think I try to do that knowing that, um, knowing that perfect is really the enemy of a good in this instance. He, you know, does that make sense, Janet?
Speaker 0 18:41 Yeah, actually it does. It's sort of, it really clarifies it nicely because I've actually tried to work with buyer personas before and I've been so confused about what I'm trying to achieve, but he just cleared that up for me. So thank you very much.
Speaker 1 18:54 It, uh, yeah, and I think, um, people would probably be well served to do a better job on those poor personas rather than worrying about doing a, um, a half ass job, if you will, on the, uh, on the, uh, on all of them. Uh, they'd be better off to really dive into, okay, what are those marketing triggers? What are they objections that my salespeople are seeing as a marketing team? Maybe that's some ride alongs or listens in on sales conversations or what have you, whatever the dynamic might happen to be. Um, you know, really try to get inside the this and of those prospects and, and um, eh, eh, I think you'd be well better served to do that and then try to say, geez, you know, have we really gotten our hands around all 23 of the people that might touch this deal? Right.
Speaker 0 19:41 Okay. I want to move on to just sort of comparing B2B marketing and B to C and
Speaker 1 19:48 okay.
Speaker 0 19:49 Clarify here or just let me know. I mean, are are many manufacturers approaching their B to B marketing with that sort of B to C mindset because that's what they've been targeted with or are like, what are the differences there? So we are clear on how the two look different.
Speaker 1 20:09 Um, uh, you know, look, you do see some kind of, uh, yeah, shall we say kind of B to C a thinking coming to life and B2B often and kind of e-commerce environments and things of that sort. There's been an awful lot of discussion in the last few years about how um, uh, B2B buyers have B to C <inaudible> in an eCommerce environment. And that certainly somewhat true. I think you can overact that pudding a bit. Um, you know, it's not, um, I think most people are pretty smart and they know that I kind of associate it to like a company car. Um, like so, so for instance, uh, I used to work, uh, at a electric utility for awhile. So, you know, we had all those, uh, you know, uh, utility trucks like for going up power poles or whatever. Right? So those trucks have a lot of different functions though I've specialty functions.
Speaker 1 21:08 Um, so the, the linesman, uh, that, uh, that drives that, uh, that, that vehicle through the day, well then they, when they drove to work that morning, they, maybe they drove or their Toyota Corolla. Um, while those, the, the, the, you know, they function in fundamentally the same way. The pedals on the right, you know, the break is there, the steering wheel is somewhat the same turn signals are located somewhat similarly shifting, et cetera. But then of course, there are some pieces that are unique to that more business oriented vehicle that is a utility truck. It has the boom on it and those various other controls, Outback, et cetera, et cetera. Um, you know, I think that that's the case in B to B versus B to C eCommerce is that people know that in B2B buying, sometimes it's different. You need purchase orders and things of that sort.
Speaker 1 21:53 Um, sometimes the information that you're looking for is different. So some of the experiences like the pedals on the right and the break is there and the steering wheel is there. Some of that, some of those basic things about that experience between BTC and B2B ought to be the same. And then you ought to recognize that there's going to have to be some, some key differences. Now that's on the eCommerce side. Um, the biggest kind of difference I think when you move beyond that from B2B versus BDC for is for most manufacturers, most B to B marketers, is they're dealing in a situation where they do not have an unlimited top of funnel. Um, in <inaudible> <inaudible> marketing, you know, if I'm trying to sell wine, there's in some ways I'd be well served to think that there's an unlimited number of people out there that can buy because fundamentally there are right?
Speaker 1 22:45 And they buy a lot of it. It's a, you know, buy today a drink tomorrow and by the next day. So, um, uh, that, uh, that process is very different than if you are a, um, a manufacturer who only sells to, uh, automobile makers as an example. Um, so there's so many manufacturers out there that have a total addressable market that is in the hundreds or maybe thousands of firms that can possibly buy from them, but it's certainly not in the tens or 20th that, or hundreds of thousands, right? So those marketers who have this kind of B to C mindset, uh, and they're trying to apply it in a B to B, that leads them down the road of, of thinking that inbound marketing is going to be their savior as an example. And all they need to do is, um, uh, put some content up on their site, optimize for search.
