Remarkable Content with Ian Faison (Caspian Studios, Ian Faison)

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 Frohnerath

Ricky 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 of who you're connecting with, who you're marketing to.  And I think in general we do a pretty good job of that. I think that authenticity is so important for a very targeted audience and especially one that is  extremely cognizant of inauthenticity.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Ricky Frohnerath, Director of Content Marketing at Fictiv

[7:05] Behind the Scenes of Days of Thunder

[12:32] Passion Projects and Marketing Lessons

[21:35] The Story of Days of Thunder

[23:44] Marketing Lessons from Days of Thunder

[25:33] Planning and Agility in Marketing

[28:40] Communication and Trust in Teams

[32:54] Burnout and High Performance

Links

Connect with Ricky on LinkedIn

Learn more about Fictiv

About 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

The Remarkable team is hard at work on Season 3. And hold on tight because it’s gonna be a good one. This upcoming season, we’re taking B2B marketing lessons from the likes of Mad Men, Survivor, the 90s Keanu Reeves classic, Speed, and much, much more. And we’re doing it all with the help of new guests every episode! We’ll be speaking with marketers from companies like G2, ClickUp, ActiveCampaign and ZoomInfo. And through their expert lens, we’re giving you - the B2B marketer - tips, tricks and tools to use in your own campaigns. So keep an eye on your podcast platform of choice for brand new episodes of Remarkable coming your way very soon.

There’s one marketing tactic that can make people laugh, it can make people gasp. But either way it’ll make them remember your content for years. 

It’s shock factor. And people aren’t using it enough in B2B marketing. 

It’s eliciting this strong emotional response that grabs your audience’s attention, gets them talking about your brand, and makes your content rise above the noise. What’s not to love? 

So in this episode of Remarkable, we’re talking about a group of filmmakers who know about shock factor: Traktor. And with the help of our special guest, Senior Director, Head of Content at Domino Data Lab, Yuval Zukerman, we chat about going for the shock factor, creating a series of ads for a single campaign, and using your constraints to your advantage.

About our guest, Yuval Zukerman

Yuval Zukerman is Senior Director, Head of Content at Domino Data Lab. He joined the company in July 2022 as Director of Technical Alliances. Prior to Domino Data Lab, Yuval served as Manager of Partner Marketing at VMWare. He has also founded his own company, Enavigo, LLC, focusing on technology leadership for results-oriented marketers, mobile development, developer relations, translation and localization project management.

Over his career, he has served in a variety of roles across the technology lifecycle. From developer and engineer to project manager, technology consultant to technical creative and sales. He has worked with non-profits, medium-sized clients and global Fortune 500 companies in verticals that included CPG, B2C and B2B services, hospitality and financial. Past clients include Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Wells Fargo, Verizon Wireless, The Coca-Cola Company, Philips, and The Greater Boston Food Bank. He has a B.S. in Computer Science from UCLA and an M.A. in Information Technology and Software Engineering from Harvard.

About Domino Data Lab

​​Domino Data Lab powers model-driven business for the world’s most advanced enterprises, including over 20% of the Fortune 100. Their Enterprise MLOps platform speeds up the development and deployment of data science work while increasing collaboration and governance, to scale data science into a competitive advantage. Their platform enables thousands of data scientists to develop better medicines, grow more productive crops, adapt risk models to major economic shifts, build better cars, improve customer support, or simply recommend the best purchase to make at the right time. Domino is backed by leading venture capital firms: Sequoia Capital, Bloomberg Beta, Coatue Management, Dell Technologies Capital, Highland Capital Partners, In-Q-Tel, and Zetta Venture Partners.

About Traktor

Traktor is a group of filmmakers based in Venice, California. Though they’re based in California, they’re originally from Sweden and met in film school: Directors Sam Larsson, Pontus Löwenhielm, Patrik von Krusenstjerna, Ole Sanders, Mats Lindberg and producer Richard Ulfvengren. They’re globally renowned for their work serving brands like Lego, Nike, PepsiCo, Levi’s, Fox Sports, MTV, Virgin Atlantic, and more. They’ve done music videos for Fatboy Slim, the Flaming Lips and Madonna. At least twice they’ve been recognized as the most award-winning directors in the world. They’ve won three Grand Prix at Cannes, a handful of Clios, an Emmy, and been nominated for a Grammy.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Traktor:

• Go for the shock factor. Knock your audience off-balance with unexpected content. It’s inexpensive, it’s attention-grabbing, it’s memorable. Traktor made ads for Fox Sports that showed a man high diving straight into the ground, and another of two blindfolded men swinging oversized bats at each other. They were shockingly off-kilter for sports ads at the time. Over 20 years later, Yuval still remembers them vividly. Ian says, ”I wouldn't say Traktor’s first ads are cheaply done, but comparatively. Like, there's no celebrities. They’re just jarring. It's just taking the one salient point that you want the person to know and finding some sort of crazy connection out there in the ether to drive that home and then make the audience think, make them laugh.”
• Create a series within your campaign. It gives you a format while allowing you freedom to play on your theme. So you can create a variety of ads that appeal to different audience preferences, increase brand awareness and recall, and even run A/B testing with them. It’s like how Traktor made a series of ads for Fox Sports. Ian says, ”They have one ad on an Indian sport and one on a Chinese sport. As the viewer, you realize it’s a series. It becomes something that’s beyond just a one-off thing. And now people think they’re so funny. That’s where ads are at their best, when it’s less of a one-off and more of something that’s ongoing.”
• Use your constraints to your advantage. Traktor leaned into their tight budget, and in doing so created stylized videos that were visually unique and captivating. Ian says, “If you don't have the budget, how can you steer into doing things grainier or less quality or unintentionally done in that way?”

Quotes

*”You're taking time from your audience. Traktor is giving them an exchange: Humor. They're giving you a giggle and a laugh. And that is something that is very important for us, to provide people value for their time. Time is the most valuable thing we have. So you better not waste it.” - Yuval Zukerman

*”No matter what your goal is in the content, stand up to your core set of values. Live up to those standards. I always tell my kids, ‘Are you proud of what you just did?’ Because there's something you can feel good that you delivered or created.” - Yuval Zukerman

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Yuval Zukerman, Senior Director, Head of Content at Domino Data Lab

[2:08] Why are we talking about ads by Traktor?

[3:01] What does Yuval’s work at Domino Data Lab entail?

[5:35] Learn more about Traktor

[12:07] What makes ads by Traktor remarkable?

[20:35] What are marketing lessons we can take from Traktor?

[27:58] What’s Yuval’s content strategy?

[33:02] How does Yuval get leadership buy-in on new content?

[41:40] How does Yuval prove the ROI of content?

Links

Check out films by Traktor

Connect with Yuval on LinkedIn

Learn more about Domino Data Lab

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Marketing is already pretty difficult. But when you can’t get buy-in from your boss, it becomes near-impossible. 

So what happens when you have a bad boss who doesn’t understand what you’re doing? Well, you have to learn to communicate with them. You have to learn to market to them.

This week, we’re looking at HBO’s “Succession.” Its main character, Logan Roy, is about as bad of a boss as it gets. His toxic leadership drives a cruel culture of power, hunger, and cold-blooded backstabbing. But whether his employees – who are also his children – achieve their goals is another thing altogether. 

Here to talk us through the marketing lessons from “Succession” is Tom Butta. Tom is a nine-time CMO and current Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer of Airship, a mobile app experience company. Aside from being a fan of “Succession,” Butta is an experienced executive who has worked to create billions of dollars of enterprise value for companies like SignalFx, Sprinklr, and RedHat. He’s also had his fair share of bad bosses.

With his help, we’re showing you how to put your message in terms your boss will understand, paint a picture of the future state, and choose the right person to pitch the idea to your boss.

About “Succession”

“Succession” is an HBO drama/comedy series that premiered in 2018. Its fourth and final season premieres March 26.The show stars Brian Cox as Logan Roy, with Jeremy Strong, Kieran Culkin, Alan Ruck and Sarah Snook playing his children, Kendall, Roman, Connor, and Siobhan, respectively. Matthew Macfadyen and Nicholas Braun also star in the show as fan favorites, Tom Wambsgans, Siobhan’s husband, and Greg Hirsch (lovingly known as “Cousin Greg”). 

“Succession” follows the story of Logan Roy, who is the head of the media conglomerate Waystar Royco. As he surpasses his eightieth birthday, he’s considering who will take over for him. The obvious choice is his eldest son, Kendall, who struggles to solidify his place as heir. But the remaining children also vie for the top place at Waystar Royco, pitting them against each other.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From “Succession”:

• Put your message in terms your boss will understand. You can rattle off whatever marketing jargon you want to your boss, but all the acronyms in the world may not be enough. Instead, you need to tailor your messaging to your boss. Learn what’s important to them, familiarize yourself with their priorities, and put things in terms your boss will understand. In “Succession,” each of the Roy children struggle to convince their father they’re the best heir for Waystar Royco – because they don’t know how to relate to him. The same thing happened to Butta: when his former employer was in danger of going out of business, Butta knew he needed to appeal to his boss with an idea to save the company. Butta did some reconnaissance to learn just what made his boss tick. Butta says he figured out that his former boss was a competitive salesman at heart – and that his boss was frustrated because his company didn’t have “a seat at the table” with big companies like Salesforce and Oracle. When he spent time talking to his boss to understand where he was coming from, Butta could then appeal to this desire in order to get him on board with the idea that ultimately saved the company from going under.

“When you visualize what a future state can look like, sometimes you can feel very alone in that. And so you have to figure out a way to get others to actually not just accept the idea, but in many ways make it their own. And so that means that the way in which you approach the work is to do a couple things. One is to appeal to what matters to them, and then secondly to actually use their own vocabulary and their language as you are presenting this sort of change path.” - Tom Butta, CMO, Airship

• Paint a picture of the future state for them. Don’t tell your boss what your idea looks like in practice – show them. Make it come to life. Butta had a vision for how to save his former company, but he needed to get his boss to agree. So he  mocked up two articles to look like they were from The Wall Street Journal. One said the company had gone bankrupt, and the other said the company rebounded. He showed the articles to his boss, presenting them as two paths forward. By painting the picture of two future states, he got his boss to change the company playbook. Butta pointed out that in “Succession,” “Nobody is pointing to an outcome. Nobody in ‘Succession’ has a path or a playbook. They’re just trying to advocate for themselves. And that’s why it fails.”
• Bring on a trusted partner to pitch your idea with. Behind every successful pitch is a great communicator – or two! In fact, it’s best not to do it alone. Find a partner who is whole-heartedly onboard with your pitch can confidently back you up when questions are asked. It’s also important that they’re a great public speaker – and hopefully even better than you are. Need an example? Look at Kendall Roy in “Succession.” Kendall struggles to solidify his place as successor to CEO of Waystar Royco because he’s insecure, lacks the charisma required to take on the role, and most importantly, he doesn’t have anyone to advocate for him either. Butta says, “It's not just about the idea, the logic, and the compelling evidence. It takes a certain type of an individual who can actually make it work.”

Quotes

*”When you visualize what a future state can look like, sometimes you can feel very alone in that. And so you have to figure out a way to get others to actually not just accept the idea, but in many ways make it their own. And so that means that the way in which you approach the work is to do a couple things. One is to appeal to what matters to them, and then secondly to actually use their own vocabulary and their language as you are presenting this sort of change path.”

*”You can't present the idea of doing something. You actually have to present it. Like, you just have to show it. People don't have any imagination. And so you need to tell the story.”

*”It's not just about the idea and the logic and the compelling evidence and all of that. It takes a certain type of an individual who can actually make it work.” 

Time Stamps

[1:35] Introducing Tom Butta, CMO at Airship

[2:14] Learn more about Airship

[8:02] What’s “Succession” about? 

[11:01] The making of “Succession”

[15:05] The keys to pitching an idea to your boss

[15:59] How do you effectively use change vocabulary?

[18:04] How to speak your boss’ language

[28:07] How do you choose the right people for your change agenda?

[30:09] How do you paint a picture of your idea for your boss?

[38:19] Why you should rethink the slide deck as your go-to presentation tool

Links

Watch “Succession”

Connect with Tom on LinkedIn

Listen to Marketing Strategies that Led to Billion-Dollar Acquisitions with Tom Butta on the Demand Gen Visionaries Podcast

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

How are you celebrating your hero product? Better yet, how are you activating your audience to celebrate your hero product?

7-Eleven has a lot to teach us about that with their Bring Your Own Cup Day. 

If you’ve never taken part, they encourage customers to bring in a vessel of choice to fill with Slurpee.

They’ve seen people bring in cowboy hats, kiddie pools, even a prosthetic leg, and fill them to the brim with that slushy, cold, refreshing fizzy iconic drink.

And customers are posting about it. It’s ALL over social media. 

Having your customers post to their own social media about your product is just about any marketer’s dream.

So let’s talk about how to do it! In this episode, we’re talking about marketing lessons from 7-Eleven’s Bring Your Own Cup Day.

With the help of our special guest, Chief Revenue Officer & Head of Marketing at Black Crow AI, JoAnn Martin, we talk about activating your community around your hero product, leaving it to the internet, and increasing the value of your engagement with customers.

About our guest, JoAnn Martin

JoAnn Martin is Chief Revenue Officer & Head of Marketing at Black Crow AI. Prior to joining the company in November 2023, she served as VP of Marketing at Electric. She has also held marketing leadership roles at Searchspring, Hanzo and Provenir. She serves as an advisor to UserGems.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Bring Your Own Cup Day:

• Activate your community around your hero product. Create opportunities for your audience to celebrate your core product. JoAnn says, “ It's finding the product and the fit with the market and figuring out how you put that in front of the right customer, which is really foundationally strategic marketing.  And that gives you great opportunities to have those celebrations or to create those experiences.” And Ian says, “It’s important to have a day,” like 7-Eleven’s Bring Your Own Cup Day, which celebrates their hero product, the Slurpee, by having customers bring in their own vessel of choice. It’s silly and fun and highlights the Slurpee as an iconic product.
• Leave it to the internet. Ask your audience online for input on your marketing. For instance, have them name a product, or get ideas for your next campaign. JoAnn says, “ When you leave things to the internet, great things can happen. But also it can go wheels off very fast. But that's part of the beauty of it, right? Is the wheels off-ness, is why it's novel and fun and you feel part of something. So you never know where it's going to go.” So maybe put some limits around what you ask for, but it’s a resource ready to be tapped into.
• Increase the value of your engagement with customers. Think about diversifying your offerings within the same vertical or to appeal to the same target buyer.  JoAnn says, “A lot of companies struggle with, ‘How do we find something else that increases the value of our engagement with a customer?’ Or ‘How do we build in an upsell strategy with our B2B SaaS company?’ You've launched a core product for your customers. And customers love that core product. But as you grow as a company, you need to be able to develop more value for them. And you need to be able to develop more value to broaden your addressable market. And one of the learnings I take away is that they went and found that value. And for us as B2B marketers, maybe we can be a little more creative about the way that we find that additional value we can bring to our customers all the time.” Like 7-Eleven was already appealing to kids with their penny candy and video games. Add on to that an option for sugar-caffeine-fizz fix and the Slurpee was bound to become a hit too.

Quotes

*” How do I better partner with my product teammates? What's this Product-Marketing relationship? How do we get away from Product builds a thing and throws it all over the wall and Marketing figures out how to talk about it?’ And it's a challenge. And I think this is a great example that those two disciplines are actually very tightly intertwined. And as marketers and product leaders and startups, we have to figure out how we're coming together to figure out what is that thing that celebrates our core product? What is the core product we put in front of a customer that has great fit for that customer and how do we figure out how to talk about it with them?”

*” The concept of really tightly intertwining your product and how your customers experience that product and how you talk about it is really inspiring.”

*” Great companies lean into the kind of messy pieces, but you have to be willing to lean into the kind of absurd, messy parts of the business.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet JoAnn Martin, Chief Revenue Officer & Head of Marketing at Black Crow AI

[2:49] The Concept and Impact of BYOC Day

[5:50] The Backstory Behind Slurpees

[11:24] Marketing Strategies and Customer Engagement

[15:09] Innovative Marketing and Product Development

[28:32] Upcoming Exciting Projects at Black Crow AI

Links

Connect with JoAnn on LinkedIn

Learn more about Black Crow AI

About 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Director Christopher Nolan once said:

“You have to do something that really excites you. It’s the things that you can bring to what you’re doing that maybe not everyone else is doing. That’s what’s going to distinguish the thing.”

That's the energy we’re taking into this episode of Remarkable. 

Guided by our guest this week, Jellyfish CMO Kyle Lacy, we’re taking marketing lessons from the Oscar-winning director, Christopher Nolan. Together, we talk about mastering each channel, building the day-to-day life of your buyer into your content, and much more.

About our guest, Kyle Lacy

Kyle Lacy is CMO at engineering management platform Jellyfish, the pioneer Engineering Management Platform that enables engineering leaders to align engineering work with strategic business objectives. There, he helps engineering leaders translate and maximize the business impact of their teams. Kyle has 17 years of experience in high-growth software. Prior to joining Jellyfish in November 2022, Kyle served as CMO of Lessonly. He has also led marketing at Seismic, OpenView, Salesforce and ExactTarget. He is a published author of three books: Twitter Marketing for Dummies, Branding Yourself, and Social CRM for Dummies. He is a marketing and digital trends speaker, having spoken at marketing and technology industry events around the world on content marketing, collaborative consumption, email marketing, technology trends, and more. He has been recognized as one of Indiana’s Forty-under-40 by the Indianapolis Business Journal, Anderson University’s Young Alumni of the Year and TechPoint’s Young Professional of the Year. But most importantly, he says, he’s the father of two boys, an energetic dog, and one too many books on World War II.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Christopher Nolan:

• Master each channel. Reach a deep understanding of what your audience wants and needs from each channel and create content for it. Kyle says once you've mastered the channels, “you can start creating brand content that is more creative and entertainment oriented and more about the human that's buying the product, not necessarily the product itself.” It’s like how Christopher Nolan has mastered fiction with Memento and Inception and non-fiction with Dunkirk and Oppenheimer. He understands what viewers of each genre are looking for and creates content specifically for them.
• Build the day-to-day life of the buyer into your marketing. Include different storylines and details in your content so that it shows an understanding of your audience and their lived experience. The more your content clicks with them, the more they’ll remember your brand when they’re ready to buy. Kyle says, “We sell to an engineering leader. There are 500 other things that that engineering leader is dealing with on a day to day basis that might not necessarily pertain to our product, but does lead to exuberance, stress, productivity…the Amazon package being late for his daughter's birthday present. So how do we build more of the day in the life of the buyer into our content? It's the human element that's the most interesting part of marketing.”

Quotes

*”When you've mastered your craft and you understand the minute technical details that make it enjoyable, whether that's marketing or producing a movie, you can make decisions and take risks because you understand what the impact will be because you've spent so much time obsessing over it. ” - Kyle Lacy

*”Christopher Nolan got very lucky that he has a brother that's a very good screenwriter. But he also understands how to surround himself with people that are very good at what they do. And I think part of being a manager - and it doesn't even have to be marketing - is that you have to find the people that truly love their craft and are good at what they do so that the end product, no matter what it is, is the best that you could possibly do.” - Kyle Lacy

*”Anybody can tune into a podcast about leadership values. And what does it take to be a great manager? Like there's 500 of them because it's easier to do. It's harder to do what we're doing right now. Y'all prepped for a Christopher Nolan-slash-CMO interview. But it's interesting, right? And that's why people like to be on it. That's why people listen to it. And that's, I think, this idea of illogical marketing, right? Like the more illogical you can be, the more creative it is and the more people enjoy it. It's just hard to grasp for a lot of marketers.” - Kyle Lacy

*”I think the nuance Is how you balance the extremely illogical podcast, weird direct mails, lego building sets, all the stuff that I think surprises and delights people with the other things that might not be as fun and creative but drive business value. And that's where I would love to tell you that there's a framework you should follow. But it's, what is enjoyable to the customer? How do you understand that they like it, whether that's an increase in listeners or shares, or you got more people wanting to be interviewed? And then it's that you're hitting the numbers that you put in front of the board, and that's ultimately the value.” - Kyle Lacy

*”You kill creativity when you try to apply too much ROI to a project. Doesn't mean you shouldn't track it, doesn't mean there shouldn't be ROI. But you sit down with a creative team and say, ‘Hey, let's think about how many downloads we can get or how much pipeline this thing is going to drive. And they just glaze over. Good creatives glaze over because you're not starting with the most important thing, which is the experience that thing is driving. You can work back, you can figure out the business impact of the thing. And it really depends on the piece of content, right? Like a playbook is going to be different than a podcast.  But I'd like to start with the experience and then back into the business impact because I think it just has more value and people are more creative when you start with the experience.” - Kyle Lacy

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Kyle Lacy, CMO at Jellyfish

[2:51] Exploring Christopher Nolan's Storytelling Techniques

[4:45] The Art of Making Complex Narratives Work

[7:31] Christopher Nolan's Unique Approach to Filmmaking

[10:14] Applying Nolan's Strategies to B2B Marketing

[17:47] Drawing Parallels Between Nolan's Work and Marketing

[18:52] Mastering Different Storytelling Formats

[21:32] The Human Element in Marketing and Filmmaking

[23:51] Exploring the Camera as a Character in Marketing

[24:59] The Human Element: The Core of Marketing and Storytelling

[26:26] Christopher Nolan's Mastery of Objects in Storytelling

[28:04] Marketing Lessons from Nolan's Use of Totems

[29:32] The Power of Mascots and Brand Identity

[31:33] Creative Choices in Filmmaking: The Case of Bane's Voice

[39:17] The Challenge of Balancing Creativity and Business Goals

[43:58] Advice for other CMOs

Links

Connect with Kyle on LinkedIn

Learn more about Jellyfish

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Picture this: tens thousands of fans screaming from the top of their lungs for more content from you, the B2B marketer.

It may sound more like how people react to superstars like Taylor Swift; there are tactics she uses in her branding that inspire intense fandom, like how Swifties can wear red lipstick, make beaded bracelets or decode hidden messages in her Instagram posts to own a bit of her brand for themselves. It’s all a part of a culture that Taylor Swift and her team of amazing marketers have meticulously cultivated over time. But who’s to say B2B marketers can’t borrow a bit of that marketing magic? 

In this episode, we’re turning to the artist with more #1 albums than any other woman in history: Taylor Swift, and seeing what new B2B marketing ideas we can learn from her. What about her brand has inspired such passion; the kind of passion that is expected to bring in more than $1 billion in ticket sales from her current tour? Joining us is Senior Director of Content Marketing at Lob, Kim Courvoisier. Together, we’re talking about the marketing behind Taylor Swift’s record-breaking tour, creating a shareable brand, and refreshing content to give your audience even more value. So layer on your Swifty bracelets and maybe a little something sparkly for this episode of Remarkable.

About Lob

Lob is the only direct mail automation platform for the digital age. Lob's platform automates the direct mail execution process for enterprises at any scale - from creation, printing, postage, delivery, and sustainability with end-to-end analytics and campaign attribution. Over 12,000 businesses trust Lob to transform their direct mail into intelligent mail. Founded in 2013 and based in San Francisco, Lob is venture-backed by Y Combinator, Polaris Partners, Floodgate, and First Round Capital.

About Taylor Swift and The Eras Tour

Taylor Swift is an American singer-songwriter who has more #1 albums than any other woman in history after her album “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” debuted at #1. The 33-year-old artist from Pennsylvania who was originally known for country music is known for her musical versatility and reinventing herself as an artist. As a cultural figure, she has had several high-profile news stories, including her dispute with Big Machine Records over ownership of the masters of her first 6 studio albums which led to her re-recording all of them, and another legal battle with Apple in 2015 over protecting artists’ rights to fair compensation for their work. She currently has 10 albums, and has sold 114 million albums worldwide. She’s won 12 Grammys, 19 Billboard Music Awards (the most of any woman), 40 American Music Awards, and more.  She has many trademarks, including hiding messages in her content, frequently using the number 13, wearing red lipstick, and going barefoot. Her fans call themselves Swifties.

The Eras Tour is a journey through all of Taylor Swift’s studio albums. It’s 131 concerts across five continents, and is expected to be the highest grossing tour in history. Tickets bring in more than $13 million a night, for an expected $1 billion+ overall. The average ticket costs $254. The Philadelphia Federal Reserve even reported that the tour is boosting economic growth, specifically related to hotel revenue. Taylor Swift has a 44-song set list and the concert is 3-hours long. The tour started on March 17th in Glendale, Arizona which was officially renamed “Swift City” for two days. The tour will wrap up on November 23rd, 2024 in Toronto.