Speaker 1 23:49 And, uh, the, you know, everything's going to come into that top of funnel and convert down and that's a very flawed approach. If you have a small total addressable market, if you have a small total addressable market, you need to be flipping that funnel on its head. You don't need to be starting from a point of view of knowing exactly who you want to speak to from a point of view of knowing exactly who are the firms that can buy from me and then how do I target my message to them and get it in front of the buyers that exist in those firms rather than just trying to be optimized for a keyword term in the greater web.
Speaker 0 24:24 <inaudible> yes. Enhanced. That's where your buyer personas come into play.
Speaker 1 24:29 Okay. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so you have an ideal customer profile. We know the type of firm that we want to target. So we have our firmographics. Um, in a B to B context, you want to know how many employees, uh, typically, uh, what's the typical revenue size industry, et cetera. And from that firmographic foundation, what's that buying committee that I typically see when I'm into a firm that meets that ICP? And then, uh, I can then target my messaging and marketing to those personas and titles that are in my target organizations.
Speaker 0 25:07 Hmm. Okay. So I want to talk a little bit about the elephant that's in the room right now. How do you think B2B marketing is going to be changed by the Corona virus and our businesses is going to be trying harder to source products more locally. What do you see? I mean, I know it's early days for us right now, but I mean, you must be thinking about this. What do you, what do you think's gonna happen?
Speaker 1 25:31 Yeah. Uh, I, I've got to say, I, I probably like a lot of folks at this stage in the game. Um, I haven't been thinking a lot about how the Corona virus is going to impact the business as much as I had been thinking about how it's going to impact their just people in general. So this has been a, uh, uh, it's good to kind of get my head out of that for a minute. Just thinking about it from a business perspective. I think, um, w w one of the, one of the curiosities coming out of this is, I mean, we're going to, I mean, if the crystal ball is so dangerous that game right now, but you know, are we at looking at six, eight weeks, maybe longer of people working fully remotely? Um, uh, and I'm getting used to not just a, as within their own organizations working in that context, but collaborating with others in that way.
Speaker 1 26:26 We've had an awful lot of, eh, you know, uh, an awful lot of the marketing and sales process has moved online or via phone, et cetera over the last number of years. Uh, but in manufacturing in particular, there's still a big push towards those relationships and, um, that relationship sales model, um, outside salespeople that go and meet with customers face to face and see the way that their eyes and do the grab and grin, you know. Um, and I mean, we're just living in a world right now that does not, um, uh, facilitate that. And, um, I wonder if that, this may be the thing that helps folks kind of in some way move to that other reality that they'd been a bit hesitant to. I mean, I've worked with an awful lot of manufacturers who, uh, they've even stood up inside sales organizations. I'm sitting kind of beside their outside sales as a way about minimum an experiment, right? But without kind of changing fundamentally how the outside sales apparatus is happening, but now they're going to be forced to have to look at how does that change?
Speaker 0 27:34 I think too that when I think about it, I know that manufacturers are having trouble getting, uh, things that they need from suppliers that are in, you know, far away places where things have to be transported and whatnot. There's been talk about, um, them sourcing more locally and, um, I'm just wondering if you think that we're going to see that if borders are starting to be shut and ships are not going from port to port around the world, do you think people will start sourcing more locally?
Speaker 1 28:05 Well, maybe I'm more optimistic than that. I, I think the global economy, um, uh, can function in a global fashion without us having to see each other face to face. Um, so, uh, you know, even in the closing of the border between Canada and the U S that was announced this week, um, you know, one of the key items mentioned is of course, is that that's not to impact trade that. Right. Um, so I think the flow of goods, um, and, and whatnot will, will continue. And I think, um, I think, uh, even, uh, you know, the professional services, et cetera, have been delivered across borders. That will continue. And I think it may even increase because of course, if you can't go outside your home, uh, does it really matter if you're talking to a service provider or locally or one that's a thousand miles away, um, you can't go out and see them anyway. It doesn't much matter does it? That's true.
Speaker 0 29:05 That's true. Can you actually share a story? I want to go back to, you know, the B2B marketing approach and you've given us some really good tips on how to make it work. Um, but I'm wondering if you have some stories that you can share about how it has worked really well or failed, how some people's B2B marketing has failed spectacularly and you know, give us some reasons why they actually did or didn't work or they probably the failure stories are more fun. Oh, excellent.