About our guest, Kim Courvoisier

Kim Courvoisier is the Senior Director of Content Marketing at Lob, the only direct mail automation platform for the digital age. Kim is an experienced senior-level digital marketing leader with over 12 years of experience in SaaS marketing, specializing in B2B and B2C content marketing, social media, email marketing, customer lifecycle marketing, AI, and SEO. She is based in San Francisco, California.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Taylor Swift and The Eras Tour: 

• Re-use, recycle, repurpose your classic content. Look back at your past marketing content that did really well and see if you can get more juice out of it. Kim says, “A lot of times, I'll write an ebook, and it's like, ‘Okay, that was great for that campaign. Moving on,’ And I'm like, ‘No, no, no. That's all perfectly relevant content. We should reuse that, we should recycle it, we should repurpose that.’ And that's exactly what Taylor Swift is doing when she is re-releasing these albums because she's now driving eyeballs or ears back to that content.” So make the most of the content you’ve invested time and effort in in the past, and refresh it to give your customers added value today.
• Create a shareable culture around your brand. For Swifties, it’s making beaded bracelets, wearing the number 13, going barefoot, putting on red lipstick. And it inspires fans to create their own content or even make their own bracelets and sell them. Kim says, “It's helping this whole little generation become entrepreneurs, which I think is so incredible. I talk about marketing and [Taylor isn’t] keeping it for herself. She's sharing it with everyone, and I think there's no greater power as a marketer than to empower others. And she's absolutely doing that.” So extend your brand to include free elements that fans can own, get added value from, and make their own.

Quotes

“If your content isn't adding value, then you're just creating more noise.” - Kim Courvoisier

 “When [Taylor Swift] re-releases an album, she actually adds new content to it. Like content from the vault that wasn't on the original edition. And so it's adding more value. So that would be like if I took an old ebook that I had written and then put on an extra bonus chapter and re-released it. So I think there's a ton of lessons we can learn as marketers to go back and refresh and repurpose our content. And I get a ton of inspiration from that.” - Kim Courvoisier

Time Stamps

[0:54] Meet Kim Courvoisier, Senior Director of Content Marketing at Lob

[1:32] Why are we covering Taylor Swift?

[4:04] Tell me more about Taylor Swift

[10:32] Learn more about the record-breaking Eras Tour

[16:54] How do you create a shareable culture?

[22:39] What are marketing lessons we can learn from The Eras Tour?

[24:58] How to repurpose classic content and give your audience added value

[33:55] How to make content appeal to people who aren’t currently in the “buying mode”

[36:34] How does Kim think about the ROI of content?

[42:57] What are Kim’s favorite pieces of content she’s made at Lob?

[45:15] Tell me more about Lob’s 2023 State of Direct Mail and Consumer Insights Reports

Links

Listen to Taylor Swift

Learn more about The Eras Tour

Connect with Kim on LinkedIn

Learn more about Lob

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Corner! Sharp! Behind! For anyone who’s ever worked in a restaurant, you know these words mean a lot. It’s your language. For marketers, this is more like KPIs, ABM, ICP, Demand Gen. Using the lingo, the jargon, the correct terminology, is a powerful tool when you’re trying to reach and resonate with your target audience. You want to speak their language.

This means doing some market research to learn industry terms and how they’re used. This will also tell you a lot about what your audience cares about. And when you get it right, you’ll know. Your engagement will rise and so will your ROI.

This is what we’re talking about on today’s episode with JP Lespinasse, VP of Brand Marketing at Lightcast. JP and the Remarkable team are watching FX’s The Bear. Together, we’re talking about speaking the language of your audience, serving your audience what they crave, using familiar story recipes, and much, much more. So make yourself a sandwich and tuck in for this episode of Remarkable.

About our guest, JP Lespinasse

JP Lespinasse is VP of Brand Marketing at Lightcast. He has over 25 years of marketing, communications and partnerships experience. Previously, he served as Head of Content Marketing at PayPal and Executive: Director of Content Strategy and Management at IBM. He has also worked at companies like Gap/Old Navy, NOKIA, and the NBA.

About Lightcast

Lightcast, which is the merger of Emsi and BurningGlass, is the largest integrated data provider of jobs, skills, roles, and occupational data in the world.

They are a global pioneer in the collection and big-data analysis of information on the labor market. Their data provides the world’s most detailed information about occupations, skills in demand, and career pathways. 

Their tools collect real-time data from over 40,000 sources every day, contributing to a database with over 1 billion job postings and billions of other data points. They combine that with curated input from dozens of other statistical sources, like government agencies, to provide the most complete view possible of the fast-changing labor market. They put that information to work for businesses, communities, and education providers by showing them the granular details and big-picture trends they need in their organizations.

Whether you’re interested in software salaries in Seattle, need new skills in New Zealand, or looking for anything in between, Lightcast data can provide the insight you need.

About The Bear

The Bear is a show about an award-winning chef who leaves his Michelin star restaurant to go back to his hometown after his brother passes away to take over his brother’s sandwich shop. And so while struggling to keep the rowdy staff and messy kitchen running, he’s also trying to process and grieve his brother’s suicide. A lot of people who have worked in food service have said it’s a realistic depiction of what it’s actually like running a professional kitchen. At any moment it feels like it’s going to all fall apart, and it deals with the health inspections, payroll, dirty floors, plumbing and all of the tiny details that make it seem real. It stars Jeremy Allen White as “Carmy” Berzatto, Ebon Moss-Bachrach as the restaurant manager, Ayo Edibiri as the new sous chef, and more. The show was created by Christopher Storer for FX and has two seasons out on Hulu. The first season received 13 Emmy nominations including outstanding comedy series.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From The Bear: 

• Serve your audience what they crave. Do research to understand their wants and needs. Then aim for continuous improvement. In The Bear, JP says that the main character, Carmi, knows that he can’t keep making Michelin star-level food when he takes over his brother’s sandwich shop. The customers just want the sandwich they know and love from The Beef. JP says, “For us as marketers and for Carmi and the staff at The Beef, it’s so important that in those first few episodes, it wasn't about changing anything. It was just about really focusing and listening and understanding the audience. What do they want? What do they come back for? How do I continue to serve them that?” This is especially true for marketers joining a new company where you see room for improvement. Don’t try to change everything at once. But make small changes along the way that will raise the quality of your output without alienating customers.
• Use familiar story recipes. We know the rags to riches, or in this case, riches to rags storytelling recipe. Because it works. Using these known recipes reels in your audience more easily because it feels familiar. It’s something they can immediately relate to. Yet it doesn’t mean the rest of the story is formulaic or that the ending is obvious. It’s just a place to start and hook your audience. Plus twists and turns in the storyline later will be even more of a surprise. When it comes to The Bear, Ian says, “Everybody and their brother has been to Chicago. And everyone has been to a sandwich shop in Chicago. So this idea that is so familiar, which is like, ‘Person moves back home to Chicago and takes over a sandwich shop, even though they're Michelin star.’ We just all immediately are like, ‘Okay, I've been to a sandwich shop in Chicago and I totally know how that feels.’” 
• Make it feel real by showing the good, the bad and the meh. You will speak most effectively to marketers by acknowledging the less glamorous and even mundane parts of their job. JP said it best when he said The Bear “took off because all of these folks who had worked at restaurants were like, ‘Yep, that's exactly how it is.’ It's just so important to speak authentically to your audience.” And Ian adds, “If you don't really care, if you want to do the Grey's Anatomy version of it, right? Like, that's fine too, and it probably will be really commercially successful. But you won't get the diehards. And in today's day and age where the diehards are so vocal, it's a much more valuable currency to get the little details right.” So The Bear doesn’t shy away from the feeling of losing sense of time when you’re in the weeds, swamped with orders, or the payroll, plumbing, and no-shows. That’s why it resonates.

Quotes

*”Marketers sometimes do ourselves a disservice. You’ve written 17 drafts of this webpage before it goes up. And so by the time it goes up, you're sick of it. And you're ready to change it immediately. The audience has never seen it before, right? The average person who comes to a webpage, they stay for a minute and a half, right? Like, so they're not going deep into all the individual words, the pictures and how you've architected it. So just let it sit. Let it breathe.” - JP Lespinasse

*”Back when I worked at IBM, we canceled and reworked a whole campaign because we'd done all this due diligence and were going to put some messaging out to the developer audience. And then at the last minute, we're like, ‘You know what? We should show this to some developers before we put it out into the world.’ And so we invited them over for pizza and a chat, and they're like, ‘Yeah, that's not how we talk. That's how the movies show how we talk, but that's not really authentically how we talk.’ And so we used all their feedback to rework the campaign.” - JP Lespinasse

Time Stamps

[0:54] Meet JP Lespinasse, VP of Brand Marketing at Lightcast

[1:23] What’s remarkable about The Bear?

[4:26] What does JP do at Lightcast?

[7:54] What’s The Bear about?

[20:11] How was The Bear created? Learn about its backstory.

[26:03] What B2B marketing lessons can we take from The Bear?

[30:57] How can you elevate your brand?

[33:01] Why is it important to understand the language of your audience?

[44:09] How does JP approach the challenge of measuring ROI in content and brand?

[55:58] What role does brand play in B2B?

Links

Watch The Bear

Connect with JP on LinkedIn

Learn more about Lightcast

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

You can control your content. But you can’t control who sees it.

That’s why you need to write both for your niche audience and the general public.

Though writing for both is tricky, in this episode, we’re learning from the masters.

We’re talking about Monty Python and the Holy Grail with the help of our guest, Emmanuel “Manu” Cohen, VP of Marketing at Walnut.io.

Together, we talk about making your weakness the cornerstone of your content, being down-to-earth and using self-deprecating humor, and writing for both your niche audience as well as the general public.

About our guest, Emmanuel Cohen

Manu leads marketing at Walnut.io. He worked for 7 years at Wix, where he managed the social presence and blogs - and took part in 5 Super Bowl campaigns. He has also spoken about social media content at many marketing events, including Social Media Week. Most recently, Manu created an employer branding video for Walnut that went viral in Israel (and did it in less than a week).

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Monty Python and the Holy Grail:

• Make your weakness the cornerstone of your content. Ian says, “What [Monty Python] did was they took their biggest weakness, which is ‘We don't have a lot of money.’ How do you tell a medieval story without horses? That’s when they had this crazy idea for the coconuts. So instead of coming up with this crazy idea and making it a gag once and that's it, they built it as a cornerstone of the story.” And Manu points out that the coconuts became a running gag, which is a tactic marketers can use, too. He says, “I think people enjoy the wink, you know? ‘Oh, I know what they are referencing.’ It creates an emotional connection.” When you not only acknowledge your shortcomings but commit to highlighting them, they become a point of definition and differentiation. Iconic, even. So stand out from the other B2B content by making your weaknesses your strengths.
• Be down-to-earth (and maybe even a little self-deprecating.) Manu says, “I can't hear someone telling me another time that there is cutting-edge technology that's going to revolutionize an industry. I read this sentence so many times that it's like, ‘Come on,’ you know? Show some self-derision and take yourself a nudge down. Be honest about what you are trying to do instead of being pompous, trying to oversell and to show your muscles. I think it worked 20 years ago. Today, it doesn't work. Today, you need to talk to your audience honestly.” It’s like how though the members of Monty Python were well-educated, having gone to Oxford and Cambridge, they used plenty of low-brow and self-deprecating humor. So when you’re writing content, keep in mind that people easily sniff out hyperbole. So be real in your content, especially about what your product does - or doesn’t - do. 
• Write for both your niche audience and the general public. In other words, appeal to both the human and the industry specialist. Manu says, “[Monty Python] knows their topic. And this is the very basis of their success. They know the story [of King Arthur] very well. They know the time very well. They know the history very well. And then they can make jokes that are on one side that address people who understand what they are talking about. And on the other hand, they need to make jokes that are large enough to address a wide audience.”

Quotes

*”When you think about all the creative work that everyone is doing, they’re spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on each video so it looks good. But you don't care if it looks good if the story is right. The creativity needs to be there, but you don't need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to make good creative work.” - Manu Cohen

*”The absolute genius is that instead of taking the lack of budget as a problem, they turn it to their advantage, right? Por them, it's an opportunity to be more creative.” - Manu Cohen

*”Creativity has outsized results. Boring stuff does not have outsized results. Boring things don't go viral.” - Ian Faison

*”Find the crazy thing and pull the thread. Find your version of the coconut. Continue going with that as far as you can go.” - Ian Faison

*”People are trying too hard to sell the benefits, when in fact benefits are not really important. What people try to solve are pains. So solve a pain with a good story.” - Manu Cohen

*”Owning the story is much more powerful than selling a feature or even selling a product. The story is your ‘why.’ Why you do stuff. And people connect with that.” - Manu Cohen

*”What we're trying to do is always do more. And always trying to create a motion that moves toward more creativity, even if it means a huge failure, right? Because first of all, failure is learning. And second, because you have more of a chance of getting better by trying and failing than by not trying at all. Or by trying what everyone else is doing, which is boring because everyone else is playing it safe. But it's boring. You need to try stuff, to take risks.” - Manu Cohen

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Emmanuel “Manu” Cohen, VP of Marketing at Walnut.io

[2:59] Exploring the Genius of Monty Python and the Holy Grail

[6:48] Manu's Marketing Insights Inspired by Monty Python

[15:01] Breaking the Mold: Creative Marketing on a Budget

[16:57] The Power of Creativity Over Budget in Marketing

[24:38] Embracing Humor in Marketing

[27:11] The Power of Storytelling and Creativity

[28:37] Leveraging Absurdity and Running Gags

[31:41] Building Emotional Connections Through Stories

[34:12] The Importance of Taking Risks in Marketing

[41:18] Content Strategy and the ROI of Creativity

Links

Watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Connect with Manu on LinkedIn

Learn more about Walnut.io

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Marketing is like magic.

It takes the right words in the right tone to cast a spell on your audience. 

That’s what we’re talking about today with the help of our special guest, Kendra Walters, Director of Content Strategy at SAP Concur. 

Together, we’re chatting about marketing lessons from Harry Potter, including having a ‘red thread’ tying your content to your storyline, creating a repeatable structure for your content, and creating a mystery worth solving.

About our guest, Kendra Walters

Kendra Walters is Director of Content Strategy at SAP Concur. Here, she leads the content strategy for Enterprise Americas developing compelling, unique, and engaging content that drives awareness for the company’s world-leading travel and expense solutions. She has been with the company over 11 years and built the center of excellence for content strategy in 2015 where she has developed and grown a team of talented marketers who have brought home several awards including two Killer Content Awards. 

Kendra’s multi-faceted marketing background spanning over 15 years in tech, medical, and financial services allows her to relate to a multitude of audiences and put the customer at the center. She has a breadth of knowledge in B2B content strategy, development, lifecycle, and optimization as well as demand generation, GTM strategy, and field marketing. Also a trained graphic designer and writer with a passion for storytelling, she strives to bring a unique voice to each piece of content and campaign put into market.

About SAP Concur

SAP Concur is the world’s leading brand for integrated travel, expense, and invoice management solutions, driven by a relentless pursuit to simplify and automate these everyday processes. The highly-rated SAP Concur mobile app guides employees through business trips, charges are directly populated into expense reports, and invoice approvals are automated. By integrating near real-time data and using AI to analyze transactions, businesses can see what they’re spending, improve compliance, and avoid possible blind spots in the budget. SAP Concur solutions help eliminate yesterday’s tedious tasks, make today’s work easier, and support businesses to run at their best.

About Harry Potter

Harry Potter is a story about an orphan boy named Harry Potter who finds out he’s a wizard. The story follows Harry and his closest friends, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, through each school year at Hogwarts School of Wizardry. It started as a series of 7 books by author J.K. Rowling, the first being Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, which was released in 1997.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Harry Potter:

• Have a ‘red thread’ that connects your content to your storyline. Tell your audience a continuous story. Make connections between pieces of content for a sense of cohesiveness. Kendra says, “Don’t just do ‘random acts of marketing.’ Use that red thread to carry through, from the top of the funnel when someone is seeking you out in SEO, all the way to the bottom when you close, and even through renewals.” She adds, “Look at your storytelling like a seven chapter or a seven part book with multiple subplots.”
• Create a repeatable structure for your content. It makes your job easier, and creates a familiar blueprint your audience will recognize. Ian says that with each Harry Potter book, “There’s that structure. You know each book is a school year.” And we can apply that to marketing, he says, in that “You need to have sign posts for your audience so that they know exactly what they're getting into.” Kendra adds, “There's a formulaic structure to the books. Layered on top of all of these subplots and plots and characters. And so, I think having that formula to your campaigns or your content is a great way to think about it.”
• Create a mystery worth solving. B2B marketing doesn’t make you think analytically or engage your problem solving skills. But it should. Make your audience think, analyze, question the ideas in your content to engage them more deeply in your brand. Ian says, “Most B2B marketing or content is literally just telling you what the thing is, right? It's not creating any controversy. It's not creating multiple points of view. It's not debating things that could happen. In B2B marketing, you need to create stuff that people can disagree about.”

Quotes

*”We talk about this idea of human to human marketing, B2B people are still people and you're still buying from a human but we have the least human marketing possible. We have the least human content possible.” - Ian Faison

*”A lot of time we write content that's for us and not for our customers or our audience. And so use words that mean something to them, not just mean something to you. What questions are they actually asking when they're searching for something in SEO? And is the content answering those questions?” - Kendra Walters

*”Building that context to know when to use what type of content at what point in the funnel is something that can give you a lot more information than just like, ‘Oh, how many people looked at my webpage?’” - Kendra Walters

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Kendra Walters, Director of Content Strategy at SAP Concur

[4:02] The Enchantment of Storytelling: Harry Potter's Impact and Creation

[11:51] Masterful Storytelling: Plotting, Pacing, and Character Development in Harry Potter

[20:18] Translating Magic into Marketing: Key Takeaways from Harry Potter for B2B Marketers

[26:17] Diving Deep into Harry Potter Fandom

[27:40] Creating Raving Fans: The Harry Potter Effect

[28:05] The Mystery and Engagement in Storytelling

[29:04] B2B Marketing Insights from Harry Potter

[30:21] Emotional Takeaways and the Power of Choices

[31:44] Relatability and Human Elements in B2B Marketing

[36:31] Content Strategy and Audience Engagement

[38:33] The Impact of Content Marketing and Measuring ROI

[41:58] Campaign Success Stories and Advice for Content Strategists

[46:57] Concluding Thoughts on Harry Potter and Content Marketing

Links

Watch Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Listen to SAP Concur Conversations

Connect with Kendra on LinkedIn

Learn more about SAP Concur

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Your product is a life hack. Or maybe it’s technically a work hack. Use that to your advantage.

Because everyone wants work to be easier, to go more smoothly, to be more efficient. 

So if you can serve them up a shortcut that feels like a secret and looks pretty too, they’ll be easy to convert. 

That’s why we’re taking lessons from Stanley and how they unlocked a whole new audience with the release of their life hack: the Quencher. 

Together with Celigo’s Content Director, Leah Westfall, we chat about marketing your product as a lifehack, tapping into the FOMO, and offering aesthetic options.

About our guest, Leah Westfall

Leah Westfall is Content Director at Celigo, a leading integration platform-as-a-service (iPaaS). She joined the company in August 2024. At Celigo, she is building a team of content strategists and writers, and working to bring their    platform to market through full-funnel integrated campaigns. Prior to her current role, she co-founded innovative software platform Moxie. There, she also shaped the go-to-market and content strategies. She has also previously served as Director of Content Marketing at RingCentral and Content Manager at Connect First, Inc.

About Celigo

Celigo is the leading enterprise-grade integration platform that blends cutting-edge AI with technology, enabling organizations to discover, automate, and optimize every business process. ​​The Celigo platform is called “Integator.io.” About 1000+ customers use it. Celigo’s customers use it to set up integrations to and from NetSuite, Salesforce, Hubspot, and 100s of other connectors.

About Stanley

The company has been around since 1913. It was founded by William Stanley Jr., who was an inventor. And he created a vacuum-sealed steel bottle that would keep whatever was inside hot or cold, longer. Stanley has become known for making long-lasting functional products. For the longest time, their hammertone green steel thermoses were what your grandfather or dad would take camping or to work. 

Now, the Stanley Quencher has become really popular among women primarily. It’s now less of a purely utilitarian object, and more of a fashion accessory. The Quencher is a steel bottle with a lid and straw. The bottom is tapered so it fits in a cup holder. It comes in different sizes, but it was originally a 40-ounce bottle. And you can get it in tons of different colors, and even customize it with different designs. It retails for $45 dollars and up.

The popularity has been credited to various blogs and sites over the past few years. But it’s mainly thought that sisters Ashlee LeSueur and Taylor Cannon along with their cousin, Linley Hutchinson who run e-commerce blog The Buy Guide, were the ones responsible for its recent surge in sales. The Quencher was one of the first products featured in 2017.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From the Stanley Quencher:

• Market your product as a life hack. Let your audience into a little secret: Your product will make their lives easier, save them time, and streamline their workflow. Leah says, “People want to do their jobs better, faster, smarter, more efficiently. So are we able to provide a hack or a tool that allows people to go and solve their pain point or solve the thing that's so annoying in their day to day business? It's like, is there a way to do this better?”
• Tap into the FOMO. Leverage your superfans with a large social audience to evangelize your brand and amplify a sense of FOMO, or likewise, inclusivity. Leah says, “It’s like, ‘Oh, I see somebody with this and they look like me. So if they're using that, I should probably use that too,’ or like, ‘We're similar because we both appreciate the same things and live this active lifestyle and want to be healthy. So if she has it, I should probably have it also.’ Because we buy the same things. We have a similar mindset. We have the same goals. We have the same pain points. So people are drawn to this feeling of inclusivity.” Ian adds that Stanley also creates demand by releasing limited runs of their tumblers. He says, “The constrained nature of the supply and demand aspect is always interesting. Like, that there's a limited number and they would keep selling out. Everybody always wants something that's sold out.”
• Offer aesthetic options. It could be as simple as letting customers choose their color, or customizing what their product looks like. Ian says, “the colors [of the Stanley Quencher] are really cool, and they do 100 percent stand out. And I think there's just a great marketing lesson here about variety being the spice of life. People like to accessorize. Not just to accessorize their bodies or their appearance, but people just like having options.”

Quotes

*”A water bottle doesn’t have to be just red or blue anymore. You can get matte orchid or ice cream pink. And it's flipping the idea that it has to come in a really outdoorsy kind of color. What use to be red, blue, or green now comes in pale pink. It's like, ‘Oh, that was made for me.’ It gives people the option or chance to have their identity tied into your product a little bit.” - Leah Westfall

*”One thing that’s so important is this idea of the influencer. Finding them and using those channels. Then you need to find a way to accelerate them. Once they're out there and they're doing their thing, the secondary piece is getting your customers in the same room as your prospects. That's a big thing for B2B marketing. Use your influencers, use your key customers, help accelerate their stories, let them tell it in an authentic way, and then put them in virtual rooms or physical rooms, in digital spaces with prospects so that they can then share their stories organically.” - Ian Faison

*”We are all consumers by nature. But we can tell when we're being marketed to, and that's such a turnoff, especially to younger generations. So tell that story in a really authentic way, like in a case study or a customer success story, allowing the people to be like, ‘We didn't know what we were doing. We just went out and we had this major problem,’ being really honest and raw. That's good marketing and good storytelling because of the authenticity.” - Leah Westfall

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet the Content Director at Celigo, Leah Westfall

[1:49] Why are we talking about the Stanley Quencher?

[3:04] What does Leah’s role at Celigo entail?

[4:04] Tell me more about Stanley and the Quencher tumbler

[12:28] What makes the Stanley Quencher remarkable?

[22:26] What marketing lessons can we take from Stanley and the Quencher?

[41:42] What’s Leah’s content strategy?

[43:54] What upcoming projects is Leah working on at Celigo?

[45:22] What advice would Leah give other marketing professionals?

Links

Get a Stanley Quencher

Connect with Leah on LinkedIn

Learn more about Celigo

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Marketing is a serious business. Even when it’s silly.

See, you still want your silly, funny content to be well planned, well-executed, and well distributed. 

In this episode, we’re talking about how to take your sillies seriously.

That’s one of the marketing lessons we’re taking from Hamburger Helper’s Watch the Stove Mixtape. 

With the help of our special guest, HiBob CMO Sarah Reynolds, we also talk about how to run little content experiments, listening to your customers, and doubling down on your big wins.

About our guest, Sarah Reynolds

Sarah Reynolds (they/them) is Chief Marketing Officer at HiBob. An openly non-binary executive, Sarah writes widely about diversity and inclusion, pay equity, the future of work, and the intersection of bias, ethics, and technology. They love spicy food, and can frequently be found in their garden tending to their many varieties of hot chili pepper plants.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Hamburger Helper:

• Take your sillies seriously. If you’re going to make funny or silly content, it should still be well planned and executed. Otherwise it can come off as cringey and become something you’re not proud of. Ian says, “ [Hamburger Helper] did take the art part of [the mixtape] seriously. And that's when the music is actually good. If it was a stupid a** song that sounded bad, it would not have gone viral. It wouldn't have been popular.”
• Run little content experiments. Before you go through all the trouble of building out a campaign, tease the idea to your audience and see what catches. Ian says, “ I love the little cheap or free experiments that you can run by just throwing the tweet out there, putting it in an article, putting it in your newsletter, teasing something. So few people tease stuff because they're worried that if they don't do it, that somehow this is going to like disappoint some corporate overlords. But if you tease something and nobody ever asks you about it ever again, you probably shouldn't have made it in the first place. If you tease something and you don't do it and people ask you about it, then you have more reason to go make the thing.” Hamburger Helper’s mascot, Lefty, tweeted about dropping a mixtape and it was the tweet that got the most engagement. So when their marketing team was tasked with doing something unique and different, they knew it was time to make the mixtape.
• Listen to your customers. If you tease your content ideas and you get lots of engagement, make the content. Give the people what they want. Sarah says, “ The original idea for [the mixtape] was a tweet from multiple years before the mixtape dropped where Lefty made a joke about releasing a mixtape and suddenly it was their most liked tweet of all time. And then subsequently over the intervening years, would make occasional jokes about the mixtapes almost ready and like the customers, the fans are like, ‘Yes, do it. I dare you.’ And I mean at that point, you got years of data saying customers want this, right? Is it our core business? No, but let's see what happens if we give it to them.”
• If you have a big win, make a sequel. Or even a series. Like Hamburger Helper should have made a second or even third mixtape because this one did so well. Ian says, “ Once you have a hit, just keep winning.  It's so hard in the marketing world to ever give anybody something that they love. And once you do it, you just gotta keep going with it.  I think my biggest takeaway is once you find something good, build it into a series.”

Quotes

*"My first focus was inclusivity and accessibility. Let's make sure that the way that we represent ourselves is really holding true to our corporate values that focus on DEIB, that really speaks to every single person that we want to. Let's make sure that we look at things like color contrast. Let's make sure that we look at things like the typography that we're using and the brand styling that we're using, and we're making it so that it's accessible to all of the people that we want to reach, not just because my queer, disabled, non binary a** told you to do so, but because this is genuinely what we believe as a brand, and this is what we want to put out into the world, and this is what we want people to know about us, we want to lead in this space. So does that come with a very clear, direct ROI number? No, it doesn't. It comes with doing the right thing and being different and making sure that we're prioritizing the things that really matter to us and to our community and to our audience. We're being something for someone in a way that maybe not every brand in this space is thinking about.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Sarah Reynolds, CMO at HiBob

[1:16] The Origin of the 'Watch the Stove' Mixtape

[4:03] HiBob: Revolutionizing HR Tech

[5:44] Creating the ‘Watch the Stove’ Mixtape: From Idea to Execution

[11:12] The Impact and Legacy of 'Watch the Stove'

[33:00] Risks and Rewards in Marketing

[36:18] The Power of Listening to Customers

[43:31] Embracing Authenticity in Marketing

[45:28] Content That Provides Value

[49:43] Balancing Data and Vibes

[54:55] Final Thoughts and Plugs

Links

Connect with Sarah on LinkedIn

Learn more about HiBob

About 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

We knew this day would come. The day where we finally talk about the one tech company all others look up to: Apple. 

The truth is that the behemoth has endured ups and downs to become one of the greatest brands of all time, and all under the leadership of Steve Jobs. 

So in this episode, we’re taking marketing lessons from Steve Jobs based on his biography by Walter Isaacson with the help of our guest, Jotform CMO Steve Hartert. 

Together, we talk about being insatiably curious about your customers, daring to fail, and exercising your creativity. 

About our guest, Steve Hartert

Steve Hartert is the chief marketing officer at Jotform. He’s had more than 30 years of B2B and B2C marketing management experience. Prior to Jotform, he was the president of Hartert & Associates, a marketing consultancy that worked with B2B and B2C companies. Steve has been actively involved in marketing internet companies since 1995. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Cal Poly Pomona and an MBA from Cal State San Bernardino.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Steve Jobs:

• Be insatiably curious about your customers. Use their actions and feedback to inform your marketing. Appeal to what drives them and hook them emotionally. Steve says, “Look at how people use your products, your services… look how people use them. Really have a good, solid understanding of that customer's wants and needs. And sometimes they don't know what they want or need until you show them. 
• Dare to fail. Experiment and strive for greatness despite the possibility of missing the mark. Steve says, “Business people and businesses in general pull back the reins because they're afraid of failure for some reason. But failure teaches you how to succeed.”
• Exercise your creativity. It takes practice stepping outside the bounds of traditional B2B marketing. But creative content makes you stand out from your competitors. Steve says, “How do you get the message out to people to want to now partake in your product or service? You have to be creative to get their attention and keep that attention and then make that product sell and continue to grow.”

Quotes

*”He just did what he thought needed to be done to create the right. work. And like that message to me is something that we so rarely do in marketing. Which is like, ‘What is the amount of work that needs to happen to create something great?’ And so often we say, ‘What is good enough?’ And you have to do that, right? You have to do things that are good enough sometimes. But if you want to make something great, you have to do a great amount of work.” - Ian Faison

*”You need to sit there and look at the problem you're trying to solve from multiple angles. A lot of times what I have seen in marketing and in other disciplines of business is people sometimes get surrounded by ‘yes’ people. They don't want to hear a bad thing. ‘Oh, we're weak in this area,’ or ‘We're not good at that.’ You need to hear it. Because if you don't address the full 360 around your product or service, to be able to defend it when something goes wrong, you're just walking yourself into a trap. And that's just a big blind spot that a lot of people have.” - Steve Hartert

*”[Apple] had about a hundred ideas on this whiteboard. ‘These are great.’ And then [Steve Jobs] said, ‘Okay, pick four of them because that's all we can do.’ So they ended up having to focus on what products they were going to be working on for the next two or three years. And now you've got such clarity in the focus that you can't make a mistake on what you're trying to do. And that's very important. When companies lose that [focus], they get distracted by shiny things, by the latest trend or something that they could pop out there so they can get the stock price up for the next quarter. And so they just kind of bob and weave rather than pushing through on a forward path and saying, ‘We're going to do this and it's going to be tough to get there, but we need to do it.’” - Steve Hartert

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Steve Harter, CMO at Jotform

[3:14] Exploring the Genius of Steve Jobs Through Isaacson's Biography

[5:36] The Art of Perfection: Lessons from Steve Jobs

[9:45] Marketing Insights and the Pursuit of Excellence

[15:07] Crafting Content with Precision: A Marketing Deep Dive

[23:07] Strategic Focus and Innovation: The Apple Way

[26:22] Unlocking Marketing Success: The Power of Focus

[28:43] Steve Jobs' Legacy: A Lesson in Creativity and Control

[31:07] Marketing and Creativity: Connecting the Dots

[36:18] Jotform’s Marketing Strategy

[39:57] Content Creation: Telling Stories That Resonate

[46:34] Advice for Crafting a Winning Content Strategy

Links

Read Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

Connect with Steve on LinkedIn

Learn more about Jotform

About 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Do you think of your customers as simple consumers of your brand? If so, you’re missing out on the opportunity to turn them into diehard brand ambassadors. 

The key to inspiring impassioned brand loyalty is simple: engage your customers more deeply. Get them talking about your brand. Get them asking questions. And what better way to get your customers engaged than to instill a little mystery in your content?

In this episode, we’re looking at the award-winning hit series Only Murders in the Building for lessons on incorporating some mystery into your marketing. We’ll show you how to use interactive marketing, engage your audience’s critical thinking skills, and get people talking about your brand.

About Only Murders in the Building

Only Murders in the Building is a mystery-comedy series released in 2021. Created by Steve Martin and John Hoffman, the show is about three residents who live in a luxury apartment building in New York City. The trio becomes unlikely friends after they team up to solve the mystery around the death of one of their neighbors – and start a podcast to document it. The award-winning series stars Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez. Only Murders in the Building is the most watched comedy premiere on Hulu to date, ranked in Nielsen’s top 10 for weeks following its release, and the first season is rated 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. If you're looking to add a little mystery in your marketing, there's no better example to follow.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Only Murders in the Building: 

• Create an interactive experience for customers. Offer them access points across different platforms or mediums to engage with your brand. Only Murders in the Building gives viewers several opportunities to become detectives themselves. The Emmy award-winning series hid clues relating back to the series across multiple platforms — including at an in-person pop-up event. To promote the show, Hulu also created “ambient rooms,” or video scenescapes of each character’s apartment where viewers could spend time looking for clues to the murder mystery. Clues were hidden in the music, ambient noise, fleeting images, or were even items within the room! It’s this level of audience engagement, suspense, and storytelling that led to the show’s incredible success. 
• Don’t reinvent the wheel…entirely. Martin Short and Steve Martin are a well-known comedy duo and have an amazing on-screen chemistry. Only Murders in the Building took their existing relationship and created something entirely new with it. The addition of pop icon Selena Gomez to the cast as the show’s final detective adds to the promise that viewers will be watching something new. If you’ve created ads, or marketing campaigns that have been successful in the past, take elements of what’s worked well and spin them to create something new. No need to completely reinvent what has already resonated with your audience! 
• Intrigue your audience with mystery. Engage your audience’s critical thinking skills by leaving room to the imagination. Only Murders in the Building builds layers of intrigue with the mysterious death of Tim Kono. But as the show goes on, the mysteries only deepen, and the series slowly reveals that each of the three main characters have dark secrets of their own. In your B2B marketing, create storylines that are playful, suspenseful, and leave some room for your audience to fill in the gaps themselves. Everyone loves a good challenge and piecing together clues to get to the bigger picture.

Key Quotes

*”Fans are really into mysteries and theories. They like little surprises that involve them and make people feel like they can be a part of the show, a part of solving these mysteries.” - Anagha Das

*”Having the show turn into like a bit of a puzzle just creates for a more activating, interactive experience where you're not just sitting there passively consuming content. You actually have to turn your brain on and activate, becoming essentially a part of the show. Your own detective.” - Dane Eckerle

*”Every company is presenting some kind of solution that's solving a problem. I wonder if there's some opportunity to make some content around solving that problem, in making that into some kind of mystery.” - Colin Stamps

*”One huge benefit and advantage of utilizing mystery is just getting people to discuss things and have a conversation, to talk about what they're seeing or what they're feeling.” - Dane Eckerle

Time Stamps

[1:23] Tell me more about Only Murders in the Building

[5:26] Why should you use mystery in your marketing?

[8:05] How do you get deeper audience engagement?

[11:46] How do you apply mystery to your marketing campaign?

[17:32] What other companies have used mystery in their marketing?

[21:04] What's the key to a great mystery? 

[23:01] How can comedy and mystery be used together for greater impact?

Links

Watch Only Murders in the Building

See how Dove used a sense of mystery in their Real Beauty campaign

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Your content should haunt your audience.

Not in a spooky kind of way. But in a way where it sticks with them and they think about it later. 

So in this episode, we’re helping you revive your content strategy.

We’re talking about Ghosts, the U.K. TV series, with the help of special guest, Director of Content Strategy at Acquia, Courtney Roe. 

Together, we talk about infusing your core values in your content, adapting to appeal to new audiences, and multiplying your content-creating power.

About our guest, Courtney Roe

Courtney Roe is Director of Content Strategy at Acquia, a cloud platform for building, delivering and optimizing websites. She joined the company in January of 2023. Prior to her current role, she served as Director of Content Strategy for Widen, an Acquia company, where she spent over six years in different roles. She also has experience in merchandising, having worked at L.L. Bean and Kohl’s. 

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Ghosts:

• Infuse your core values in your content. Use them as a foundation that brands your content as uniquely your own. Courtney says this is important especially if you’re migrating content after an acquisition. She says, “For any product or company that has been acquired, you're going to have to ultimately give a little bit in order to fit into the new world that they're creating. But if you have a strong foundation and really know who you are at your core, you're not going to lose that foundation, even if your name and your branding need to change along the way.” It’s like how Ghosts U.K. was also adapted for a U.S. audience but is still built on the same foundation.
• Adapt to appeal to new audiences. As your brand grows, research your new target audiences and run tests to see what content resonates with them. Courtney says, “You need to find that right mix of what worked for your initial audience and then how it might need to shift to appeal to a new one. And then also just like learning from others that came before you.” There are undoubtedly differences between the U.K. and U.S. versions of Ghosts based on the style of TV series already popular in each market.
• Multiply your content-creating power by splitting up your marketing team and brainstorming new content ideas individually. Then regroup and share. This way you get an exponential increase in ideas compared to brainstorming as a group. Ian says, “I’ve found after doing hundreds of brainstorms with B2B marketing teams specifically that It's really important to do. But it also can be challenging, especially remotely, and that usually you're fitting in between meetings or whatever. But I think it is really important to let people go build something themselves and then bring it up to the larger team.” This is how the six writers behind Ghosts came up with ideas for each episode. Co-creator Mathew Baynton said, “It’s productive and fast – you get six first drafts in about the same time as you’d normally get one.” Divide and conquer!

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Courtney Roe, Director of Content Strategy Acquia

[4:14] What is Ghosts about?

[7:58] Behind the Scenes: Creating Ghosts

[13:44] Applying Ghosts' Lessons to B2B Marketing

[15:41] The Collaborative Writing Process of Ghosts

[17:41] Building Trust and Cohesion in B2B Marketing

[20:19] Exploring Character Influence in Creative Writing

[20:50] The Role of UX and Audience Understanding in Product Marketing

[21:33] B2B Marketing Insights from the Show 'Ghosts'

[22:13] Adapting and Knowing Your Audience in Business

[22:58] Learning from Adaptation: TV Shows and Business Strategies

[23:50] Merging Marketing Visions in Business Acquisitions

[26:01] Content Strategy and Creativity in B2B Marketing

[34:00] Content Strategy at Acquia

Links

Watch Ghosts U.K.

Connect with Courtney on LinkedIn

Learn more about Acquia

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

B2B content is often impersonal. It may be clean and polished and dialed in, much like an F1 race car. But as pretty as it is, it may blend into all the rest. 

But if you let your audience under the hood, that’s how you win them over. You show them your personality, that there are real people behind the brand.

That’s one of the things we’re talking about today as we take marketing lessons from Drive to Survive. All with the help of the VP of Global Executive Marketing at Salesforce, Kexin Chen. 

Together, we talk about letting people under the hood, how confusion equals no sale, and tapping into new channels to open to the door to new audiences.

About our guest, Kexin Chen

Kexin Chen is VP of Global Executive Marketing. In her role, she leverages the latest advancements in media, customer advocacy, and storytelling to spark engagement with CEOs and their leadership team. She’s run high profile programs like the Olympics, F1, and Cannes for C-Suite leaders to collaborate and share their authentic stories of driving change in business, industry, and society.

Prior to Salesforce, Kexin was the second marketing hire at NextRoll where she built and scaled the marketing functions from the ground up.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Drive to Survive:

• Tap into new channels, open the door to new audiences. Go where your target audience is. If it’s social media, release content on LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, etc. That’s often where you’ll find your younger audience members. Kexin says, “[Liberty Media has] done a really good job with focusing on digital engagement and stepping out of how do we actually not just think about the TV broadcast, but also think about all the social channels we have and get these drivers out on TikTok, on Snap, to reach that younger audience?”
• Confusion = no sale. It’s simple: your audience won’t buy what they don’t understand. So make it as easily understood as possible. Use their language. And if there’s jargon, explain it. Ian says, “You have to simplify  Everything to its most elemental sort of level. They had to demystify what Formula 1 was to explain like what this whole thing is.” And demystifying Formula 1 has transformed their audience. A 2021 Nielsen study says, “The fanbase has almost doubled since 2017. During that period, the average age of Formula 1 viewers dropped by four years, to 32, and female participation has doubled.”
• Let people under the hood. The success of Drive to Survive relies on the film crew’s ability to get up close and personal with the Formula 1 drivers. To be so ever-present that the teams forget the film crew is there, and be their most authentic selves. This gives viewers a real look at what it means to be an F1 driver. Ian says, “The mentality for this sort of stuff is like, ‘Well, if we let them under the hood, what if they see something bad?’ And it's like, ‘What if we don't let them under the hood and then they never come back?’” The idea is that by letting people under the hood, you attract the right audience and make that product-market fit that lasts. So show people an authentic view of your company and product, and gain your audience’s trust through transparency.

Quotes

*”If we are just trying to sell to [our audience], it's not going to work. And so we have to ensure that we're balancing educating them on the value of our platform and why it's going to completely change their organization. But also we want to build a really trusted relationship and figure out how to arm them with what it's going to take for them to actually be the champion and the star at their organization for bringing Salesforce.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet VP of Global Executive Marketing at Salesforce, Kexin Chen

[1:44] Impact of Drive to Survive on Formula 1

[2:48] Kexin Chen's Role at Salesforce

[4:40] The Marketing Miracle of Drive to Survive

[7:40] The Human Element in Sports Marketing

[14:15] Global Expansion and Strategy of Formula 1

[24:49] Engaging Executives and Building Communities

[33:20] Final Thoughts

Links

Watch Drive to Survive

Connect with Kexin on LinkedIn

Learn more about Salesforce

About 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

It's easy to get technical when you're writing copy about a highly technical subject. But that's when you lose your audience.

Instead ask, "What problem is this solving for my customer?" And explain it in their language.

That's one strategy inspired by Michael Crichton that we're ​​​​exploring today with the CMO of Promo.com, Joel Horwitz. 

Together, we talk about writing in layman's terms, thoroughly researching the problem you're trying to solve, and learning something new about marketing every day.​​

About our guest, Joel Horwitz

Joel is an experienced High-Tech Marketing professional with a diverse background in data science & engineering, product strategy and digital marketing. Prior to Promo.com, he was the Chief Marketing Officer of AudioEye where he led the Go-To-Market team with a Product-Led Growth Strategy that helped grow the company from less than 300 customers to over 30,000 in a year. Prior to that, at IBM, he championed the value of a Digital Go-To-Market as the Global Vice President of Strategic Partnerships and Digital Offerings for IBM’s Digital Business Group. In addition, his extensive background in Data + AI has helped him lead breakthrough customer experiences including the AudioEye Accessibility Solution, IBM Data Science Experience, Alpine Data Labs Modeler, Datameer Sheets for Hadoop, H2O.ai Sparkling Water, and more; through the introduction of platform partnerships, self-service offerings, and digital go-to-market.

Joel holds an MBA in International Business from the University of Pittsburgh, an MS and BS in Nanotechnology from the College of Engineering at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA. He is a board member of NUMFocus, an advisor to a number of startups, and a volunteer in his local community. 

About Promo.com

Originally launched in 2016 as a B2B video creation and distribution platform, Promo.com has since won numerous awards, scored top customer reviews and has been deployed by Fortune 500 companies for social media marketing purposes for 10,000+ Brands. Promo.com’s latest product, PromoAI Copilot, soft-launched in October 2023, gaining over 1,000 customers who are now using the Promo.com Platform. Its latest product, PromoAI Copilot is now available at Promo.com or on the OpenAI GPT Store.

About Michael Crichton

Michael Crichton is the late award-winning author, screenwriter and filmmaker, having passed away in 2008. He’s most known for having written Jurassic Park and having created ER. He was incredibly prolific. So he’s also known for books, movies and TV shows like The Andromeda Strain, The Lost World, Westworld, and all the other Jurassic movies (Jurassic Park III, Jurassic World, etc.) He also wrote frequently under the pseudonym John Lange of Jeffery Hudson. He has sold 200 million books, and his books have been translated into 38 languages, and 13 of them have been made into movies. He has an Emmy and a Peabody among other awards.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Michael Crichton:

• Write in layman’s terms. Even when it’s a highly technical product or concept, write so the general reader can understand your topic. Joel says, “What makes Michael Crichton remarkable is his ability to explain highly complex and difficult ideas in a way that a nine year old can understand them. If you're in the high tech industry, you're working with cryptocurrencies, blockchain, artificial intelligence, machine learning, or large language models. All this stuff is very difficult to understand if you're a novice. So if you can communicate these ideas and not just explain them for what they are, but then to try to compel somebody to be interested in these ideas and then extrapolate a whole story and a whole vision of where this could take us, that to me is Remarkable.”
• Thoroughly research the problem you’re trying to solve. Become an expert on the topic and then teach your audience about it. Explaining how your product solves the problem in detail and backing it up with research builds credibility as well as drives engagement and conversion. Joel says, “Ultimately, marketers are teachers. What are we really doing with content marketing? We're teaching people about how to think about a particular product area. A lot of the work goes into really making sure you’ve got the problem right that you need to solve. Not as much on the solutioning side. Usually it's like, ‘What is the problem that we're trying to actually solve here?’ And researching that.” And he adds, “Not just reading, but actually, for example, going to the location or going out and actually talking to customers.”
• Learn something new about marketing every day. Ask questions and be intensely curious. Learn from your peers, from Google searches, or subscribe to a newsletter like Harry Dry’s, Devin Reed’s or Emily Kramer’s. Joel says, “Constantly be learning, coming into things with a beginner's mindset. I think that's another big thing Michael Crichton does well. He asks a lot of good questions. My grandfather told me the smartest men and women ask the best questions. They act as if you don't know something because that's how you learn.”

Quotes

*”I was never one for the big unveil. I've always been like, ‘All right, what are the things that we can incrementally change and test to see if we're moving things in the right direction?’” - Joel Horwitz

*”I think we often think of, ‘Who's that one ideal customer profile or who's that one champion that we need to target?’ But these decisions, especially B2B, they're never made by a single person. It's almost always a team. And so it's really helpful for me to think about, ‘Who are the different personalities in the room that I'm speaking to?’ Because I think if you can convince them or they can all see kind of their own story, their own journey, and how this product or how the solution is going to help them, I think you have a much better chance of getting their attention.” - Joel Horwitz

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Joel Horwitz, CMO of Promo.com

[1:35] Why are we talking about Michael Crichton?

[5:41] What does Joel’s work at Promo.com entail?

[8:27] Who is Michael Crichton?

[13:22] What was Michael Crichton’s creative process?

[17:35] What makes Michael Crichton remarkable?

[32:56] What B2B marketing lessons can we take from Michael Crichton?

[50:13] What have Joel’s favorite campaigns been over the years?

[53:10] What’s next for Promo.com?

Links

Learn more about Michael Crichton

Connect with Joel on LinkedIn

Learn more about Promo.com

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Making content that’s truly original is something all content marketers want to do.

But then why does so much B2B content look and feel the same? 

Today, we’re giving you permission to express yourself in content like you might express yourself in art. 

In this episode, we’re taking lessons from the Japanese collective of ultra-technologists known as teamLab. 

Together, with the help of our guest, SVP of Marketing at Sigma Computing Erik Bower, we’re talking about defying convention, starting with the last mile, and more.

About our guest, Erik Bower

Erik Bower is SVP of Marketing at Sigma. Prior to joining the company in November of 2023, Erik ran marketing at startups like Daily and Amplitude. He owned growth and digital demand at Palo Alto Networks from $125M to $2.9 billion in 8 years. He is an AI patent holder and has been building ML based machine marketing engines since before 2015.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From teamLab:

• Question convention and then defy it. Don’t just fall back on the way things are usually done. Think critically about your content and make something truly original. Erik says, “Think differently about things that are sitting right in front of you, and ask questions like, ‘Why is the convention to do things this way in our industry? It doesn't make any sense.’ You always have to take things with that lens of questioning what actually works, and not work from some kind of template that you see other people do.” It’s like how TeamLab operates outside of convention. They create immersive experiences that are truly original.
• Start with the last mile. Plan how you’re going to promote your content before you make the content itself. Erik says, “Why wouldn't you start with the last mile? Like you're going to put all of this energy into creating this super expensive event or packaging up this asset,  and then the actual promotion of it is kind of like an afterthought that no one really pays attention to. Start with the last mile and work your way back. If you can't generate interest for this thing, then why are you producing it?”

Quotes

*”Especially as it pertains to B2B marketing and tech marketing,  I think a lot of what you see is very rote. It's checkbox marketing. But I think that teamLab shows you that original ideas are still possible. I think you have to strive for what a boss of mine called the thumb test, where you put your thumb over the logo. Can you still tell that it's your brand? But go beyond that. Where every experience is innovative, engaging, and not rote. It's a challenge to stay fresh like that, but you can definitely achieve it.”

*”It takes that wild hair to just say, ‘I want to use this technology in a new way.’ So I think if anything, I have a reputation for having a wild hair. Think differently about things that are sitting right in front of you, and ask questions like, ‘Why is the convention to do things this way in our industry? It doesn't make any sense.’”

*”You always have to take things with that lens of questioning what actually works, and not work from some kind of template that you see other people do. Original ideas are still possible and important that you have them. You have to have a point of view.”