Speaker 1 29:30 Uh, well, we were doing some work. So, you know, a lot of this is very, uh, blocking and tackling from a digital marketing perspective. When I talk about pay per advertising, Google ads, um, you know, it's not like this is new. Um, but man, it is an area where people can pay a really massive stupid tax. Um, because, uh, you know, frankly, Google doesn't make the platform all that intuitive from a point of view of setting it up correctly. Um, so you can, uh, if you've kind of a little bit of knowledge in that platform, it can be very, very dangerous. And, uh, so we were doing some work for a manufacturer who shall remain nameless. Um, uh, and, uh, they thought they had a bit of a paid search problem. They had been spending a fair bit on paid search and they weren't sure if it was, uh, creating the return they were hoping for to my earlier point in this show, of course, um, they didn't know if it was getting that return because they hadn't built up proper closed loop analytics to do proper analysis of that.
Speaker 1 30:37 Right. So, um, as we dug in, uh, we discovered that, um, they had wasted somewhere in the neighborhood of about a million dollars a year for the last few years. Um, uh, so they just, it was a donation to Google. Um, the words that they were bidding on, the things that were happening in that account, it's just atrocious. And we ended up saving them that, um, uh, that amount that, that spanned, um, dramatically improving their ad-words performance. When you save 1 million bucks, it's pretty easy. Um, they fired a couple of the people responsible for that. Um, so the save the most salaries as well. Um, uh, and in the process of doing that, we even found one other comp competitors that was doing something even more stupid. Um, they were bidding on it. They were spending just over 90% of their paid search budget. Mmm. On <inaudible> term associated with a Christian rock band.
Speaker 1 31:46 Um, now how they got there, I mean, you could, you could see it like from this is from the outside looking in a bit. Cause obviously too, we don't have access to the competitors' ad-words account. We can just kind of see it from using tools like SEM rush and other tools. But um, uh, yeah. Um, so, so it was kind of a bit of a double whammy. Not only did we see in this category, somebody wasting like 1 million bucks a year, but then we saw somebody on one of their key competitors, um, wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars in a year to capture traffic that was trying to find a Christian rock band. So, um, I guess that's a, I guess word of the wise for manufacturers. Um, you know, uh, just uh, putting somebody a junior in charge of digital marketing because you think they know the internet these days, that is not a smart approach. Hmm. Hmm.
Speaker 0 32:40 That, that is a very good story. Thank you very much. Carmen. Um, can you actually leave us with some key takeaways or things to consider when doing B to B marketing that people might be able to get started on now or even just simply start considering?
Speaker 1 32:57 Yeah, I'm going gonna I'm going to go back to my, uh, point about account based marketing. I think for most B, two B organizations, they ought to be taking an account based approach. And that means starting from identifying and knowing exactly what are, who are the companies that you want to speak with and sell to. And, um, and I, I know that sounds basic, but I meet enough, a lot of B to B marketers every day. Then I say, Oh, okay, well, uh, why don't you give me your target account list? And we'll start from there. And they say, my what? Um, and, and, and, and literally that is the starting point from that target account list. Everything else flows. Um, so really, uh, my, uh, key takeaway to be to be marketers is to really critically examine to what extent you've adopted this funnel thinking that, uh, came to us from inbound marketing, which was around software as a service, um, marketing more, more so than um, uh, what the B2B reality is for most manufacturers.
Speaker 1 34:02 So, so many marketers out there are applying that kind of funnel methodology, uh, blindly. There's so many B to B businesses where it just doesn't fit and they need to flip that on its ear and start from identifying who it is we actually want to speak to who it is we want to sell to and then begin to deploy the account based approaches that allow you to speak directly to them rather than just a spray and pray approach where you're marketing is just going all over the place and you're hoping to capture somebody that's interested along the way.
Speaker 0 34:34 Wow. Okay. Carmen, incredibly valuable conversation I think for many of the manufacturers out there. Thank you so much for sharing,
Speaker 1 34:42 Janet. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me and stay safe out there.
Speaker 0 34:45 Yeah, and to you, I hope we'll get to a chance to talk again. I look forward to it. Carmen Pirie is the co founder of Kula partners and you can find
[email protected] and I'm sure you found some valuable information that you can, uh, put to work right away. That is our show this week. Please check out our Twitter and LinkedIn feeds that are on our podcast page and subscribe and share this podcast with friends and colleagues through iTunes, Google play, Stitcher, Spotify, and YouTube. The mega right podcast is brought to you by Kevin Snoop, leadership advisor and author of the bestselling book. Make it right. Find steps to align your manufacturing business from the front line to the bottom line. Until next time, I'm Janet Eastman. Thanks for listening to make it right.