*”In order to make email marketing and these other things perform well, they have to be more and more micro-targeted to the persona,  the vertical, the use case for line of business. And then it also has to take into account the things that they've already engaged with, where they are in the funnel. And so it becomes this big matrix that's sometimes referred to it as ‘Battleship.’ And if you start to do that, you realize that you have a pretty insurmountable amount of content you have to generate. So you have to start to pick your battles and learn which ones are the highest value segments to focus your energy on content generation.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Erik Bower, SVP of Marketing at Sigma Computing

[4:13] The Magic of teamLab: Blending Art, Technology, and Experience

[7:08] Sigma Computing: Revolutionizing Business Intelligence in the Cloud

[10:21] The Art of Experience: How teamLab Transforms Perception

[12:07] The Philosophy Behind teamLab: Art, Technology, and Interaction

[15:54] Revisiting teamLab: The Ever-Changing World of Interactive Art

[20:56] Marketing Inspiration from teamLab: Pushing the Boundaries of B2B

[27:09] The Challenge of B2B Website Design

[28:14] Innovative Storytelling in Web Design

[29:19] The Fast Fashion of B2B Websites: Embracing Simplicity

[30:08] Decoding Sigma Computing's Marketing Strategy

[30:30] Micro-Segmentation: The Future of Targeted Marketing

[32:09] The Potential and Pitfalls of AI in Marketing

[34:15] Winning the Last Mile: The Importance of Clear Messaging

[42:17] Predictive Marketing and the Future of CRM

[51:25] Sigma Computing's Upcoming Initiatives

Links

Check out teamLab

Connect with Erik on LinkedIn

Learn more about Sigma Computing

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

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 Levy

CEO 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 Faison

Time 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 Marketing

Links

Connect with Michael John Levy

Learn more about Online Rewards and WorkProud

About 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Marketers are trained to create targeted content for specific personas. But creating a message that’s open to interpretation is a highly effective strategy that strikes a cord across personas.

Because your audience will fill in the blank with how the message is meaningful for them. So instead of speaking to pain points specific to one role, speak to the human pain points. Maybe your product is a solution for a task that takes too much time or is overly complex, for example. Nobody likes feeling like they’re wasting too much of their workday on one task. So talk about how your product saves time or simplifies their work. 

So in this episode of Remarkable, we’re listening to Zach Bryan’s song, “Something in the Orange,” the hit song that resonates with a wide range of listeners. That’s because Zach Bryan’s lyrics are open to interpretation. And we’re talking with Todd Raphael, Head of Content at SkyHive, about how you can use this strategy in your content marketing to resonate with a wider audience. We’ll also cover the best time to brainstorm content ideas and why you could easily double your output with one simple idea. So grab your cowboy hat and stare off into the sunset while you listen to this episode of Remarkable. 

About our guest, Todd Raphael

Todd Raphael is Head of Content at SkyHive, a cloud-based workforce management and reskilling software provider. Todd joined SkyHive in November 2022. He previously served as Head of Content at eightfold.ai. He also worked as Editor in Chief at ERE Media for over 14 years, and prior to that, Online Editor at Workforce.

About SkyHive

Recognized as a top AI innovation by Forbes, a Gartner Cool Vendor in HCM, and a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer, SkyHive is cognifying the world’s labor economy and fundamentally changing how we work, learn, and live. SkyHive has built the world’s only Quantum Labor Analysis platform to optimize human economies in real-time for companies, communities, and countries. Essential to global economic empowerment, SkyHive allows people to future-proof themselves and their workforce faster than ever before. By marrying economic theory with workforce modeling and human analytics, SkyHive illuminates the reskilling journey and builds a capable and future-proof workforce that closes the skills gap with speed and efficiency unleashing human potential for individuals, organizations, and governments. SkyHive supports customers across all industries and geographies globally, and is focused on strengthening the overall economic resilience of workforces and communities.

About “Something in the Orange” by Zach Bryan

“Something in the Orange” is a song by American singer-songwriter Zach Bryan, a 25-year-old from Oologah, Oklahoma. Zach Bryan started writing music when he was 14, and putting it online when he was still serving in the Navy. His song “Heading South” ended up going viral after he posted a video of himself playing it on TikTok. He has two self-released albums, DeAnn and Elisabeth, and is now signed to Warner Records. His first studio album, American Heartbreak, debuted at number five on the US Billboard 200 with over 70,000 album-equivalent units. The 34-song triple album has been certified Platinum as of June 2023, with over 1 million units sold.

“Something in the Orange” was Bryan’s first charting single. He told Today’s Country Radio that the song wasn’t about “some deep, dark thing.” He came up with the idea while sitting in a cabin in Wisconsin watching the sun set. It’s now certified 4x Platinum.

His video for “Something in the Orange” starts with a message, saying, “Thousands of videos were submitted by my listeners for the video of Something in the Orange. I decided to make this myself because it’s a feeling I know we’ve all shared at some point. Thank you guys for contributing and thank you guys for listening.” His idea to crowdsource videos reflects an appreciation of his fans, a sharing of energy, and a homegrown, grassroots effort true to his roots and the nature of country music. The video is a compilation of sunset videos taken by fans.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From “Something in the Orange”:

• Leave room for interpretation in your marketing message to resonate with a wider audience. Create a marketing message that lets your audience fill in the gaps. “Our tool saves you time to do more of what you love.” Could mean spending time with loved ones, walking their dog, doing a hobby…your message doesn’t have to be specific to strike a nerve. Todd says when he was looking at comments on Zach Bryan’s video for “Something in the Orange, “the song means all of these different things to different people. It's a song about their grandma. It's a song about their dog. It's a song about their ex-boyfriend. It's all these different things.” So let your marketing speak to multiple personas by leaving room for the imagination.
• Create two versions of your content. One is the typical kind of B2B, serious, technical content. The other is conversational and human. Both can be your brand voice. Ian says, “We make content and we write it in a certain way, in a certain language and a certain approach. And then we just say, ‘Well, this is our brand voice,’ as if that's how everybody just automatically wants to read stuff. You could get way more mileage by creating a second version of that same piece of content and writing it in an extremely conversational, approachable voice that's actually tied to a human being.” Zach Bryan wrote two versions of “Something in the Orange,” So create a second, conversational version to humanize your brand.
• Brainstorm content when you’re doing everyday routine tasks. Todd says it’s when people do their best thinking. He says, “We're walking the dog, we're riding a bike, we're doing something that's mindless and repetitive. It's always when we think of our best ideas. It's never during a brainstorming meeting.” Zach Bryan was sitting at a campfire when he wrote “Something in the Orange,” and it’s during that contemplative time that the lyrics came to him easily. So take notes when you’re out and about, and have a great idea for content.

Quotes

*”We choose the words for what words work best for SEO, instead of what emotions we want to provoke. People used to think of two different audiences, right? It was like pain avoiders and pleasure seekers.  Like, this car will keep you safe, versus this car is so much fun and so cool. And I think maybe sometimes we get away from that.” - Todd Raphael

*”There's a lot of B2B content that is just done one cookie cutter way. And we always talk about repurposing for a different medium. But some people want the creative to feel different, to read differently.” - Ian Faison

Time Stamps

[00:55] Meet Todd Raphael, Head of Content at SkyHive

[1:36] What’s Zach Bryan's song 'Something in the Orange' about?

[2:39] What does Todd do at SkyHive?

[4:10] Learn more about Zach Bryan's musical journey

[8:01] What was the impact of 'Something in the Orange'?

[11:30] How can you harness the power of storytelling in marketing?

[24:00] What’s the content strategy at SkyHive?

[29:08] How does Todd prove the ROI of content?

Links

Listen to “Something in the Orange”

Watch the music video

Connect with Todd on LinkedIn

Learn more about SkyHive

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

If your audience isn’t engaging with your posts, they’re not opening your emails and your webinars are empty, it’s time to tweak your marketing strategy.

Your marketing strategy has become a pattern; a pattern your customers are used to. They know what’s coming, so they tune it out. And the last thing you want to be is part of the noise.

So we’re going to show you how to pattern interrupt. According to a Mailchimp article, pattern interrupt is “a neuro linguistic programming (NLP) tactic used to disrupt a customer's usual thought process or behavior… [around] cold calls and other marketing and sales strategies to change how they think and feel.” In this episode, we’re going to share how pattern interrupt is a key tool in re-engaging your customers as well as catching the attention of new potential customers. And we’re learning about pattern interrupt from a show that does it so well: “Archer.”

So in this episode, we’re having a watch party of the Emmy Award-winning series "Archer" with Head of Content Marketing and Customer Education at Apollo.io, Josh Garrison. And we’re chatting about how to engage your audience with pattern interruption, why you should spend time developing complex characters, and how to provide value by teaching your audience a new skill with each piece of content. So stick on a fake mustache and strap on your Omicron Spymaster watch for this episode of Remarkable.

About Apollo.io

Apollo.io combines a buyer database of over 250M contacts and powerful sales engagement and automation tools in one, easy to use platform. Trusted by over 160,000 companies including Autodesk, Rippling, Deel, Jasper.ai, Divvy, and Heap, Apollo has more than one million users globally. By helping sales professionals find their ideal buyers and intelligently automate outreach, Apollo helps go-to-market teams sell anything. In the last year, they’ve grown ARR 3x, quadrupled their active users, and closed a $110M Series C led by Sequoia Capital in March of 2022. They continue to grow faster each month with record months of sales and added ARR.

About Archer

Archer is an animated tv series parodying espionage culture about a James Bond-esque spy named Sterling Archer in a dysfunctional intelligence agency headed by his own mother. The show is set in a sort of Cold War era universe. The highly stylized animation is inspired by classic comic books. The animators describe the style as “puppety,” in that a limited amount of drawings are made, and then they put rotation points from which the drawings can move.  The show was created by Adam Reed and made by Trinity Animation with the voice of Archer played by H. Jon Benjamin. It also includes the voices of Jessica Walter of Arrested Development, Aisha Tyler from Criminal Minds, and Chris Parnell from SNL. It originally aired in 2019 and is currently in its 14th season. It has won at least 3 Primetime Emmys among other numerous awards and nominations. 

About our guest, Josh Garrison

Josh Garrison is Head of Content Marketing and Customer Education at Apollo.io. He joined Apollo.io in December of 2022. Prior to his current role, he served as Head of Revenue at Teamflow. He has also held leadership roles at Autodesk and inDinero. He co-founded SpotMe Lending, an alternative to payday, auto title and pawnbroker loans, and Ledger Leaders, a bookkeeping and accounting services business.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From “Archer”: 

• Use pattern interrupt. Use a familiar interaction but pivot suddenly to catch your audience off-guard. Josh says that in “Archer”, “they do the thing where they set up a joke and then the punchline of the joke is a cut scene to someone else saying it.” It helps with pacing, and moving the story line along while making the audience laugh.
• Develop complex characters. Characters simply feel more like people when they have flaws, preferences, history… And building believable, relatable characters takes time, intention, and thought. The characters in Archer immediately feel lived in from the first episode. Josh says, “The first time you meet every character, you get the essence of that character. There's no wasted time there.” The characters are multi-dimensional, neither purely good or bad. They’re human. Ian says that Archer “is the best spy in the world. But he's super narcissistic and he's pretty mean and self-serving. But there's this element of heart to him. Like he loves animals, he has a real affinity to certain people at his work. He’s an a**hole, but he's our a**hole.” As a complex character, he’s much more interesting and relatable than if he were simply a good person, good spy, good protagonist. So before you create content, spend time thinking about your characters’ backstory, personality, motivations, and more, to flesh out a character that will resonate with your audience.
• Borrow from nostalgic content. The artwork of Archer is inspired by classic comics and 1960s superhero cartoons. The show borrows from James Bond and espionage culture. So the show has elements that feel very familiar while at the same time being quite modern. Josh says, “It’s very unique, but it also feels familiar because they're calling back to things that you've seen and read throughout your early life.” So it draws people in with its nostalgic artwork but creates super fans with its modern tone, fast pacing, and cutting humor.

Quotes

*”Marketers are bored of our own playbooks. They're like, ‘Oh man, I'm doing another webinar.’ Or they're like, ‘Oh, we gotta write another ebook?’ Those are old ideas. But that doesn't mean that those things don't work anymore. When I explore pattern interruption, I'm still gonna run a webinar. But in that webinar, how can I subvert the expectation? How can I set people up to think they're gonna get one thing, and then give them something that's way more than they hoped or bargained for, and just go beyond?” - Josh Garrison

*”Salespeople will engage with anything that will make them money. That's the guiding principle of our content marketing strategy. Put yourself in the shoes of a salesperson and ask yourself, ‘Would I read this? Before I commit to reading it or watching it, am I convinced based on the headline or the title or the description, that this is gonna bring enough value to me to help me improve my ability to make money?’ So we start there. That's actually a pretty high bar. It's really hard to do. It means that you can't make any fluff, because fluff doesn't make anybody money.” - Josh Garrison

*“What we try to do is go two steps further than [typical content,] and it's like, ‘I'm gonna open up Apollo. I'm gonna show you exactly what to do.’ Something that's so actionable that by the time somebody finishes engaging with a piece of content, whether it's a video, webinar, or article, they have gained a new skill.” - Josh Garrison

Time Stamps

[0:58] Introducing Head of Content Marketing & Customer Education at Apollo.io Josh Garrison

[1:59] Why are we covering Archer?

[3:13] What makes Archer remarkable? And what is “pattern interrupt” or “pattern interruption”?

[6:05] How does the animation style of Archer draw an audience?

[7:54] Tell me more about Archer

[10:34] How does character development play into Archer’s popularity?

[15:02] How can marketers think about using pattern interruption in their marketing?

[17:32] What can we learn about pacing from Archer?

[19:38] What’s Josh’s content strategy at Apollo.io?

[26:14] How did Josh rebuild the webinar program at Apollo.io to the point where people were asking when the next one would be?

[35:08] Who did Josh hire to produce their world-class videos?

[40:21] What are the keys to good marketing?

Links

Watch Archer

Connect with Josh on LinkedIn

Learn more about Apollo.io

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

The Kardashians are masters of marketing. It’s the way they live. From their TV show to their individual brands like 818 Tequila, Good American and Skims, the Kardashians and Jenners are marketing themselves. 

So with the help of our special guest, Head of Marketing & Communications at Foursquare, Michele Morelli, we are taking marketing lessons from The Kardashians.

We’ll talk about using the power of proximity, controlling your own narrative, and much more.

About our guest, Michele Morelli

Michele Morelli is Head of Marketing & Communications at Foursquare, where she oversees Foursquare’s efforts and strategy across product marketing, corporate communications, public relations, partner marketing, and design. Michele brings with her over 20 years of experience across numerous industries – including technology, finance, and media, at companies like Gartner, Yahoo and AOL. Prior to joining the company in 2021, Michele served as EVP of Marketing at Toluna Corporate.  

What B2B Companies Can Learn From The Kardashians:

• Use the power of proximity. Reference and connect cultural touchpoints to your brand. It’s like how the Kardashians are close to the OJ Simpson trial, Paris Hilton, the Olympics, Kanye West…all cultural touchpoints that increase their awareness and brand recall in the public’s mind. Ian says, “It matters to be close to Hilton because everybody knows what a Hilton is. It matters to be close to the OJ Simpson case because everybody knew what that was. It matters to be close to the Olympics because everybody knew what that was. A lot of times in marketing, you're trying to figure out how you can leverage the power and the story of other things to do that sort of jiu jitsu, to take that energy and put that wind in your sail too and propel you forward.” Similarly, you can align your brand with other like-minded brands and cross-promote content. Michele says that “There's this cross-promotional audience blending that has happened simply because of who [the Kardashians] have aligned themselves with.”
• Control your own narrative. The Kardashians were able to control their story by creating their own reality show. Michele says, “Controlling the narrative is always incredibly important, but two, the consistency from which they hit the narrative is so important. Like, they know what they stand for, they know what the business is they want to promote, they know how to weave a narrative around it. In marketing where you want to control the message that goes out, if there's going to be a story that's written, how do you make sure that it's framed in the best possible light for your brand?” 

Quotes

*”John Wanamaker was famous for the quote, ‘Half of my advertising spend is wasted, the only problem is I don't know which half.’ It is no longer true. I think we have a much better direction of how we are spending our money and where we're actually seeing movement. The question is what aperture you look at it with. Is it a week? Is it six weeks? Is it six months? So really making sure you have that right window to measure your media I think is also going to be very important.” - Michele Morelli

*”What's really important from a brand perspective that I think Kim embodies is that if you are a legacy brand or a heritage brand, it is very difficult to move away from how people perceive you and what the core is. There's always a, ‘Yeah, but…’ when we talk about Kim. And I think for marketers, we see that if once you are thought of in one way, getting people to come along for the journey, that you're something different, especially if you're still doing that same thing is very, very difficult.” - Michele Morelli

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Michele Morelli, Head of Marketing & Communications at Foursquare

[1:55] The Kardashians' Marketing Powerhouse

[3:20] Foursquare's Marketing Strategy

[5:2 The Origin of The Kardashians Show

[8:13] The Evolution and Impact of The Kardashians

[15:32] Marketing Takeaways from The Kardashians

[18:38] The Power of Proximity in Marketing

[36:10] The Kardashian Flywheel Effect

[36:21] Kris Jenner: The Mastermind

[37:56] The Ubiquity of the Kardashian Brand

[45:54] The Evolution of Foursquare

[51:18] Content Strategy and ROI

[1:00:01] Embracing Technology in Marketing

Links

Watch The Kardashians

Connect with Michele on LinkedIn

Learn more about Foursquare

About 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Playing it safe doesn’t cut it anymore. If you want to grab eyeballs, you need to be bold, unexpected, maybe even a little chaotic.

That’s the magic of Taskmaster, a competition show where thinking sideways often beats playing it straight. And in this episode, we’re taking a page from its playbook with the help of our special guest, Vanessa Hope Schneider, Head of Brand at Descript.

Together, we explore what B2B marketers can learn from chaos, creativity, and knowing when to follow the rules (and when to completely ignore them).

About our guest, Vanessa Hope Schneider

Vanessa Hope Schneider is Head of Brand at Descript. There, she leads brand, content, product marketing and community. Her focus is growing the community of creators and communicators using Descript to make videos and podcasts. She’s working to drive engagement and success through feature announcements and community education, and is developing campaigns that illustrate Descript’s perspective on creative work, and the role AI should have in it.

Vanessa has previously served as Director of Host Community at Airbnb, Head of Marketing at Clara Labs, and VP of Marketing at One Medical.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Taskmaster:

• Think laterally. Lateral thinking is about solving problems creatively rather than relying on the most direct or traditional approach. Vanessa encourages marketers to lean into that mindset: “Sometimes your goal is most efficiently achieved by just doing the best practice... but other times you need to break out in your approach.” In B2B marketing, that might mean reimagining how you run events, pitch your product, or tell a story. It’s not about copying what others are doing, but finding the unexpected angle. Like in Taskmaster, the real wins often come from knowing when to be efficient and direct, and when to be bold, playful, or completely off-script.
• Know when you're the picture and when you're the frame. Sometimes your brand should be the star of the show. Other times, you should be supporting someone else’s spotlight moment. Vanessa explains, “It doesn’t always have to be your brand. It shouldn't always be your brand. Sometimes it's the voices of your customers. It's their success stories.” In the same way, Taskmaster contestants might earn points by hyping up the host, marketers should recognize when to uplift others for the bigger win.
• Develop your signature style. In Taskmaster, contestants approach identical tasks in wildly different ways, and that's the fun of it. Over time, you start to recognize their unique flair. The same is true for brands. Vanessa says, “It is valuable and compelling to find your style and stick to it, and then approach each new challenge from that perspective.” A strong, consistent style becomes part of your brand identity and how your audience remembers you.

Quotes

*“ One of the keys to success on Taskmaster and when making content is committing to the bit. If you're self-conscious, if you're mugging for the camera, if you're trying to do too many things at once, if you're distracted, the audience isn't gonna go there with you. Your readership isn't gonna go there with you, your customers aren't gonna go there with you. You have to summon the will, the courage, the focus to go all in, and that's when exciting things are gonna happen. And you might be able to find different types of creativity because you're blocking all that other distraction out.”

*” B2B marketers should enjoy lateral thinking. So, sometimes your goal is most efficiently achieved by just doing the best practice, doing it well, and task faster. That would be reading the task and just doing what the task tells you to do. But other times, you need to break out in your approach. You need to be more iconoclastic or more unexpected. You're not gonna win Taskmaster or marketing if you're only doing one or the other. You have to know when to be literal and direct and when to think in new directions. Sometimes you're gonna get the most points if you just speed run the task, but other times you're gonna get points for creativity.”

*“ There are instances when you are, as a contestant on Taskmaster, absolutely the star of the show, and you wanna be boisterous and you wanna be attention-grabbing. And of course, we as marketers all can think of instances where we wanna do that with our brand, but in other instances. You kind of wanna be a supporting character. So in Taskmaster, sometimes the best thing to do is make it about Greg because he's a taskmaster and he is very ego-driven…And so the analog for marketers would be. Who are you uplifting in your work? It doesn't always have to be your brand. It shouldn't always be your brand. Sometimes it's the voices of your customers. It's their success stories, so find opportunities to do both.”

*“ Your style is your brand…It is valuable and compelling to find your style and stick to it, and then approach each new challenge from that perspective.”

*“ The challenge of making content about content is knowing when should I be specific and speak directly to those priority audiences and their priority use cases? And when should I pop up a level and speak in a more generalized way about capabilities and benefits, and trust that the audience will know how that applies to the specific thing they're trying to make?”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Vanessa Hope Schneider, Head of Brand at Descript

[03:38] Why Taskmaster?

[04:47] The Role of Head of Brand at Descript

[07:09] Empowering Creatives With Descript's Tools

[08:15] Descript's Company-Wide Film Fests

[09:21] The Origins of Taskmaster

[16:43] Understanding Taskmaster's Production Value

[21:37] B2B Marketing Takeaways from Taskmaster

[32:31] Importance of Investing in Content

[41:31] Importance of Video in Modern Marketing

[48:27] Final Thoughts and Takeaways

Links

Connect with Vanessa on LinkedIn

Learn more about Descript

About 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 (Head of Production). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

The word “ensemble” might make you think of a group of performers all working in tandem. But what happens when we apply it to B2B marketing? 

In 2001, an ensemble of all-star actors outdid any other cast…maybe ever.

George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Don Cheadle, Bernie Mac, Casey Affleck – actors at the top of their game.

Each one could draw their own crowd. But together? They’re unstoppable. 

Add in the sparkling backdrop of the Vegas strip and the tension of a high-stakes heist, and you have yourself a blockbuster. 

That blockbuster is Ocean’s 11, and it upped the ante for what a star-studded ensemble could be.

In this episode of REMARKABLE, we take a look at the power of the ensemble in Ocean’s 11 and how you can use it in your B2B marketing.

The house always wins. Unless you bring together a powerful ensemble. And today we’re taking the house with some B2B tips on bringing together an ensemble of high rolling sharks.

Why Ocean’s 11?

Alright, so we all love Ocean’s 11. But why’d we pick it for this week’s Remarkable episode? 

Because of the insanely hot cast – and we aren’t just talking about their cheekbones. Ocean’s 11 is packed with the best of the best, including George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts, Bernie Mac, Eddie Jemison, Casey Affleck, Don Cheadle, Carl Reiner, Elliot Gould, and Andy Garcia. Even Viola Davis makes a cameo – well, sort of. Remember Danny Ocean’s exit interview from the prison scene? Viola Davis voices the officer. Any of those actors featured in a film would sell out opening night at the movie theater. But all of them billed together is unprecedented! 

Aside from the star-studded cast, the characters they play have huge personalities of their own. The eleven-character ensemble of criminals boasts a myriad of talents, from pick-pocketing to con-artistry to speed racing. In other words, they have all the important skills needed to pull off a heist.

A Quick Ocean’s 11 Refresher

In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past few decades…

Ocean’s 11 is a heist movie about a string of Las Vegas casino robberies. The OG movie was filmed in 1960 and starred Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr. 

It was remade in 2001, with a cast just as star-studded as the original. The film was one of the biggest hits of the year, bringing in over $450 million in box office. But it wasn’t just the cast that made the movie such a success. Behind the scenes, the craftsmanship was just as impressive. Ocean’s 11 was directed by Steven Soderbergh, who had just become one of only three directors to be nominated twice for Best Director in the same year (he won the Oscar for directing Traffic and “lost” for directing Erin Brockovich). It’s a classic movie formula: an amazing cast + a director at the top of his game = instant classic.

Who’s Who?

Danny Ocean: The Mastermind (George Clooney)

Rusty Ryan: The Right-Hand Man (Brad Pitt)

Tess Ocean: The Love Interest (Julia Roberts)

The Malloy Brothers: The Drivers (Casey Affleck & Scott Caan)

Livingston Dell: Electronics (Eddie Jemiston)

Basher Tarr: Munitions  (Don Cheadle)

The Amazing Yen: The Grease Man (Shaobo Qin)

Linus Caldwell: The Pickpocket (Matt Damon) 

Frank Catton: The Casino Employee (Bernie Mac)

Reuben Tishkoff: The Bankroll (Elliott Gould)

Saul Bloom: The Con Artist (Carl Reiner)

Pick Your Teams Carefully 

Why do we connect so much with the characters in Ocean’s 11? 

Their backstories and skillsets are both distinct and relatable, a combination that helps us empathize with them. But Danny Ocean has also picked a team that compliments each other perfectly. Each character brings a unique set of skills to the table that no other character can do –  imagine if Linus tried to pull off one of The Amazing Yen’s stunts! The characters each have their special talents, and they work well together. That’s what makes them a great team, and it’s why people who’ve watched this movie across the globe root for them. 

The cast also has amazing chemistry. While watching Ocean’s 11, we wonder – who in our own friends and family is our Danny Ocean, the smooth-talking romantic? We all know rambunctious brothers like the Malloys – and we all wish we knew Don Cheadle!

But we relate to characters in movies all the time. Heck, that’s what makes a great movie! But creating chemistry on screen takes intention, effort, and talent. It’s not just the actors working together – it’s the writing, the directing, the costume design, the editing…all of it comes together to create what we in B2B would call a high-value touch point. And the strength of the connections onscreen is what makes this film  Remarkable.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Ocean’s 11

• Make characters for the personas you’re marketing to. There’s a team member for everyone among the Ocean’s 11 crew. Whether you like the Malloy brothers because they’re jokesters or you relate to Linus Caldwell because he goes against the grain, there’s a character in here for everyone to latch onto. Plus they all have a robust, shared history, which makes them feel more real. So, how’s this applicable to your B2B marketing? For your next campaign, make characters or personas your customers can identify with. Progressive does a great job creating characters to bring their business to life in their ads. They have Flo, their staple insurance spokeswoman; Dr. Rick, a parental life coach who advises people on buying homes; and other characters who tell Progressive’s story. Salesforce is a B2B company that creates characters for their brand narrative, and they’ve created characters so recognizable that people line up to take photos with life-sized versions of them at Dreamforce! That’s the power of harnessing storytelling in B2B marketing – by creating characters that speak to your audience, you have the opportunity to create powerful brand loyalty.
• Build the best team. Find people who are specialists in their field to fulfill their role in your project or marketing team. Did you know The Amazing Yen, played by Shaobo Qin, was discovered while performing with the Peking Acrobats? Ocean’s 11 was his first acting role. Crazy, right?! In other words, no stunt double required – he actually pulled off that flip in the vault to avoid setting off any sensors near the floor. This casting is a perfect example of finding the right actor and also finding the right role within the heist team. The bottom line: In your B2B marketing, match each of your team member’s strengths to their role, and you can successfully pull off any project.
• Create a sense of purpose. Danny Ocean and Rusty Ryan bring together their team around a sole mission: a massive heist. Together, they go over the plan and each of their roles within it. Because there’s a reward for successful completion of the mission (about $13M each), it motivates each of them to do their part. There’s also a major caveat that if any one of them messes up, no one will get paid (and worse). So bring your team together around a clear mission with defined roles for each member of the team. Define a shared set of KPIs with clear expectations and work together to achieve your goals.

Key Quotes

*”There's a lot of different ways there that B2B companies can pull from A-list talent or just creating an ensemble, by having these different characters tell the story of your brand” - Anagha Das

*“There's a cool opportunity [for] a business to make an ad where they have their own characters and there's like a story that they build with each one. B2B companies can do the same concept with their personas and create a character based on each persona. Similar to Ocean’s 11, they can even incorporate some of those cinematic storytelling aspects and play that out among the characters.” - Colin Stamps

Time Stamps

[1:17] What's Ocean's 11 about?

[1:55] What's an ensemble?

[3:10] How successful was Ocean's 11?

[4:31] Technique of the week: The Ensemble

[5:59] Why does the technique work when it comes to B2B marketing?

[9:17] Why is the ensemble an effective storytelling mechanism? 

[11:04] Who's who in Ocean's 11?

[14:15] How do you use the ensemble in your marketing?

[18:45] More examples of using an ensemble in B2B marketing

Links

Watch Ocean’s 11

Check out the Salesforce characters

Take a look at Duolingo on TikTok

Meet Dr. Rick, Flo, and more at Progressive.com

And here’s the Old Spice guy

Look at how State Farm is partnering with athletes

About the Show

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

If you feel like you’re struggling to differentiate your company from a sea saturated with similar brands, this is the episode for you. 

You want to market your brand to make it pop, yet it can feel overwhelming trying to nail down a winning idea for your next campaign. That’s because out of 100 factors, you might have 99 in common with your competitors. But that one factor that your competitors don't have, THAT is the one you market. 

On this episode of Remarkable, we’re relaxing to the soft, soothing music of the Vrbo ad campaign, “Only Your People.” We’re chatting about how the campaign helped Vrbo, a brand that’s been around for nearly three decades, to grab audience attention as a major competitor to Airbnb. 

Vrbo repositioned itself through a single message: only your people will be at the rental. It’s responding to a pain point specific to Airbnb customers who don’t want to share a space with the host or other guests. And the campaign is getting talked about in marketing circles everywhere. So follow along as we talk about how you, too, can position your brand as a major name in your industry. 

About Corporate Bro

Vrbo is a vacation rental company similar to Airbnb. So homeowners list their properties directly on the Vrbo site; beach houses, mountain cabins, treehouses, villas, boats, and more.

It started in 1995 as an independent company acquired by HomeAway in 2006, and then again in 2015 by Expedia Group.

The name V-R-B-O is an acronym for Vacation Rentals by Owner.

VRBO is Airbnb's biggest competitor with over 2 million listings and vacation rentals in more than 190 countries. Their website sees over 15.9 million unique visitors per month, and listings are posted on the Expedia site, which sees 730 million unique visitors per month.

The big difference between Vrbo and Airbnb is that Vrbo only offers entire properties for rent. So renters have the whole place to themselves, whereas on Airbnb, renters have the option of house shares. This means they may be renting a room within a house and the owner is there at the same time. Because of this, Vrbo tends to attract larger, higher-end property rentals and cater to groups of people, whether whole families or friends, or simply folks with higher budgets.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Vrbo: 

• Study your buyers to find their pain points and create messaging for each of them. This shows your audience that you’re listening to them and that their opinions matter. And it helps build trust! An example of this is Wix, whose ad, “The Power of Wix Infrastructure,” reassures users their websites are backed by four data centers and tens of thousands of servers. In other words, there’s basically no way their site could go down. This is different from other hosting providers, where a site might run on one dedicated server, increasing the risk of the site crashing. They also have an ad called “Security’s On Us,” highlighting how they offer enterprise-grade security that’s fully managed for users. It has lots of bells and whistles to prevent hackers and bugs from gaining access to the site. So users won’t have to worry about either hackers or their site crashing, which may happen with other hosting sites.
• Identify what your differentiating feature is from your competitors and create a campaign around it. Run it as a single-feature ad on a key position. The simple, straight-forward messaging and clear benefit of your brand over others will resonate with your target audience. Ian says, “the point of positioning is to focus on the one thing that your competitor can't. A great positioning campaign like this allows there to be no wiggle room at all. You cannot get around this. If [customers] believe that this one feature is so important, then you're guaranteed to earn their business.” CRM Platform Monday.com ran a campaign that’s a great example of this. They have an ad that shows up in Google search results that says, “CRM Without the Frustration - No-Code CRM Software.” The ad acknowledges and validates a pain point of other CRM platforms - that they are hard to learn how to use - and offers a solution.

Quotes

*”Vrbo is just an overall, generally more predictable experience. You know what you're going to get. You don't know what you're going to get with Airbnb. And for some people, that is the delight of going to Airbnb, it’s like there is a little bit of serendipity there. Whereas for Vrbo, nope, you're not paying for serendipity.” - Ian Faison

*“It's really understanding the pain points as well. You really have to study the buyer’s thought process to understand the super common pain points.” - Colin Stamps

*”[Monday.com] took all the pain points and they were like, ‘Let's create messaging for each of these to stand out from the other search results that are currently showing up for our competitors.’” - Anagha Das

Time Stamps

[1:29] Tell me more about Vrbo

[3:51] About the "Only Your People" ad campaign

[6:33] How Vrbo differentiates itself from Airbnb with new ad campaign

[11:48] The importance of messaging to make your brand stand out from competitors

[14:42] How to identify customer pinpoints to market to

[15:00] How to choose a single feature to market

[21:54] B2B examples of single feature ads that recognize customer pain points

Links

Watch Vrbo Commercials

Learn more about Vrbo

Read April Dunford’s book on product positioning, Obviously Awesome

Check out Monday.com and their positioning against other CRMs

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Marketers are always focused on what’s next. We’re constantly planning the next campaign, predicting trends, and conducting research. Always onward! 

But there’s a critical piece of content from the past that you’re probably overlooking: your company’s origin story. It’s a powerful tool you can leverage to detail your company’s mission and align customers with your values to get deeper buy-in and drive sales.

This week, we’re taking inspiration from the origin story that launched an entire cinematic universe: the origin story of Marvel’s Iron Man. We’re showing you how to apply the structure of the hero’s journey to your company’s origin story so that your customers become superfans.

About Marvel’s “Iron Man”

Iron Man is a 2008 superhero movie based on the Marvel comic book character created by Stan Lee. The film stars Robert Downey, Jr., as Tony Stark, Gweneth Paltrow as his personal assistant Pepper Potts, Terrence Howard as James Rhodes, and Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane. 

The storyline follows rich businessman and inventor Tony Stark after he’s kidnapped and forced to build a deadly weapon. Instead, he builds himself a high-tech suit and escapes – only to uncover an evil plot to cause devastation around the world. He then vows to fight evil as Iron Man.

The Hero’s Journey

The hero’s journey is a narrative structure in which a character goes on an adventure, faces a crisis, comes away victorious, and returns having undergone a transformation. Author Joseph Campbell analyzed the hero’s journey in his seminal 1949 book, “The Hero with a Thousand Faces.” He defined a hero as “someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.” This structure is one as old as storytelling itself; it has been used from The Odyssey to Star War to Harry Potter – and Iron Man, of course!

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Marvel’s “Iron Man”: 

• Share your company’s origin story. Attract your ideal customers by showcasing your company’s journey. Telling your story demonstrates your company’s mission and fundamental values, and most importantly, it helps you distinguish yourself from your competition. This is especially important as consumers trend towards aligning their values with their spending. How does this apply to Iron Man? We wouldn’t appreciate his character without seeing his growth from self-absorbed jerk to the selfless hero he becomes. Even though Iron Man is a billionaire genius living in a Malibu mansion, we are invested in his compelling emotional arc.
• Show both the successes and the struggles. Let’s be real. Starting a company isn’t easy. It’s a journey – and dare we say it, a Hero’s Journey! But part of the Hero’s Journey is that you will make mistakes – and no one is immune from this. For example, back in 2015, Apple got negative publicity – notably from Taylor Swift – for offering a free one-month trial of streaming in which artists wouldn’t receive royalties. Apple’s SVP of Internet Software and Services tweeted an apology: “#AppleMusic will pay artists for streaming, even during customer’s free trial period,” and, “We hear you @taylorswift13 and indie artists. Love, Apple.” Not long after, Taylor Swift struck a deal with Apple to stream her latest tour exclusively on the platform. Apple owned up to their mistakes quickly and transparently, allowing them to be on the public’s (and Taylor Swift’s) good side again. But being transparent about your values also means living up to them as well. The founders of tech company Basecamp have made improving work culture an integral component of their brand. They have published five books related to the topic and make resources like their company handbook publicly available. “Treating people right is fundamental to how we do business,” they write on their website. However, their actions didn’t line up with their values. A third of their employees resigned after Basecamp put in place a policy banning “societal and political discussions.” The takeaway? Posting your values on your website is only one step. Living up to them is even more important. And if you fall short of your standards? Apologize and make it right. That’s what Basecamp did.
• Keep telling your story. Every time you make a big decision, make sure it aligns with the values embedded in your origin story. Communicate your reasoning with your audience. Your transparency will strengthen your audience’s trust in you – and help you continue to build a loyal group of sidekicks!

Key Quotes

*”With business storytelling, we focus on the timeline of accomplishments and not the thought and the rigor, the difficulties and the struggles that go into those middle pieces because we don't want to air dirty laundry. But if you illuminate the process a little bit more, you'd get a richer story.” - Ian Faison

*”Another element to explaining what your mission is and bringing people on that mission is bringing them on the journey with you and continuously giving them updates on things from a business perspective. I like when there's an emotional connection between me and the brand. And a lot of times a good way to do that is through social media, for example. So, like I use Canva, as an example. And I follow them on LinkedIn. It's the only business account that I follow on LinkedIn. And I actually care what they post because I feel like I'm going on a journey with them. You feel like you're a part of it. And I think that's a really key element to building a relationship with your audience.” - Colin Stamps

“If you anchor back to your origin, it shows the reason for your mission. This is why we have these values as a company. This is why we believe in the vision that we're trying to achieve, is having this foundational element of a company that we set out to solve. It feeds into a future looking assessment of where you want to be. And that's why the origin story is so important.“ - Ian Faison

Time Stamps

[1:30] Tell me more about Iron Man

[4:14] The backstory behind the creation of the 2008 movie

[7:28] What can I learn about telling my origin story from Marvel?

[11:31] Why is it important to share my company’s origin story?

[14:39] Do I need to share the messier side of the origin story? Why?

[16:37] I already have a timeline sharing my company’s story. That’s enough, right?

[19:54] So what framework should I use?

[21:41] How does the origin story apply to marketing?

[22:47] What are some examples of the origin story in marketing?

Links

Watch Marvel’s Iron Man

What’s the Hero’s Journey?

See how Canva connects with customers on LinkedIn

Read Dick’s Sporting Goods origin story

See how an ice axe inspired the founding of REI

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

John Cena says that in the early days of his career, he struggled to break through as a WWE superstar.

Cena says that’s because “people didn’t know who I was. They couldn’t connect to John Cena coming out in different tights and boots every time. No one could attach to who I was.”

He says, “As entertainers, we kinda want to attach. You try to work on your character so people will relate to them and want to attach to them.”

And when we talk about edu-taining, entertainment is half of that. Getting your consumer to attach to you is what we’re all about on Remarkable. 

So in this episode, we’re helping you become marketing superstars and drive that brand attachment with your consumers.

To do that, we’re looking at parallels between the WWE and marketing. 

With the help of our special guest, US Market Brand Evangelist, Carlos Gil, we’ll talk about evolving with your consumer, giving your content personality, and much more.

About our guest, Carlos Gil

Carlos Gil is a marketing expert with over 15 years of corporate digital and social media experience, and the bestselling author of ‘The End of Marketing’. Specializing in driving ROI through cost-effective, organic growth marketing strategies aimed at fostering customer loyalty and leading digital innovation for organizations. As a trusted subject matter expert, Carlos provides impactful marketing strategies for C-suite executives and corporate brands seeking provocative approaches to stand out in today’s crowded digital ecosystem.

As the Brand Evangelist at GetResponse, Carlos leads strategic initiatives to boost the brand's visibility and foster partnerships in the U.S. Leveraging his expertise in brand building, digital marketing, and growth strategies.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From WWE:

• Evolve with your consumer. Adjust your brand messaging and content to fit your target consumer. Aim to resonate not just with them, but with the cultural zeitgeist of the time and place. Carlos says, “You've got to evolve in business or your brand is going to cease to exist long term. And the reason for that is because your consumer is not going to be around forever. I love how WWE has this magical appeal to bring back like the vets, right? Like The Rock, John Cena, Undertaker. Like every time they bring these guys back, they're bringing them back strategically to appeal to an older consumer. Same thing happens in the world of brand marketing, you know, brands find ways to connect with older audiences or audiences that maybe have left them. They do remarketing campaigns or retargeting campaigns.”
• Give your content personality. If your brand was a wrestler, what would they be like? What would their signature moves be? Don’t be afraid to be different, loud, and have catch phrases. Carlos says, “Randy Savage was one of my favorite wrestlers because he was out there. He was loud. He was larger than life and he had a very distinctive voice. He had the catchphrase, ‘Oh yeah!’ He was just different as a wrestler. And to stand out in today's noisy digital ecosystem, you have to be loud. You have to find ways to be different. You can't say the same thing that everyone's saying. Your content can't look like every other brand.”  

Quotes

*”I'm not a proponent of, ‘You have to go to my Twitter account to see a tease of a piece of content to then click outside of Twitter to then go to a website to give me your information to then get an email with a downloadable PDF that you really can't do anything with.’ It's too many steps. Remove the friction. Make content easily accessible to your audience.”

*”If your content looks like every other brand out there that you're competing with, you're going to just get lost. You're going to get lost in the noise.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Carlos Gil, US Market Brand Evangelist at GetResponse

[3:01] Wrestling's Storytelling and Marketing Parallels

[6:55] Evolution of WWE and Business Lessons

[8:48] Carlos’ Role at GetResponse

[10:53] Understanding WWE and Its History

[14:49] WWE's Business Model and Media Strategy

[19:26] Content Marketing Lessons from WWE

[26:52] The Art of Storytelling in Wrestling

[31:49] Marketing Lessons from Wrestling

[33:38] The Power of Storytelling in Business

[43:40] Be Different: Marketing Like a Pro Wrestler

Links

Connect with Carlos on LinkedIn

Learn more about GetResponse

About 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Fans of your brand are one step away from becoming advocates for your company. Help them cross that line by sweetening the deal.

Because if you can get fans to talk about why they love doing business with you, it’s the most effective way to do marketing; word of mouth is an extremely powerful tool proven to make sales. According to a Nielsen report, “92% of consumers around the world say they trust word-of-mouth or recommendations from friends and family, above all other forms of advertising.” 

And when you can offer a referral program for customers, it incentivizes their brand advocacy. Our guest today, VP of Marketing at Gigster, Martha Aviles, says that word of mouth marketing paired with a referral program leads to an almost 100% close rate. 

So in this episode, we’re talking with Martha about what leveraging referral programs looks like, how to break rules to create exclusive and unique content, and why there is always inherent risk in creating something truly remarkable.

About our guest, Martha Aviles

Martha Aviles is VP of Marketing at Austin-based Gigster, a firm that accelerates the delivery of digital transformation applications giving companies the agility to thrive in a software-defined world. With 20+ years of high-tech marketing experience in SaaS, semiconductor, networking, and network security at start-ups, private, and public companies, she is a fierce marketing leader. Martha has a gift for building and growing high-performance marketing teams, corporate brands, and inspiring thought leadership. Her extensive experience includes lead generation, integrated marketing, product marketing, digital marketing, public relations, brand management, analyst relations, and crisis communications. In addition, she has successfully led through 20+ mergers and acquisitions, including managing several integration and acquisition exits. Prior to joining Gigster, she was VP of Marketing at Austin-based Talroo, and also held senior leadership roles in marketing at RigUp (now Workrise) and Enverus - both of which have reached Unicorn status in Austin. Martha is an MBA graduate from the University of Texas and holds a BBA from Texas A&M University. Connect with her on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/maviles/

About Gigster

Gigster is a smart software development service that combines top developers, designers and product managers with artificial intelligence to build your project. Have your software reliably delivered at twice the speed, with end-to-end management and visibility.

About Air

Air is a sports drama based on the true story about Nike’s deal with Michael Jordan to create Air Jordans, the line of sneakers that is super popular today. In 1984, Nike was about to shut down its failing basketball shoe division. So in a last ditch effort, Nike’s basketball talent scout, Sonny Vaccaro, was sent to find a new spokesperson for Nike basketball sneakers. He advocated for the unlikely pick, rookie Michael Jordan, even though Jordan’s preferred brands were Adidas and Converse, and he would have n been too expensive for their budget. Nevertheless, the deal came through with the stipulation that Jordan would get a cut of every Air Jordan sold, and the Air Jordan was born. In its first year, the sneakers far exceeded expected sales of $3 million, and brought in $162 million. 

The movie was directed by Ben Affleck and written by Alex Convery, and stars Damion Young as Michael Jordan, Viola Davis as his mother, Matt Damon as talent scout Sonny Vaccaro, and Ben Affleck as Nike co-founder and chief executive Phil Knight. It also stars Jason Bateman, Chris Messina, and Marlon Wayans, among others. It’s the first movie from Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s new venture, a production company called Artist’s Equity. It’s an artist-led studio that will give creators a cut of the profit from projects. So Air was a conscious choice as their first film, as it reflected the ideal of giving a cut to the talent. 

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Air:

• It pays to do partner marketing. Leveraging partner marketing and offering incentives to your partners or brand advocates increases sales. Martha says, “There are some customers who will be advocates for you, and they're really, really happy with your services, and typically, birds of a feather flock together. If they recommend you, you give them a piece of the action. Things like that work. And those deals are typically almost a 100 percent close rate. It always pays exponentially.” Find customers who are willing to advocate for your brand and offer them a partner deal.
• Don’t rest on your laurels. Keep giving it your all no matter how long you’ve been in the business. Nike failed to do this when pitching an endorsement deal to Steph Curry in 2013, mispronouncing Steph’s name and leaving another athlete’s name on the PowerPoint deck when presenting. Needless to say they lost the deal because of their sloppiness in what ESPN has called “the worst endorsement pitch ever.” So tune in to what’s going on in your industry, experiment with new marketing techniques, and always always pay attention to the details.
• Break the rules. Don’t follow trends or do what all the other B2B brands are doing because you think you’ll be taken “seriously.” Instead, tune in to your brand values and create evergreen content. Martha says, “At the time, the NBA had a stipulation that the shoes had to be [mostly] white…Nike paid all of the fines for Michael Jordan to wear these red and black Jordans, which is how they launched. Before, Converse and Adidas were the shoe to wear and Nike's were like your dad's shoe, nobody wanted to wear those. But they brought in that cool factor…And then everybody wanted the shoe and they built the demand.” Be bold enough to break the rules and create demand for your unique content.

Quotes

*”There's so many times where we have to innovate or we have to figure something out when your back's up against the wall, but [Nike] knew they didn't really have anything to lose. That's how they were approaching it, because they were shutting down this division. It was either like, ‘We're not going to have basketball shoes,’ or ‘We're going to get Michael Jordan,’ you know? And they made the right bet, but it was a big bet.” - Martha Aviles

“If you're telling any type of marketing story, being able to start at the beginning with that uncertainty, with painting the picture in the audience's mind that this might not work, that this crazy thing might not happen…getting into the person's headspace of where they were in that moment, how they felt in that moment, is so important to the story.” - Ian Faison

Time Stamps

[0:55] Introducing VP of Marketing at Gigster, Martha Aviles

[1:45] Why are we talking about Air?

[2:49] Learn about Martha’s role at Gigster

[3:58] Tell me more about the movie Air

[16:20] What marketing takeaways can we glean from Air?

[23:34] Learn about running customer referral programs

[31:31] What was Martha’s content strategy at Talroo?

[32:15] How does Martha view the ROI of content?

[33:57] What are exciting projects Martha is working on at Gigster?

[41:22] Exploring Lionel Messi’s deal with the MLS and Apple+ as a modern day example of athlete deals

Links

Watch Air

Connect with Martha on LinkedIn

Learn more about Gigster

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

What do the best marketers and coaches have in common? It’s not an emphasis on wins and losses.

They’re good listeners.

If you want to make an impact on your audience, you’ve got to get to know them and engage with them. And today, we’re taking hints from one of the best listeners out there: Ted Lasso himself. We’re coaching you on social listening and incorporating creative details into your UX. 

Forget about trying to sell to your audience for a minute. We realize this is counterintuitive for marketers. But marketing isn’t only about selling — we’re going to show you why it’s worthwhile to get to know your audience as more than just customers. To engage with and entertain them on their favorite platforms, and to show them appreciation through little moments of surprise and delight.

This week, we’re reining in “Ted Lasso.” So don’t bring an umbrella to the brainstorm. Because we’re coaching you on social listening, incorporating creative details in your UX, and building in elements of edu-taining in your B2B marketing.

About “Ted Lasso”

“Ted Lasso” is a comedy series about an unwaveringly positive and wholesome American football coach played by Jason Sudeikis who gets hired to coach a British soccer team, fictional team AFC Richmond. The series has run for two seasons which aired in 2021 and 2022, and its third season will air this spring. It also stars Brendan Hunt as Coach Beard and Hannah Waddingham as Rebecca Welton.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From “Ted Lasso”: 

• Use social listening to learn about your customers as people. Learn what matters to your customers by tuning into their Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and other social platforms. Then, use that information to personalize their customer experience. A little surprise and delight goes a long way! Here’s an example: at Brandweek 2019, experience management company Qualtrics asked conference attendees to tweet them a wish that the company’s Dream Team would deliver in real time. And deliver they did. Whether it was a fishbowl margarita, a Popeyes chicken sandwich, a comfy pillow, or a fresh pair of Nikes, guests were surprised and delighted to see their wishes come true at the conference. By doing so, Qualtrics catered to their guests, got them talking, and created a lasting impression that would inspire diehard customer loyalty. Internet provider Spectrum also monitors Twitter for messages by customers, responding to tweets about outages and offering to help restore services. As for Ted Lasso, listening is like his superpower. Players mentioned that the water pressure in the locker room showers was “rubbish”, so Lasso repaired it. A seemingly simple gesture reminded players that he was listening and cared about their experience.
• Build small details into your UX to bring your customers joy.
  In the first season of “Ted Lasso,” Ted bakes shortbread cookies for his boss Rebecca. It’s a small gesture that gives the two a chance to connect – and it’s a powerful lesson for your UX. Baking in these little moments to build connection is essential. When you complete a task on Asana, a unicorn flies across the screen – and that simple animation gives a straightforward project management tool a sense of personality and whimsy that isn’t easily replicated. In your B2B marketing, incorporate personalized touches into your website that speak to your brand and values. 

Key Quotes

“Everyone loves random acts of kindness. And when it comes to marketing, it's the same thing. Like if a brand is able to show that they understand the wants and needs of their customers, they can gain that customer loyalty. And that's where surprise and delight come in. Like if they execute a surprise and delight idea really well, customers are more likely to be brand advocates and stick with the brand, especially on social media. So using surprise and delight helps increase brand awareness but also companies can use it as a retention strategy.” - Anagha Das

“Companies now are using the power of social listening to really understand where their customers are, what they're super interested in, what they're listening to, what they're watching, what trends they're really into that are not related to the company at all. It's literally just like, what are your customers into? And like, how can you play into that to show that you're listening and that you understand your audience and show that you care and want to do something that makes them feel good about whatever they're passionate about.” - Anagha Das

“It's really just becoming a little bit more human and thoughtful about your audience, and realizing that everyone doesn't wanna be sold to 24/7. And I think surprising and delighting your audience, even for a B2B audience, it can be as easy as, ‘All right, today, we're not gonna post promotional stuff on LinkedIn. We're gonna just send out like a have a great day post.’ Like it's something as simple as that. Just to show that there's people behind the brand and they're acknowledging their audience as people as well.“ - Colin Stamps

Time Stamps

[5:13] Tell me more about “Ted Lasso”

[6:20] Learn about the marketing behind “Ted Lasso”

[8:44] How does Ted Lasso use surprise and delight?

[15:28] What can B2B marketers learn about using surprise and delight in their marketing?

[17:00] What’s social listening? And how are companies using it to tune into trends in their customer base?

[22:38] What are simple ways you can use surprise and delight in your B2B marketing?

[27:58] What can we learn about marketing from the “dart scene” in “Ted Lasso”?

Links

Watch Ted Lasso

Check out how the Qualtrics Dream Team delivered Popeyes, a dog, a margarita, and more to their event attendees

See Asana’s Celebration Critters that emerge when a task is completed

Read tales (pun intended) of Chewy’s epic customer service

Learn more about Custom Ink’s unusual money back guarantee on customized goods  

Find out more about social listening and how it could benefit your business

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

When new competition pops up, you gotta be ready to pivot in a fresh and sparkly direction. You’re adapting fast, staying relevant and realigning your content strategy to outshine competitors. 

Especially if you plan to stick around for nearly 80 years like Mattel, you’re bound to see new brands enter the market. And sure, Bratz and L.O.L. Surprise! Dolls are cute and trendy. But they didn’t just release a record-breaking movie with an all-star cast that won the first ever Golden Globe for cinematic and box office achievement. 

But for Mattel, the Barbie movie was a big pivot. So in this episode, we’re helping you prepare to pivot and take on the competition with marketing lessons from Mattel and Barbie, the movie. And we’re doing it all with the help of special guest Kylee Swenson, Director of Content Development and Owned Media at Autodesk. Together, we discuss being ready to pivot, the importance of inclusivity, and expanding your addressable market. So reminisce about your childhood weird Barbie as we get into this episode of Remarkable.

About our guest, Kylee Swenson

Kylee Swenson is Director of Content Development & Owned Media at Autodesk. She leads a global team of writers, editors, designers, illustrators and video producers creating content in multiple languages for the Webby Award–winning publication, Design & Make with Autodesk (https://www.autodesk.com/design-make) for the global design-and-make technology company, Autodesk (Autodesk.com).

Her editorial vision is fueled by the awe-inspiring things people create with innovation and technology, from building resilient infrastructure that mitigates the impacts of climate change to designing 3D-printed skull implants that save lives.

Prior to joining Autodesk in 2012, she was a music journalist and magazine editor at publications where she interviewed artists such as Björk, Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders), Robert Smith (The Cure), and Del the Funky Homosapien (Hieroglyphics). She’s also the author of The Recording Secrets Behind 50 Great Albums; was once nominated for a Grammy as a collaborator with the group, Nortec Collective; and is a former Governor for the San Francisco chapter of the Recording Academy.

About Autodesk

Autodesk is a global leader in software for architects, builders, engineers, designers, manufacturers, 3D artists, and production teams. From greener buildings to smarter products to more mesmerizing blockbusters, Autodesk software helps their customers to design and make a better world for all. Over 100 million people use Autodesk software like AutoCAD, Revit, Maya, 3ds Max, Fusion 360, SketchBook, and more to unlock their creativity and solve important design, business and environmental challenges. Their software runs on both personal computers and mobile devices and taps the infinite computing power of the cloud to help teams around the world collaborate, design, simulate and fabricate their ideas in 3D. They are headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area and have more than 10,000 employees worldwide.

About Barbie

Barbie is a live action movie based on the Mattel toy. It was released this year, and stars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as Ken. It’s about Barbie — who lives in an idealized, plastic world — having an existential crisis, which manifests as her feet going flat, getting cellulite and bad breath. And so she goes to see weird Barbie, played by Kate McKinnon, who tells her she has to find the girl who plays with her in the real world so that she can be cured. 

Director Greta Gerwig said with the movie, she “wanted to give people –- and girls — but people the sense of you’re okay and you have value, just as you are. It is not something you earn or you need to achieve. Symbols like Barbie are an important way to reflect back the enough-ness of just being a girl, being a woman, being a person. And that’s what I wanted to explore in this movie, because Barbie’s for so long has been a symbol of the thing you could never be.”

It’s become the highest grossing movie of the year with over $1.4 billion globally, making Greta Gerwig the most successful solo female director ever. There’s speculation that stock for Mattel may rise by up to 25% because of the movie. 

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Barbie:

• Be ready to pivot. Kylee says, “Companies can't wait to be disrupted by other companies. And CEOs like Ynon Kreiz need to be able to see around corners, so to speak.” So when Bratz and L.O.L. Surprise! O.M.G. dolls became popular, Mattel decided to capitalize on their intellectual property to make the live action Barbie movie.
• Be inclusive. Barbie, the movie, has Barbies of all skin tones, shapes, sizes, abilities, professions, etc. And of course we can’t forget weird Barbie. Kylee says inclusivity is an important value at Autodesk as a global company. She says, “We have something called the culture code and every year people are evaluated not just on what they do, but how they do it. And they're evaluated on inclusivity as a value. So, part of this code is looking at ways to check our biases. To learn to work with people from all walks of life. I have somebody on my team who's in Tokyo, somebody in Munich, somebody in Detroit. We've got people all over the world, so that culture code is very important to the company.” That inclusivity in the makeup of your company will be reflected in your content, and resonate with more people.
• Expand your addressable market. Kylee says, “The Barbie movie doesn't just appeal to young girls and mothers. I was really surprised that grandfathers, dads, boys, non binary people [like it]. It's really meant to be universal for everyone.” Because the movie is about existence, it appeals to everyone. So create content that speaks to the human instead of to the customer.

Quotes

*“We can't outgrow this notion that we are the AutoCAD company if we can't become more of a known brand that people can equate with a broad set of capabilities across architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, and media entertainment. We're a B2B company. We're probably not going to become a household name like Barbie, but we definitely have a lot of room to grow, and that's something that we always have to be mindful of.” - Kylee Swenson

*“What do we feel the audiences want to read about? We have to think about customers and prospects and what they care about. We also have to think about what Autodesk is. You know, what are our business goals? Connecting those things together is really, really important. But at the same time, you can't sacrifice quality, you can't sacrifice the journalistic integrity that we've been betting on for so many years.” - Kylee Swenson

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Kylee Swenson, Director of Content Development & Owned Media at Autodesk

[3:22] Learn more about Design and Make with Autodesk, formerly known as Redshift

[5:29] Why are we talking about Barbie?

[7:32] What’s Barbie, the movie, about?

[10:58] Why is Barbie remarkable?

[11:34] What are the marketing lessons in Barbie, the movie?

[18:21] How does Kylee think about and address the different customer personas at Autodesk?

[21:48] How does Kylee prove the ROI of content?

[33:37] What is Kylee working on now that she’s excited about?

[36:43] What advice would she give someone entering her position for the first time?

Links

Watch Barbie

Connect with Kylee on LinkedIn

Learn more about Autodesk

Check out Design and Make with Autodesk

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

A fly fisherman goes to part of the river where the trout are feeding, uses a fly that mimics the insect hatching at that time, and times their cast to land just-so.

A marketer goes where their target audience is, posts content in-sync with what’s trending, and times their campaign to land just-so. 

It’s that same idea of tuning into the media landscape and knowing your audience that will land you the big fish. 

There are so many marketing lessons we can take from fly fishing. And in this episode, we’re tying the two together through an analysis of A River Runs Through It.

With the help of our special guest, CMO Simpro Rachel Truair, we’re talking about how rhythm and timing are everything, going where you’re most likely to find success, and much more.

About our guest, Rachel Truair

Rachel Truair is a seasoned marketing leader with over 15 years of experience in driving revenue and growth for high-growth startups and Fortune 100 enterprises. She combines foundational best practices from her corporate background with agile and innovative approaches from her scale up experience, leading and mentoring teams through successful exits in IPOs and acquisitions. Her teams have won the Forrester Return on Integration Award, the Oracle "Markie" Award, and nominated for the 6Sense Breakthrough Award.

Currently, as the CMO of Simpro, a $120M+ ARR private equity-backed field service management software company headquartered in Brisbane, Australia, Rachel is responsible for aligning marketing strategy to business outcomes and creating predictable, scalable sources of revenue. She leverages her expertise in go to market strategy, account based marketing and leading global marketing teams to source pipeline driving ninety percent of Simpro's annual revenue.

As an equestrian and fly fisherwoman, Rachel is passionate about conservation and the outdoors, serving on the non-profit board of the Fabien Cousteau Ocean Learning Center. She is a mom of two and holds a BA from St. Edward's University and an MBA from The University of Texas at Austin's McCombs School of Business.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From A River Runs Through It:

• Rhythm and timing are everything. Marketing, like fishing, takes practice, skill and finesse. Rachel says when it comes to flyfishing, “ It's not about strength. It's not about muscling it into something. It's about understanding the rhythm and the timing. A lot of times you want to just try to get to the end and be really perfect at something and put all of your strength into it and throw it as far as you can. But the reality is that actually makes it worse. It makes it harder. And if you can start to learn the rhythm, the feel, the timing of it, you can really start to see improvement.” 
• Go where you’re most likely to have success. In other words, go where your target audience is. Whether that’s social media, email, podcasts, or wherever. You’re literally fishing for customers. Rachel says, ” You really need to focus on the areas where you have the highest probability for success and be testing and iterating within those areas. But you also have to believe that the fish are there, right? You have to know that this is the right area where they would be.  And you can't waste time on the areas where you don't have belief.”
• It’s all about storytelling. We all know about big fish stories. With fishing, just like marketing, it’s all about having a story to tell. Ian says, “It is about the thing that you can go tell other people and when you get to come back. Whether it's from an event or your podcast series, and you get to go back and everyone says, ‘What'd you get?’ You have to have conviction. You go to the place, you try your best. And if you don't get all the leads or opportunities or whatever it is, that you get that story that you can go back and say, ‘Hey, this is why this was worth it. ’” What’s your story?  

Quotes

*”Cost per lead these days really doesn't mean anything. I could spend a dollar on 3,000 spam leads and that doesn't mean that I'm going to get any new sales or great deals out of it. What is hard is to measure the value of what you're spending money on that creates valuable, sustainable growth. And customers who love the product and have success with the product. That's really not just about spending certain money up front to attract those customers, but also following those customers in their journey and understanding. How are you going to make them successful?”

*” You really need to focus on the areas where you have the highest probability for success and be testing and iterating within those areas. But you also have to believe that the fish are there, right? You have to know that this is the right area where they would be.  And you can't waste time on the areas where you don't have belief.”

*”Marketing [like fishing] is about the story, it is about the thing that you can go tell other people and when you get to come back. Whether it's from an event or your podcast series, and you get to go back and everyone says, ‘What'd you get?’ You have to have conviction. You go to the place, you try your best. And if you don't get all the leads or opportunities or whatever it is, that you get that story that you can go back and say, ‘Hey, this is why this was worth it. ’”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Rachel Truair, CMO at Simpro

[4:20] The Story Behind A River Runs Through It

[9:36] Fly Fishing Techniques and Marketing Parallels

[15:17] The Deeper Meaning of Fly Fishing

[22:22] Personal Fly Fishing Experiences and Marketing Insights

[25:51] Focusing on High Probability Areas

[26:39] Defining Success in Marketing

[28:06] Fly Fishing Team Building Experience[

[38:39] Fishing Stories and Marketing Lessons

[44:52] Final Thoughts and Takeaways

Links

Connect with Rachel on LinkedIn

Learn more about Simpro

About 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Characters in your B2B marketing are polished, smooth, suave, always smiling. They never feel awkward, even when they’re asking for more budget or getting negative feedback. Stop that.

Let your characters be and feel awkward in those moments. Because you want your audience to think, “Oh, they get me.” And because we’ve all felt awkward at work. Today, we’re taking notes from a show that has made us all cringe: The Office. 

Alison Herman wrote for The Ringer that cringe comedy resonates with the audience because “Cringe often comes with a reassurance that we aren’t alone in our crippling insecurities, without the sometimes insurmountable hurdle of disclosing our own inner thoughts.” It’s a reminder that other people get sweaty and shaky when they ask for a raise too. 

So on this episode, we’re chatting about the Benihana Christmas episode, from Dwight flopping a dead goose on Pam’s desk to Andy’s efforts to cheer up a heartbroken Michael with an onion volcano. And we’re bringing on Director of Content Marketing at ActiveCampaign, Jakub Rudnik, to talk about what makes the episode so iconic, why you should consider bringing in experts from other industries to help create content, and why it’s time to embrace the awkwardness. So deck the halls with twinkle lights and order yourself a sushi boat for this episode of Remarkable.

About ActiveCampaign

ClickUp is a cloud-based project management platform that provides wall-to-wall solutions for teams to manage all types of work, collaborate on tasks, and streamline multi-step workflows. It’s an all-in-one tool that lets you plan, track and collaborate on any project. Founded in 2017 by Zeb Evans in San Diego, ClickUp is now used by Google, Netflix, Airbnb and Nike.

About The Office

The Office is a mockumentary about the daily lives of employees working for Dunder Mifflin Paper Company in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The U.S. version is based on the original U.K. series created by comedian Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant which was  adapted for an American audience by SNL writer Greg Daniels, and co-produced by Deedle-Dee Productions and Reveille Productions in association with Universal Television. The original cast included Steve Carrell, Rainn Wilson, John Krasinski, Jenna Fisher, and B.J. Novak. There are 9 seasons, which aired from 2005 to 2013. It has won many awards, including Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series and Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series.

About our guest, Jakub Rudnik

Jakub Rudnik is Director of Content Marketing at ActiveCampaign. He joined ActiveCampaign in March 2023. Prior to his current role, he served as Head of Content Marketing at Scribe. He is also an adjunct professor at DePaul University where he teaches Journalism courses, and a content marketing consultant. 

What B2B Companies Can Learn From The Office: 

• Bring in the experts. Cross-pollinate B2B and B2C by contracting experts or specialists to help you level up your content. Iconic actor, comedian, writer and director Harold Ramis directed the Benihana Christmas double-episode, making it a standout comedic performance from everyone involved. Likewise, the Dinner Party episode will go down in history as being one of the most uncomfortable episodes to sit through. Part of the magic was that they brought in cameramen from reality TV to follow the action like in a reality TV show. So it creates the illusion that the audience is getting an inside look at some real drama. Ian says that you don’t have to sacrifice your brand voice or consistency when you bring in outside voices. He says,, “I love keeping things consistent with structure and flow and all that. But I do think that bringing in other people to give a second look, or to just give them the reins and say, ‘Hey, do it the way that you want to do it,’ is something that they do a lot in Hollywood and we don't necessarily do as much in marketing.” So next time you want to make some fresh content, bring in an expert from outside your team to collaborate, put in their two cents, and give it that B2C flavor that will set you apart from the pack.
• Lean into the awkwardness. Highlight customer pain points by leaning into the discomfort and cringiness caused by them. This shows that you’re empathetic to their situation, and are acknowledging their frustrations. Jakub says,”The Office takes those awkward cringe things and makes them more extreme to play it up. But that’s why we connect to it. It’s real. I’ve been there.” And Ian says, “We don't strive for really awkward, tense moments in B2B marketing. It's very rare. Whereas our work is full of super awkward, tense moments. There are so many moments that are extremely personal and awkward in work and we never talk about it.” So it’s time to talk about it. Lean into the awkwardness that happens in real workplaces, and you’ll hook your audience.

Quotes

*”The biggest successes of my career came from an inflection point where something was broken, something was failing, we were flatlining, a competitor was emerging, and we went a different way. We scrapped everything that we thought we knew about content and we went a different route. Let's not replicate what our competitors have done. Let's go find something brand new or a different way of executing this completely. And so to me, that's Darryl being like, ‘Don't worry about that. We don't need the karaoke machine at all. We're gonna go print off lyrics from the internet and I'm gonna go grab my keyboard and we're just gonna have more fun.’ And it was a better party because of that.” - Jakub Rudnik

*”There are so few scenes in The Office that are about work. We want to do a great job. We wanna get better at work. But we also just have these very human moments.” - Ian Faison

*”The Office takes those awkward cringe things and makes them more extreme to play it up. But that’s why we connect to it. It’s real. I’ve been there.” - Jakub Rudnik

Time Stamps

[0:56] Introducing Director of Content Marketing at ActiveCampaign, Jakub Rudnik

[2:53] Why is The Office remarkable?

[3:50] Tell me more about The Office

[10:57] What are marketing lessons we can take from The Office?

[13:10] What’s the best way to manage obstacles?

[18:54] How do you focus on the customer’s pain points, not the KPIs?

[21:47] Why is it important to bring in people from outside your team to pitch in to the creative process?

[32:28] Why should you embrace awkwardness in your content marketing?

[33:21] What’s Jakub’s content strategy at ActiveCampaign?

[39:21] How does Jakub use marketer influencers?

[45:57] How does Jakub track the ROI of influencer marketing?

Links

Watch The Office

Connect with Jakub on LinkedIn

Learn more about ActiveCampaign

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Ask yourself: “What is the magic of my brand?” 

Every brand has it. It’s the special offering your company has that no other one does.

That’s where you focus the message of your content. And it’s one of the things we’re talking about today.

In this episode, we’re learning from the magic of the world of Disney. 

With the help of our special guest, Domo CMO Mark Boothe, we’ll talk about working your magic, focusing on feeling, and the power of distribution.

About our guest, Mark Boothe

Mark Boothe is Chief Marketing Officer at Domo. Mark brings over 15 years of diverse marketing experience and is passionate about driving Domo’s business growth through marketing initiatives. His mission is to empower all Domo customers and prospects with the insights and tools they need to make better business decisions and achieve their goals. In his previous role as VP of Community, Partner, and Field Marketing, Mark and his teams established new and strengthened existing programs to address customer pain points and create a greater sense of community. They also executed campaigns, programs and events that showcase the value of the Domo platform.

Before joining Domo, Mark spent more than 10 years working in customer relations and marketing at Adobe and worked at Instructure as its senior director of customer marketing. He received his MBA from Utah State University and a bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University. Outside of work, Mark enjoys spending time with his family and traveling.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Disney:

• Work your magic. Whatever the magic is that your brand has, that magic that sets you apart from competitors - make that the focus of your content. Mark says, “For Domo specifically, what's our magic? We're really, really good at helping people to use data effectively. We can help them make accessible interactions and interactive automations and simple integrations. We help people get value out of their data. And so for us, that's what the magic is. So we have to make that simple. We have to make it easy. We may have to make it understandable and the product has to work. That's what remembering the magic looks like for a software company that's selling visualization and BI and automation software.”
• Focus on feeling. Does your content feel like it’s part of the brand? Does it all evoke the same feeling? Ian says, “One of the things that Disney understands so well is the importance of the property fitting into their overall brand, but that the properties all are standalones. And I think that this is not something that we really understand in marketing. Like, we get obsessed with the colors or the style. We obsess over making it look right instead of feel right. But Disney, the brand is all about the way it makes you feel.”
• Have a distribution plan for your content. Before you make any content, make sure you have a plan to get it out in the world, and in front of the right people. Mark says, “For so long the phrase has been content is king. But my fight would be that distribution is emperor. Yes, content is really, really important. And it's amazing what you can do with really good content, but you can do a heck of a lot more with really good content that has exceptional distribution behind it. I can do really good things with really bad content that has exceptional distribution strategies and tactics put behind it. The key is, how do you make sure that you're developing and creating and synthesizing really good content that you can then put the right kind of resources behind so that you get it in front of the people that you really care about?”

Quotes

*”For so long the phrase has been content is king. But my fight would be that distribution is emperor.”

*”I'm a big fan of test, test, test, test, test, test, and learn. But you live in a world today where you can make micro optimizations to pieces of content and things. So use the technology and the things that are in place to be able to make the micro changes you need to make content work.”

*”Content is everyone's responsibility at this point. No matter what discipline you are in within marketing, you are a content marketer. We get so caught up sometimes then, ‘Hey, this quarter we're going to do X number of blog posts.’ Why? To what end? ‘We're going to create this many YouTube videos.’ Okay, ‘we're going to create a whole bunch of stuff on TikTok.’ Great! Like, what's the purpose? And backing up enough to say, Who's the audience? If your ICP is for a certain amount of these accounts that look like this, and these people who buy like this and need these things, and yet you're talking to all of them in the same way, you're going to fail.”

*”Take the time to create really, really good content. We're not in the days anymore of ‘If you build it, they will come.’ There is more content generated right now than in any other time. So just to build good content doesn't get the job done. Building good content and then having that distribution strategy and then being willing to make the micro changes you need to, you'll give it a good shot.”

*”Don't be afraid to fail sometimes. If failure is, ‘We learned a whole lot of stuff and we won't make that same mistake again,’ then it wasn't really failure.”

*”Make sure as a marketer, you're staying true to the creative piece of your job, but that you're using data to make sure that it's all a strong reality. Cause I think too often, we can fall to either side, whether it's we're falling too hard on the creative side or we're falling too hard on the data side. And it is, it's an art and a science. So nail both the art and science.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Mark Boothe, CMO of Domo

[2:33] The Launch of Disney Plus

[4:25] Disney Plus Marketing Strategies

[7:36] The Impact of Disney Plus on Consumers

[18:13] Content and Distribution in B2B Marketing

[22:05] Creating Quality Content in Business

[22:20] The Importance of Distribution Strategy

[22:43] Learning from Failures

[22:58] Challenges in Content Creation

[25:21] Investing in Brand and Community

[27:14] The Role of Community in Customer Retention

[28:25] Evaluating Content ROI

[29:32] Building a Customer-Centric Community

[32:00] The Impact of Community Initiatives

[35:50] Balancing Creativity and Data in Marketing

[37:57] Advice for other CMOs

Links

Connect with Mark on LinkedIn

Learn more about Domo

About 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Are you a chaos muppet or an order muppet? Knowing the answer to this very important question can help you unlock your B2B marketing potential. Here’s why.

There’s magic chemistry that happens when a chaos muppet joins forces with an order muppet. (Replace the word “muppet” with “marketer” in this instance.) It’s like a marketing power couple. You need the wildly outside-of-the-box thinking of the chaos side tempered with the composed, organized, planning mind of the order side to create truly remarkable content. It’s these two energies that work synchronistically to create content worth talking about.

So in this episode, we’re looking back at nearly 70 years of Muppet history and one Slate article that made us ponder, “What kind of muppet am I?” And break down all of the wild and wondrous things muppets can teach us about B2B marketing with the help of CircleCI’s Director of Content Marketing, Gillian Jakob Kieser. Together, we talk about allowing some of that chaos into your campaigns, developing useful and evergreen content, and how to work through the riskiness of creating something original in this episode of Remarkable.

About CircleCI

CircleCI lets teams build fully-automated pipelines, from testing to deployment, allowing them to focus on the real work of innovation. Using CircleCI, engineers can automate their entire testing suite for new commits, reducing the potential for human error, while using orbs to automate deploys.

About The Muppets and Muppet Chaos Theory

The Muppets is an American television show featuring a cast of puppets performing various skits. The beloved characters include Kermit, Miss Piggy, Rowlf, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo, Beaker, Animal, The Swedish Chef, and more. It was created by Jim Henson in 1955, and has been around for nearly 7 decades. It was originally a short-form tv show called Sam and Friends, and it’s now grown into a media franchise with lots of spin offs including movies, music, and tv appearances. The franchise was owned by The Jim Henson Company until 2004 when Disney bought it. Jim Henson once suggested that the term “muppet” comes from combining the words “puppet” and “marionette.”

Muppet Theory is a theory posed by Slate writer Dahlia Lithwick that everyone in the world is either a chaos muppet or an order muppet. Chaos muppets are crazy, volatile, unpredictable. Like Animal, Cookie Monster, or The Swedish Chef. Order muppets are anxious, neurotic and don’t like surprises. Like Kermit the Frog, Scooter, or Sam the Eagle. Order muppets often choose Chaos muppets as lifelong partners, like Bert the order muppet and Ernie the chaos muppet or  Kermit as the order muppet and Miss Piggy as the chaos one.

About our guest, Gillian Jakob Kieser

Gillian Jakob Kieser is Director of Content Marketing at CircleCI. She has been with CircleCI for over six years, having started in June 2017 as Content Marketing Manager, and their first content hire as a growing startup. She has also served in marketing roles at companies like Prismatic and MAKE Magazine.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From The Muppets and Muppet Theory: 

• Incorporate both chaos and order into your marketing. Team up with your chaos or order counterpart to make new content. Or create some content that’s very structured and some that’s very unstructured. Gillian says that it’s these different energies that make successful collaborations in marketing. “They really need to have both the order aspect and the chaos aspect to make something feel alive and authentic. If you over plan it, it's dead in the water. It's dry and predictable. And if it's too much chaos, you never can get it out the door because no one knows what time anything is happening. So you always need to have both order and chaos on a team or in a program.”
• Mix the real and the fantastical. This creates playful and captivating visuals, and engages the viewers’ willing suspension of disbelief. Gillian says, “There's this aspect of these fantastical creatures in a real world scenario that appeals to adults as well as children. Because children really have a sense for the authentic, and they know that there's something about this world that is real and that they can learn from, that it's not just watered down and catered to them. There's something about that that I think has set them apart and has always been really appealing.”
• Trust the intelligence of your audience. The Muppet Show is not just for children. There were signs in the cigarette-smoking, Studebaker-driving scenes that Jim Henson was appealing to more mature viewers as well. Like Jim Henson, give your audience all the information you have for them, and don’t oversimplify it. Gillian says, “Jim Henson and his crew never played down to their audience. There was so much intelligence and so many references, and it was very high reaching for something that could have conceivably been, ‘Oh, this is just for kids.’ It feels like Jim Henson was the first one in exploring that space, of elevating this art form to something that had a lot of depth that you wouldn't expect to see coming from puppets.”

Quotes

*“[The Muppets is] a testament to taking risks, just going for it and not knowing. It might not have worked out, but it did in the long run. Some of our efforts at creative projects, branding or anything else like that are sometimes a little bit of a shot in the dark.” - Gillian Jakob Kieser

*”I was thinking, ‘Okay, where is there order and chaos in our current content strategy?’ The blog is very orderly. We've learned a lot about SEO and how to answer people’s questions with technical tutorials. And then we've got a podcast with our CTO interviewing folks. That's much more of a chaos aspect because you never know where the conversation's gonna go, but he's standing in and asking the questions that the audience wants to ask. And it's very funny and we're not selling in that show at all. We're creating affinity, trust, informing, educating and being able to share our perspective on how our industry works with others.” - Gillian Jakob Kieser

*”The ad copy is another place where we test wildly. There's been times when we throw in something that's ungrammatical because you know it's gonna catch someone's eye. Or put a question mark at the end of something to get their attention. And then you can make the connection. But that order and chaos marriage shows up everywhere.” - Gillian Jakob Kieser

*”There's a time and a place for things. There's concentric circles of stuff that needs to be really on brand that the legal team needs to look at and everyone has to check off on it. And then stuff that as you get further out has more of a buffer of forgiveness for being off-brand at times.” - Gillian Jakob Kieser

*”If you want to feel like your entire brand is super buttoned up always, and it's only on official channels, you have to know that your marketing is gonna be boring. Because there's no humanity in it. People buy people. If you're trying to get people to commit to you with emotion and you're using the opposite of that, how effective is it really gonna be?” - Ian Faison

Time Stamps

[0:54] Introducing CircleCI Director of Content Marketing, Gillian Jakob Kieser

[1:39] Why are we talking about The Muppets?

[4:03] Learn more about Gillian’s role as Director of Content Marketing at CircleCI

[5:33] What are The Muppets?

[8:37] How did Jim Henson create evergreen content in The Muppets?

[10:54] How do you work through the riskiness of making original content?

[15:04] What is Muppet Chaos Theory?

[16:59] How does Muppet Chaos Theory apply to collaborative work and marketing?

[21:00] How does CircleCI use chaos and order in their marketing strategy?

[31:09] How to humanize your content, and the value of human-generated content in the age of AI

[34:24] What’s Gillian’s content strategy at CircleCI?

[37:30] The difference in making remarkable evergreen content versus sensational content

[39:09] How did Gillian grow her team and advocate for the value of more content creators?

[41:57] How do you choose the channels worth posting content to?

Links

Watch The Muppet Show

Read the Slate article

Connect with Gillian on LinkedIn

Learn more about CircleCI

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

When does your “audience” become a “community?” 

The word “community” might make you think of the relationship you have with your neighbors; a sense of friendliness and having something in common. It’s a word that relates an emotional closeness or bond, even loyalty. We’re talking about how to build that bond with your audience today.

And who better to talk about it with than Automation Anywhere’s SVP of Community and Learning, Kristen Engelhardt. Together, we’re chatting about driving content to one part of your TAC (and what the heck is TAC anyway?), arranging a forum for deeper audience listening, and starting small. So get ready to upgrade your growth strategy with this episode of Remarkable.

About our guest, Kristen Engelhardt

Kristen Engelhardt is SVP of Community and Learning at Automation Anywhere, having joined the company in September, 2021. Prior to her current role, she served as VP of Trailblazer Marketing and Community at Salesforce. She has also worked for companies like PeopleSoft, Cisco and Gartner.

About Automation Anywhere

Automation Anywhere is the leader in intelligent automation solutions that put AI to work across every aspect of an organization. The company’s Automation Success Platform is infused with generative AI and offers process discovery, RPA, end-to-end process orchestration, document processing, and analytics, with a security and governance-first approach. Automation Anywhere empowers organizations worldwide to unleash productivity gains, drive innovation, improve customer service and accelerate business growth. The company is guided by its vision to fuel the future of work by unleashing human potential through intelligent automation.

About Community in Marketing

The idea of community in marketing suggests that customers are more deeply engaged than just purchasing from a company. These customers are aligned with the company’s brand values, mission and brand promise. They are loyal to the brand, recommend it to friends, family and colleagues, write reviews, post about it on social media, and generally evangelize the brand. Like the Apple community where users offer suggestions and answers to customer questions separately from Apple Customer Support. 

What is a community flywheel? It’s a community-centered approach to building a brand, in which your brand joins or creates relevant communities that promote amazing experiences and engagement, translating into sales.

To use the community flywheel approach to building your business, there are five key techniques:

1. Know your communities
2. Make your brand story talkable
3. Zoom in on hero products
4. Fuel the conversation across channels
5. Make transactions effortless

According to McKinsey, when you’re successfully leveraging the community flywheel approach…

• More than 75 percent of content about the brand is user generated.
• The influencer engagement rate—that is, the percentage of viewers who go on to like, comment, or share the content—is greater than 2 percent.
• More than 4 percent of online traffic is converted to sales.
• Brand-related posts by either the brand or a consumer go viral at least twice a year (triggered, in some cases, by marketing support).

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Automation Anywhere’s Community-Building Strategy:

• Focus on driving content to one part of your TAC. You get better payoff with a focused approach to community-building. Kristen says, “The most successful communities we've seen are when you identify what part of the TAC you need and want to focus on to drive transformation together. It may be we're going to focus, like in Salesforce on the administrator, and we are going to surround them with the input into the product and the career support and the peer ecosystem to make them wildly successful in their role. And we found out by listening, by hearing what they're trying to solve for, that we could advance their careers and their companies through an investment in them. And in return, they share their expertise, they share their content, they speak on stage for us, they tell our brand story through theirs, but they also help us drive the business. And you get that magic flywheel.”
• Arrange a forum for deeper audience listening. Create a space to talk with customers and ask questions beyond your product. At Automation Anywhere, they created their Pathfinder Workshop, which is now scaled globally and has had a massive payoff. Kristen says, “We have a bright, hard line between that program and our upsell, our pipe gen, and our version of the ACV. And all of that came about the community workshop as our number one go-to-market lever because we took the leap and listened beyond the product: ‘What are you trying to do as an automation leader?’ So I love that example and the team did a phenomenal job listening, building, iterating together.”
• Prioritize the four pillars of community building: Destination, programs, content, and learning. These depend on how mature your business is. Kristen says, “For an early stage company, don't go out and build a destination right away. Start with the product tour or the dinner series. If you are already mature and you have so many connections and your community, your part of the TAC is saying, ‘Where do I give and get help? Where do I connect with more thought leaders? Where do I get that content?’ That's when you want to invest in the destination. So make sure you're prioritizing your pillars based on where you are and where your community is.”

Quotes

*“Community is a category creator and an enabler that allows a company like Salesforce, like Automation Anywhere, to build an ecosystem and a job economy. And whether it's in CRM, or it's in automation, or AI, at the end of the day, community is essentially your constituency of people, regardless of role, region, market, title, that you want to use more of what you have to offer, buy more of it, and tell others to do the same, and that's the magic of community. ” - Kristen Engelhardt

*“Who you go and talk to and invest in will be different in an early stage than when you are in hyper growth and you are scaling and you want to make sure that you have a nurtured relationship with your most strategic partners and your most strategic customers. It’s a growth spectrum.”  - Kristen Engelhardt

*”The key is just to know when you're starting out, ‘What problem am I trying to solve, for which stage of growth I'm in, and which sliver, slice, piece of the TAC do I most need to invest in, understand, know, and serve?” - Kristen Engelhardt

*”You do need to invest in yourself first to create that reach. It's just that the level of investment is much lower. It's very low lift and you can pick and choose some very easy start by starting strategies before you have to go and build a 15 million member trailblazer community to drive the type of impact that McKinsey statistics are sharing.“ - Kristen Engelhardt

*”There's a push and a pull. So like, your content is supposed to push your community to react and engage and to talk to each other and to spur conversations. Whereas for community, you have to be listening, you have to be responding, you have to be doing those sort of things.  And it's a very different sort of emotion. ” - Ian Faison

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Kristen Engelhardt, SVP of Community & Learning at Automation Anywhere

[2:55] Learn more about Kristen’s work at Automation Anywhere

[4:54] Why are we talking about building community?

[6:17] What is TAC?

[17:02] Tell me more about building community in marketing

[30:41] How do you engage with your customers beyond asking about the product?

[41:40] What is Kristen’s playbook to building community?

[48:25] What’s the ROI of community?

[52:01] Who are the critical hires in building community?

Links

Join the Pathfinder Community

Connect with Kristen on LinkedIn

Learn more about Automation Anywhere

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Wake up. There’s a glitch in the matrix. That’s because we’re seeing deja vu - your campaigns are starting to look the same. Need some fresh ideas? We’re here for you.

But in reality (what is reality anyway?) you don’t have to come up with the freshest never-before-seen content. You just have to pull from all of your favorite pieces of content. Take the inspiring bits. All of them. And put them together to make something new.

See, the creators of The Matrix, the Wachowski’s, even said they took “every idea we've ever had in our f***ing lives” and put it into the Matrix. Based on the ideas from French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, they also pulled from the techno scene, anime, martial arts, and more. There are even references to Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz, these very familiar cultural symbols. And yet when The Matrix was released, it was something fresh. It received wide acclaim, won Academy Awards, and basically broke the box office, bringing in over $460 million. 

So in this episode, we’re going down the rabbit hole of marketing lessons we can learn from the 1999 film with the help of Deel’s Director of Content Marketing, Anja Simic. Together, we discuss how to pull your inspiration into your B2B marketing, create educational content that preempts audience questions about your product or service, and call out audience pain points. So put on your very dark, very tiny sunglasses for this episode of Remarkable.

About our guest, Anja Simic

Anja Simic is Director of Content Marketing at Deel. She has been with the company over 4 years, having started in December 2018 as Senior Content Marketing Manager. Prior to Deel, she served as Digital Media Coordinator at Impact Hub Network.

About Deel

Deel is the all-in-one HR platform for global teams. It helps companies simplify every aspect of managing an international workforce, from culture and onboarding, to local payroll and compliance. Deel works for independent contractors and full-time employees in more than 150 countries, compliantly. And getting set up takes just a few minutes. For more information, visit Deel.com

About The Matrix

The Matrix is a sci-fi action movie about a computer programer who discovers that the world as we know it is a simulation. In this awakening, he finds out that machines have created the simulation to distract humans and are using his body as an energy source in the meantime. He bands together with other people who have been freed from The Matrix to rebel against the machines. The 1999 movie stars Keanu Reeves as Neo, Carrie-Anne Moss as Trinity, Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus, and Hugo Weaving as Agent Smith.

The Matrix was created by Lana and Lily Wachowski, known professionally as The Wachowskis. They had only written and directed one movie before - Bound, a 1996 neo-noir crime thriller. Now they’re now known for V for Vendetta, Cloud Atlas, and more. The Matrix was made when the Wachowskis were asked by a friend to develop an original comic book concept, which they started working on in 1992. It began with the idea that everything in our world is a simulation in a digital universe, an idea inspired by French postmodern philosopher Jean Baudrillard (1929 - 2007). Baudrillard believed that we have lost all ability to make sense of the distinction between nature and artifice. In the movie, the Wachowskis nod to Baudrillard when Neo hides his contraband software in a hollowed-out copy of "Simulacra and Simulation," a book by Baudrillard. The idea that “our reality” is a simulation allowed the Wachowskis to explore and experiment with special effects and camera tricks to make many iconic and memorable scenes, like the bending spoon and the slow-mo bullet dodging scene. The style of the movie is influenced by cyberpunk, anime, and martial arts. 

What B2B Companies Can Learn From The Matrix:

• Combine all of the ideas you’ve ever had. That’s exactly what the Wachowski’s did when they developed the story of The Matrix. They pulled inspiration from the techno movement, anime, martial arts, and cyberpunk as well as the postmodern philosopher Jean Baudrillard to create something totally new, but whose references were recognizable. This made The Matrix accessible and not totally foreign while also being inspired and thought provoking. So pull in those ideas and make something totally new!
• Present complex products in an understandable way. Use clear visuals and straight-forward language that appeals to both the technical buyer and the layman. By speaking to both, you increase your potential customers. Anja says, “When you're talking about a product, you are trying to explain it in a way that's relatable to your potential buyer, to a prospect. So you're trying to find the words, use the visuals, use the brand, everything in your power to respond to a need. The Matrix is doing the same. So it's based on the very complex philosophy of postmodernism, but the movie presents it in a way that's very light, that is relatable.”
• Call out your audience’s pain points. This grabs their attention and sounds like you’re talking directly to them. Trinity does this when she meets with Neo in the nightclub. She says, “I know why you're here, Neo. I know what you've been doing... why you hardly sleep, why you live alone, and why night after night, you sit by your computer.” Neo immediately knows that Trinity has been paying attention to him, understands what he’s going through, and that it’s important to her. Which is exactly how your audience will feel if you do the same.

Quotes

“There is some hesitancy from marketers to not want to pull in a bunch of different things that they like and put them together. But that's what makes [The Matrix] feel so cool and different. The cramming of worlds together in that way is what makes this feel so unique. So like, take a few things that you are really passionate about - content that you love - and just put it together.” - Ian Faison

*“I think you need to be really flexible with [your content strategy] because the markets change, the business landscape changes the economic factors change. So what you devise as a plan for this year might not work next year because we are living in very uncertain times. We don't know how the next few years are going to look. So being lean and flexible is the right way to address any strategy, but content strategy in particular.” - Anja Simic

Time Stamps

[0:55] Introducing Director of Content Marketing at Deel, Anja Simic

[1:50] Why are we talking about The Matrix?

[4:22] Tell me more about The Matrix

[8:52] What makes The Matrix remarkable?

[11:11] What are some marketing lessons we can take away from The Matrix?

[33:49] How does Anja think about content at Deel?

[36:58] How does Anja prove the ROI of content?

Links

Watch The Matrix

Connect with Anja on LinkedIn

Learn more about Deel

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

It’s easy to think of the people in your ad as characters that exist in those 15 seconds alone. But you can create a stronger bond with your brand by focusing on what those characters are like outside those fifteen seconds. But creating multi-dimensional characters is easier said than done. 

This week, we’re taking a page out of “Schitt’s Creek.” We’re exploring the roles of relationships, flaws, and real-life experiences in relatable character building for your B2B marketing.

About “Schitt’s Creek”

“Schitt’s Creek” is a Canadian TV sitcom created, written and executive produced by Dan Levy and his father Eugene Levy. The show aired from 2015 - 2020 and starred Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Annie Murphy and Dan Levy.

The story follows the wealthy and privileged Rose family, who suddenly find themselves broke after their business manager was convicted of fraud. The IRS stripped the Rose family of all of their assets, except one: the small town of Schitt’s Creek, which they had only purchased as a joke years earlier.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From “Schitt’s Creek”: 

• Find inspiration from real-life experiences. “Relatability” is a subjective term – some people might relate to certain things, while others might shudder at them. But there’s no better shortcut to capturing your audience’s attention than drawing from actual experiences. Schitt’s Creek was inspired by the lives of the ultra rich, particularly families like the Kardashians. They even drew inspiration from actress Kim Basinger, who once bought a small town in Georgia – only to go bankrupt. But the emotional core of “Schitt’s Creek” was something very personal to Dan Levy: his own personal experience of coming out. When describing writing the show, Dan puts it better than we ever could: “I just wanted to write something that I had experienced, and that people could relate to.”
• Reveal your characters’ flaws. Don’t make them too perfect. Exposing the full spectrum of human traits makes it that much easier for your audience to say, “Oh, I’ve done that before,” or “I’ve felt that way before.” Like how self-absorbed the Roses are, the sibling bickering between David and Alexis, and Moira’s detachment from those around her. But it’s also balanced by authentic emotional journeys for each one of them through the six seasons. So by the end of the show, they’re all much closer, much more likable human beings. A complex, real person includes the good, the bad, and the ugly. 
• Develop relationships between characters. Give them depth by exploring the dynamics with other cast members. Close characters may have nicknames for each other while others may have unsettled drama. By giving them a past and a future, you’re extending their believability past the ad itself. From David and Stevie being frenemies to Alexis and Mutt’s romance, the ever-shifting interpersonal ties explore universal themes like love and friendship that anyone can relate to. Look at how Zendesk highlighted their customer relationships  through this ad styled like the couples interviews in When Harry Met Sally. Or at how Adobe showed the relationships among people in their supply chain. By doing so, the characters and world they exist in feel a lot more realistic and multi-dimensional.

Key Quotes

*”[The Roses] exaggerate and accentuate some of the traits that we can find in ourselves. Like some of the things they say are the things we do. We're like, ‘Ooh, I've done this before.’ In a way they're very human. And I think you see all their flaws and how they interact with each other, like the brother-sister relationship, the mom-son relationship. I think we can relate a lot to those moments and it makes it funny.” - Gwen Lafage

*”When David Rose becomes friends with Stevie and they have this frenemy relationship, you're just like, ‘We have all been there,’ where you're a stranger in a new place and you need to make a friend, and there's one other person who, it turns out, is kind of like you, and maybe you don't like him at first, and then you grow to be friends together. And I feel like it's just such a part of the human condition to be an outsider. And they've never been outsiders in their entire life. And so when you are an outsider and you just get that first friend, it matters so much. You can see those friendships matter more to them than all the money that they used to have.” - Ian Faison

Time Stamps

[1:32] Tell me more about Schitt’s Creek

[3:06] How did Dan Levy come up with the idea for Schitt’s Creek?

[5:37] What makes Schitt’s Creek characters relatable?

[9:35] How does the planning behind the six seasons set up the characters for an authentic emotional journey?

[15:58] How do you make B2B content relatable through your characters

[20:34] Examples of relatable characters in B2B marketing campaigns

[28:06] How to build out a character’s story to make them feel real

[30:58] What have we learned about using relatable characters in B2B marketing?

Links

Watch Schitt’s Creek

Look at how Zendesk highlighted their customer relationships

Check out how Adobe showed the relationships among people in their supply chain

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Have you ever predicted your next campaign’s success with uncanny accuracy? You will. 

That’s because we’re bringing you marketing lessons this week from AT&T’s “You Will” campaign with the help of our special guest, Rokt CMO Doug Rozen.

Together, we talk about demonstrating the future, using intrigue as a marketing tool, closing your copy strong, and increasing the frequency of your ads.

About our guest, Doug Rozen

As Chief Marketing Officer at Rokt, Doug Rozen leads strategy & execution for all Rokt’s global go to market efforts. Known for seamlessly exploiting the intersection of creativity, technology and data, Doug has been recognized globally for transforming companies through change & removing barriers in the business world. He’s been fortunate to be part of many major industry firsts and has become a trusted, go-to adviser in delivering modern marketing for some of the world’s greatest brands. 

Prior to joining Rokt, Doug served as CEO of dentsu Media, where he was responsible for 4,350+ media experts and $20+ billion in media at Carat, iProspect, dentsu X, 360i & beyond. Before dentsu Media, Doug was the first Chief Media Officer at 360i, where he helped them become a Forrester leader, MediaPost Agency of the Year, & AdAge A-list agency. He joined 360i from OMD, where he led digital & innovation activities globally at a critical period in our industry. Before Omnicom, Doug served as Chief Innovation Officer & General Manager at Meredith & created Carlson Marketing’s global agency unit including creative, media, mobile & social offerings. He also helped guide its acquisition by Aimia. Earlier, Doug served as Senior Partner & Managing Director at WPP's JWT, where as one of the first digital leaders he established digital@jwt and combined it with other direct and data offerings. 

Doug is a vocal cancer survivor and proud advocate for Stand Up to Cancer. He holds a BS in Psychology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and has studied ecommerce at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and artificial intelligence at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Doug is an avid cyclist and skier, living in Connecticut with his wife, daughter and son.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From AT&T’s “You Will” Campaign:

• Demonstrate the future. Show your audience the benefit of doing business with you. Give them a visual of the time saved or frustrations avoided by using your product. Ian says, “It speaks to the simplicity of consumer experience and product experience. [Identifying] pain points of, ‘Hey, this thing is annoying. I bet you something will fix that.’” And Doug adds, “I think as a marketer, part of my job is to help, both internally and externally, audiences understand the future and be ready for it. And so I think a key component of this campaign is that ability to predict the future. And have a point of view.”
• Intrigue is a powerful tool. Make your audience question and think about the possibilities if they were to buy your product. Start with a question. In the AT&T “You Think” campaign, they started each ad with something like: “Have you ever kept an eye on your home when you’re not at home?” Asking a question gets your audience engaged immediately by thinking of their answer. 
• Have a strong close. This campaign is called the “You Will” campaign for a reason. Because each ad spot ended with the phrase, “You Will. And the company that will bring it to you: AT&T.” This campaign became iconic not just for its futuristic predictions, but for its strong copy. Doug says, “These commercials and these messages closed an ad as good as any I've ever seen. To me, this felt less like ads and more like little pieces of content.” 
• Increase the frequency of your ads. Include two or three examples of the benefits of your product. It’s essentially fitting multiple ads in one, and uses the power of repetition. In each ad from the AT&T “You Will” campaign, they asked three questions. For example, “Have you ever opened doors with the sound of your voice, carried your medical history in your wallet, or attended a meeting in your bare feet?” And each question suggested a new technology AT&T was working on. Doug says, “A 30-second commercial would have three of them in a row. And so they get two or three of these in what was a standard spot length. And so you got frequency as part of that as well, which is just brilliant.”

Quotes

*”I don't care if it's 1 second, 5 seconds, 20 seconds or 20 minutes. Good pieces of content, branded content, need a beginning, middle, and end. And I think that's what [the AT&T “You Will”] campaign has. And I'd say 90 percent of campaigns don't have that. ”

*”A key component of story building is data. The fact that research was the foundation to which then the stories came to life. I think a lot of times, building a story is about having that data and doing something with it in a really interesting way. And being okay that we don't know how to solve it, but we're going to craft a story about our role, even though we're in the process of solving it. That's bold.”

*”I think it's important for all marketers to believe in your product. If you don't, then I think you're going to be missing the passion and zest that is necessary to be a good marketer. If you don't, how do you find the magic? To me, the magic is what makes marketing great.”

*”That's such an important factor in today's marketing landscape, is just to know who you are, and more importantly, know who you're not. And if you're going to make a moment, really make it stand out and, and really trust yourself.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Rokt CMO Doug Rozen

[1:51] The Impact of Storytelling vs. Story Building in Marketing

[3:43] The Genius Behind Predicting the Future: AT&T's Marketing Mastery

[15:35 Exploring the Role of Data in Product Success

[22:04] Unveiling Brand Identity and the Power of Category Creation

[23:16] The Art of Timeless Campaigns and Content Marketing Mastery

[23:41] Reviving Classic Campaigns: A Nostalgic Marketing Strategy

[24:27] The Evolution of AT&T's Marketing Strategy: A Case Study

[25:22] The Impact of Leadership Changes on Marketing Campaigns

[25:41] Sustaining Iconic Ad Campaigns and Brand Identity

[30:40] The Strategic Shift in Marketing Approach at Rokt

[33:03] Leveraging Employee Influence in Content Strategy

[35:00] The Future of E-commerce and Content Marketing

[41:37] Content Strategy Insights for CMOs

Links

Connect with Doug on LinkedIn

Learn more about Rokt

About 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Your audience doesn’t have time to read a novel. Say more with less. 

You want the text in your campaign to impact viewers, so that it stays with them. So that they think about it later. So that they’re sure to talk about it with their team. So that they’ll buy what you’re selling.

And what better Man-of-Few-Words to learn from than Ernest Hemingway. He is the master of the short, impactful phrase. Today, we’re talking about the legendary six-word story that Hemingway supposedly wrote: “For sale, baby shoes, never worn.” And how you, too, can pack a punch in a few words – but maybe make it a touch less sad.

In this episode we’re keeping it short and sweet. (Sort of. Depends on your definition of “short” and “sweet.”) And showing you how to use the economy of words in your B2B marketing.

About the 6-Word Story

Legend has it that American writer Ernest Hemingway was having lunch at The Algonquin hotel sometime in the 1920s with his writer friends when he made a ten-dollar bet that he could write a short story in just six words. On a napkin, he wrote, “For sale, baby shoes, never worn.” He then collected his earnings from his incredulous friends. 

It’s a great story, but it’s likely apocryphal. According to an investigation published in The Journal of Popular Culture, there’s no proof Hemingway actually wrote those six words. 

There are a few places the legend likely originated. One possibility is literary agent Peter Miller, who wrote about it in his 1974 book, Get Published! Get Produced!: A Literary Agent’s Tips on How to Sell Your Writing. The tall tale may have been inspired by a newspaper urban legend: the story of a classified ad from 1906 that read: “For sale, baby carriage, never been used. Apply at this office.” A 1917 essay by William R. Kane profiled a woman who lost her baby, and it was entitled “Little Shoes, Never Worn.” 

But it doesn’t actually matter where this story came from. What matters is what we can learn from it.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Ernest Hemingway: 

• Be intentional about word choice. Embrace the economy of words – use fewer words to say more. It’s a technique that likely came from journalism, where there was limited space on a newspaper page. In marketing, it’s a means to stand out from your competition.
• Trust your audience to fill in the blanks. Don’t spoon feed your audience the message. Make them think and engage their critical thinking skills (Sound familiar? We’ve talked about this before). Trust that they’ll make the necessary inferences, associations, and assumptions to get the message. Hemingway doesn’t say, “A baby passes away, selling shoes.” He says, “For sale, baby shoes, never worn.” This version is more emotionally compelling, because the audience has to make their own deductions about why the shoes are for sale.
• Tug at your audience’s heartstrings. Use words that evoke an emotional response. They make your readers feel something and/or push them to take action. It’s a common technique, especially in the B2C world. Think De Beers’ “A Diamond is Forever” campaign, reflecting the idea of everlasting love. Allstate’s “You’re in Good Hands” evokes a sense of comfort and security. Without saying much, these brands made us feel something in just a few words. And you can, too, in your marketing.

Key Quotes

*”Words on a page and words spoken to you are the ways that you can paint an extremely vivid picture in your audience or customer base's mind.” - Ian Faison

*”In a day and age where people's attention spans are limited and there's constantly a million things going on, like a million ads being sent your way, emails in your inbox every second, the fewer words you use to get your point across, the more valuable.“ - Anagha Das

*”It's a testament to the human imagination. The human mind is a lot stronger and smarter than people give it credit for. It takes so little to inspire someone's imagination to fill in the blanks or to latch onto the essence of what you're trying to say. To now cut through the noise almost involves saying less to be different than everybody else.” - Dane Eckerle

Time Stamps

[1:49] Tell me about Ernest Hemingway’s 6-Word Story

[4:07] How is brevity used across all forms of media?

[5:03] The history of the 6-word story, “For sale, baby shoes, never worn.”

[8:20] Why is it important for marketers to be able to tell a 6-word story?

[12:55] How do you optimize character count in social media marketing?

[15:33] Examples of the economy of words in B2C and B2B marketing

[21:44] What are character limits across social media platforms?

[24:39] Caspian 6-Word Stories

Links

Demystifying Hemingway’s 6-Word Story

Hemingway’s 6-Word Sequels

Learn More About Power Words in Marketing

Examples of Economy of Words in Marketing Campaigns:

De Beers

Jared

Kay Jewelers

Snickers

M&Ms

Dunkin Donuts

Allstate

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Over 85 million people play Pokemon Go every month.* 

They’re out there, wandering the real world, finding, catching and battling with their cute little virtual creatures. 

But the experience is real and the people they play with are real. You could say it’s one of the most successful in-person activations ever. 

Pokemon Go is proof that in-person activations act as an extremely effective marketing strategy.

That’s one of the lessons we’re taking from Pokemon in this episode with the help of our special guest, fractional CMO Veronica Saron. 

Together, we also talk about providing game balance, paying attention to metrics, and much more.

*As of the first half of 2024

About our guest, Veronica Saron

Veronica Saron is a marketing leader, formerly of Niantic (Pokémon GO) and AI-powered Neeva (acquired by Snowflake (NYSE: SNOW) in May 2023). Her journey has led her through the worlds of gaming, DAOs, artificial intelligence, web3, and the metaverse. Recently, she led the marketing team at Neeva, revolutionizing the search experience by embedding AI answers into an advertiser-free search engine. Her team’s efforts around Neeva's AI-powered positioning – paired with frequent high-profile updates – illuminated their innovative approach, attracted industry leaders and led to their acquisition by Snowflake.

Over a decade ago, Veronica co-founded OwlSpark, Rice University's entrepreneurship accelerator, marking the start of her tech journey. After serving Fortune 500 and Global 2000 clients as a strategy consultant and having a stint as a coordinator at Google, she joined Niantic. There, she led the team that transformed Pokémon GO into a global phenomenon, collaborating with esteemed partners like Google, Apple, Samsung, Nintendo, McDonald's, Verizon, Longchamp, Gucci, Northface, and 7-Eleven, as well as countless global SMBs, community creators, and influencers. 

She has since stepped into roles as an investor and advisor, shaping the future of tech startups. Outside of work, she enjoys stovetop espresso, practicing muay thai, and playing the saxophone. 

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Pokemon:

• Provide game balance. Veronica says, “ When people talk about gamification, it needs to be at the right level of difficulty for you to not just get frustrated and give up. A really good game  will start you off on level one and then you progress through difficulty levels.” And when you apply this to marketing, Ian says, “ Your sales process getting really hard for no freaking reason is the most frustrating thing ever.” So take your customers on a journey, and give them the experience appropriate to where they are in their buying process.
• Look at the metrics. And give them more weight than verbal feedback. Data speaks louder than words. Veronica says, “ When Pokemon Go was in beta, the metrics were really good. Like the retention rates, the activation rates. All the metrics were up and to the right. But people were giving really bad feedback. They were like, ‘I hate this. Why is it not like that? Why isn't it working this way? Why isn't it doing that? Why isn't it doing this?’ And the reason why the team launched the game is because the metrics just spoke louder than what people were saying.”
• Plan in-person activations.  And create immersive environments for your audience. Veronica says, “ When you think about B2B events, you think about conferences and these kind of old school vibes, and I  don't think that's the cutting edge anymore. If you want to do B2B marketing well, take a page out of B2C. There've been some incredible in-person events.” When she worked on Pokemon Go, they were able to do successful in-person events even during COVID and they were able to grow the business despite restrictions.

Quotes

*”  With Pokemon Go and with any product, there's always going to be core users who are like super users. And they will have all these ideas. They'll want certain features. They'll want certain things fixed. They will be really loud. And then you get the rest of everybody that’s the silent majority. A huge part of what product marketers have to do is prioritize feedback based on what is actually going to move the needle in terms of our goals. Because if you just listen to the core users all the time, you'll just make this thing that's only for a very specific super user. You have to balance that feedback with what's going to work for the majority as well.”

*”Figure out what problem you're solving. Who is it for? Figure that out first and then you can start to think about being precious about your brand. Once you have something to protect, like the Pokemon company, then you can get precious about it.”

*” Sometimes we get caught up in our own core mindset and we forget we have to take the customer through a journey and through a ‘balanced game,’ if you will.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Veronica Saron, Fractional CMO at early stage startups

[1:33] Veronica's Journey with Pokemon

[5:02] The Origin Story of Pokemon

[10:07] Pokemon's Global Impact

[16:01] Marketing Pokemon Go

[29:16] The Business Model of Pokémon Go

[35:06] B2B Marketing Lessons from Pokémon Go

[35:53] The Importance of Game Balance in B2B

[41:46] Brand Consistency and Product Market Fit

[46:44] The Power of In-Person Events

Links

Connect with Veronica on LinkedIn

About 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

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 Bao

Carolyn 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 your ICP and knowing what you want your ICP to think or do differently from your storytelling is critical.”

Quotes

*”With constraints, creativity really differentiates a good storyteller from a mid storyteller, leveraging the Gen Alpha language. The more you understand the limitations, the better it is you stay focused and think about within all of these constraints, what else could we do?”

*“If you are building a B2B brand, really make sure that there is a founder side of the humanized story. So that it's not just this brand, but it's actually the why the company was founded and how the founders have built the company.”

*” Let's ground our work back to marketing fundamentals. Our marketing fundamentals is storytelling and we really need to understand whom we're talking the story to, what we want them to think or do differently. This is the first. The second piece is, please do not be afraid of developing that left brain as a marketer because the tools to help us measure our work and tell us the feedback of how well our storytelling did are becoming a lot more available. If you don't know, search it up, use chat GPT, but really, really deeply understand marketing measurement and the data that is at your disposal to make you a better marketer. The third piece that's super critical is do not forget stakeholder management because with the village that supports us is what we can work on our day to day, the blocking and tackling, but also when the time is right, advocate for big activation like the Olympics and really make history. Have fun with it.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Carolyn Bao, VP of Marketing at AppsFlyer

[2:54] B2B Marketing Lessons from the Olympics and AppsFlyer

[4:14] Olympic Marketing Campaigns and Sponsorships

[36:09] Human-Centric Storytelling in Marketing

[42:28] Key Takeaways

Links

Connect with Carolyn on LinkedIn

Learn more about AppsFlyer

About 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

You don’t need to have an unlimited budget to make remarkable marketing content. In fact, it's better if you're working under some constraints. We have proof.

The folks over at Wistia did a little experiment they called One, Ten, One Hundred. They made an ad for the same product (Wistia’s Soapbox video recorder) on three different budgets: $1,000, 10,000 and 100,000 dollars, to see which one would perform best. And in this episode, we’re giving you the inside scoop on what they found. You’ll be surprised at the result.

Today, we’re showing you how combining a bit of inventiveness with a touch of resourcefulness is more powerful than just throwing money at your marketing. Because when cash is a bit strapped, that’s when you’re forced to get creative. And it’s that creativity that resonates with viewers. That’s what we’re talking about today with Chris Sheen, Director of Content and Social at Celonis. So take out your scissors and craft paper for this episode of Remarkable.

About our guest, Chris Sheen

Chris Sheen is Director of Content and Social at Celonis. He joined Celonis in February of 2022. Prior to his current role, he served as CMO at Sideways 6 and SaleCycle. He has also worked at Teradata and Experian. He is based in London.

About Celonis

Celonis is the global leader and pioneer in process mining. 

They pioneered the process mining category 10 years ago and the company is now valued at over $13 billion dollars - decacorn status no less. 

About One, Ten, One Hundred

One, Ten, One Hundred is a Webby Award-winning four-part documentary in which video software company Wistia challenges video production company Sandwich Video to make three ads on different budgets: 1,000, 10,000 and 100,000-dollars. The goal was to explore the impact budget has on creativity in video ads. Wistia then measured ad performance and audience reaction to gauge success of each. It was also a way to advertise for Wistia’s tool, Soapbox, which is a video creation tool for SMBs.

The metrics they tuned into were traditional demographics, engagement data, cost per customer acquisition and return on investment.

The idea for Wistia’s documentary came about because their production team realized they didn’t have a good understanding of the money-in-money-out ratio. Wistia Founder and CEO, Chris Savage said, “Our production team felt that creativity was the single most important element in producing an effective video and this fits in with our vision to grow through creativity.”

What B2B Companies Can Learn From One, Ten, One Hundred:

• Show the “making of” process behind your product.  There’s an appeal to seeing a transformation from beginning to end. Ian says, “We like to know the process of making something. The making of something is just as interesting, or even more interesting, than the final asset. People like to watch transformation. They like inside information.” Chris says that it also shows the humanity behind the product, behind the company. He says, “I think B2B companies can just feel like a faceless organization that has a product, that has software. But when you show the making of things, like one of my favorite easy tricks is showing an outtake at the end of a video. It's a, you know, a five second outtake. It shows the human side, it shows the mistake and it completely changes how you feel very quickly about the brand, about the company.” Showing the process humanizes your brand and makes it more appealing to potential customers.
• Play up how long your product was in development. This conveys to your audience a sense of your specialty and standards of excellence in the industry. Chris says, “Apple and Dyson really show you the level, the hours, the days, years, months, they've gone into making their products, really crafting what they do and the art behind it. Like, ‘We've perfected this. We weren't going to ship it until it was ready.’ This is so powerful as a marketing technique. Because it works. It really makes you feel like, ‘Okay, this is going to be something special.” So show the rigor that went into crafting your product.
• Edutain your audience. Don’t just try to educate them. Make it fun. Chris says, “Great content marketing is like entertainment. You've got to know your audience to do that well. Wistia really does. How many companies sat there thinking, ‘We'd love to have a great explainer video for our website, but we just don't have the budget’? I watched [the documentary] and I'm literally thinking, ‘I need to get my craft papers out. I'm going to steal my daughter's school stuff and start making stuff to help sell Celonis.’ Because it brings it to life in so many different ways.” So when you’re creating content, ask yourself, “Is this educational and is it entertaining?” A good way to measure this is to ask, “Would viewers watch it in their own time?”
• Create something that you enjoy. Because it’s likely what your audience would enjoy too. Chris says, “With Wistia, they're clearly doing it as much for themselves as anyone else. They're clearly loving it, enjoying it, learning a lot themselves. And at the end of it, you kind of feel that they've got as much out of it as I have watching it. And I think that in itself is a great sign of content. If you can do something that, when you look back, you think, ‘I think I would enjoy this if someone else had made this,’ I think that's a really strong point if it fits your target market.’

Quotes

“When you watch [One, Ten, One Hundred], you don't feel like you're watching a piece of content marketing. And that's probably the ultimate B2B marketer’s goal, or any marketer's goal really, is to make that content not feel like it's selling something. It's just selling entertainment and education.” - Chris Sheen

“We always strive for perfect, don't we? We want perfection in the market. We want it to feel great and look great, sound great. Sometimes it's worth taking a step back and thinking, ‘Actually, what's going to get the message across the most authentically?”  - Chris Sheen

*”Creative work has to have constraints.” - Ian Faison

*”[The documentary] really was binge worthy, which is the ultimate goal for content marketing. It passes the driveway test. That’s when you're listening to a song, you get to the end of your journey, you're sitting in your driveway. Do you get out of the car and just walk away, or do you stay to finish it?” - Chris Sheen

Time Stamps

[00:54] Introducing Director of Content & Social at Celonis, Chris Sheen

[1:48] Why are we talking about Wistia’s One, Ten, One Hundred documentary today?

[3:21] What is Wistia’s One, Ten, One Hundred documentary about?

[5:50] What makes the documentary remarkable?

[12:51] What are some marketing lessons we can take from One, Ten, One Hundred?

[30:22] What’s Chris’ content strategy?

[36:15] What are some projects at Celonis Chris is proud of?

Links

Watch One, Ten, One Hundred

Connect with Chris on LinkedIn

Learn more about Celonis

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

The marketing terrain is rough out there. In many ways, traversing the roots, rocks and mud of extreme trail running is like navigating the shifting marketing landscape.

Both demand endurance, adaptability and a strategic mindset. Those are a few of the things we’re talking about today. 

In this episode, we’re taking marketing inspiration from extreme trail running with the help of our special guest, DeepL CMO Steve Rotter.

Together, we talk about being agile, stepping where others have stepped, how to plot your own route, and aiming for progress over perfection.

About our guest, Steve Rotter

Steve Rotter, an entrepreneur, evangelist, and author, brings over two decades of tech marketing leadership experience to his role as CMO at DeepL. With a track record as a two-time founder with two M&A deals and three unicorns under his belt, Steve is deeply passionate about innovative marketing, AI, and brand building. Prior to DeepL, Steve served as CMO of FourKites, where he spearheaded remarkable growth and revenue increases through targeted account-based marketing and PLG strategies, serving industry titans like Coke, Walmart, and Ford. His expertise extends to CMO roles at OutSystems and Acrolinx, where he drove unicorn growth, established category leadership, and facilitated successful acquisitions. He's also held leading tech-industry marketing positions at Adobe, Motorola, and Brightcove.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Extreme Trail Running:

• Agility is key. Be on the lookout for disruptions, like changes in buying pattern, that mean you may have to change course. Steve says he was out running “and we had a couple of days of rain because of the recent hurricane. And all of a sudden a trail that was normally a certain way had about a 10 foot river running through it, and you had to cross it and not try not to get too wet and fall over. And the course that you thought was one way is different.” This is true with marketing as well. The landscape is always changing. You have to adapt to what’s in front of you to keep going.
• Step where others have stepped. If you’ve seen others have success with a particular marketing strategy, try it. Use their success to your advantage. Ian says, “If you have somebody's footprints right there in front of you, you can just stay right in their footprints.” Like in extreme trail running, you know stepping in the same place as the person in front of you is a safe bet.
• When there is no path, slow down just enough to plan your route. But don’t take too long to do it. Ian says, “There's this balance of speed versus slowing down to plan your route. And I think that like a lot of times, in my opinion, B2B marketing teams slow down and plan way too much. And they're way overly concerned with the perfect plan rather than running. At the end of the day, you have to move. You have to keep moving. So many people are just crippled by indecision.”
• Progress over perfection. Don’t wait for perfect data to make great content. Use what information you have to move forward. Steve says, “In many cases, you have very data-driven businesses and by definition, marketing has become almost a data-driven skill set that has to be present. But in many ways, it's that analysis paralysis that slows them down because they're waiting for perfect data. We can't wait for perfection. We have to show progress.”

Quotes

*”I think that's actually a really healthy discipline for marketing teams, is not just to be on that hamster wheel all the time, but to take some time out and say, ‘Look, what do we really want to do? What do we want to say? What's our message? What's our story? What's our creative angle?’ And rarely do you achieve that in moments of extreme distraction, right? It's that focus time that kind of drives those light bulb moments.”

*”A leadership approach that is acceptable has a tolerance and there's no fear of failure. If you have marketers that are afraid, like if they make a mistake, they're going to get yelled at or fired, then of course they're going to take time because they're going to just wait for perfect. Whereas if you build a culture in your marketing team around speed, velocity, and learning from your mistakes, then you got a good recipe.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Steve Rotter, CMO at DeepL

[1:48] The Connection Between Trail Running and Marketing

[6:42] Psychology and Support in Extreme Trail Racing

[12:54] Preparation and Training for Trail Running

[16:56] Marketing Strategies and Team Dynamics

[22:15] Balancing Speed and Planning in B2B Marketing

[23:55] Overcoming Analysis Paralysis

[24:24] The Importance of a Fearless Marketing Culture

[25:05] Navigating Unpredictable Terrain

[29:12] The Little Things in Marketing

[31:46] Educating the Market on AI

[34:37] Leveraging Customer Stories

[37:54] Advice for CMOs on Content Strategy

[40:04] Uncovering Hidden Stories

Links

Connect with Steve on LinkedIn

Learn more about DeepL

About 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Your employees have untapped star potential. Think about it.

We all love a little drama, some hot gossip, some spilt tea. And it happens in the office just as much as it happens in a high-end restaurant. We’re not saying you should stir it up for the sake of creating content, but it’s the personalities, interpersonal relationships, and social politics that attract an audience. And you aren’t tapping into that audience. Not yet.

If someone were to say, “Want to watch a show about waiters at a fancy restaurant?” You’d probably say no. Well, you’d be saying no to Bravo’s “crown jewel” with over 4 million viewers and each member of the cast earning at least $25,000 an episode: Vanderpump Rules. The show made celebrities out of their waitstaff and earned a dedicated following for ten seasons with an eleventh season on the way. 

So on this episode of Remarkable, we’re asking the question: “Want to make a series about the employees at your B2B tech company?” To do that, we’re joined by PandaDoc Head of Content Bethany Fagan. Together, we're turning to the reality TV sensation to learn about creating a series, leveraging divisible content, putting your talent front and center, and posting where your competitors aren’t. So pour yourself some rosé and put your feet up because we’re talking Scandoval-and-all on this episode of Remarkable.

About Vanderpump Rules

Vanderpump Rules is a reality TV show about former Real Housewives star Lisa Vanderpump and her staff at her high end restaurants and bars in West Hollywood, including SUR [Sexy Unique Restaurant] Restaurant & Lounge, Pump Restaurant and Tom Tom Restaurant & Bar. It’s a spinoff of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. It focuses on the interpersonal relationships and drama among the employees, including Kristen Doute, Katie Maloney, Tom Sandoval, Stassi Schroeder and Jax Taylor. So there are blooming romantic relationships, cheating, divorce, marriage, betrayals, etc. The first season aired in 2013 and now there are 10 seasons out, all on Bravo.

About our guest, Bethany Fagan

Bethany Fagan is Head of Content at PandaDoc. She has been with PandaDoc for over 7 years, having joined in February 2016 as Partner Marketing Manager. Prior to PandaDoc, she served as Director of Content and PR at iQ media. She is a founding member of Sales Hacker, Inc. and an Associate Member of Pavilion. She is based in the Washington D.C.-Baltimore area.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Vanderpump Rules: 

• Create a series. Make a podcast or video series for your organization. Use the content in its entirety or cut it into smaller pieces and post it across social media channels. It diversifies your content asset production, spreads brand awareness and accesses new audiences. Bethany says that last year, they saw a 79% increase in their social media followers. And she credits that growth to the PandaDoc podcast, The Customer Engagement Lab, which Bethany’s team started in 2020. Lisa Vanderpump’s leveraging of reality tv has resulted in as many as 2,000 diners showing up to her restaurants on a busy night, and a net worth of somewhere around $90 million.
• Use the talent you have. People are drawn to companies they can relate to. Put faces to the company name and focus on the relationships to impart authenticity and humanize your brand. On top of this benefitting your company’s brand, you’re also leveraging the personal brands of each employee involved. If one of them gets fans, it magnifies your company’s brand and theirs. Likewise, Lisa Vanderpump features her employees in Vanderpump Rules. Each of them has a personal brand that they’ve built outside of the show that fans relate to. That’s why Jax, Stassi and Ariana all have millions of Instagram followers. And why Stassi, Katie, and Kristen were able to launch a wine company together. Because fans want to buy into their personal brands.
• Go where your competitors aren’t. Post your marketing content on Instagram if your competitors use LinkedIn and Facebook. Bethany says PandaDoc is posting to TikTok simply because the DocuSigns and the Adobe Signs of the world weren’t on it. And month-over-month, they see a 10 to 20% increase in followers. It's a winning strategy to grow your brand.

Quotes

*”Content marketing 101 is repurposing and getting more juice from the squeeze.” - Bethany Fagan

*”From a content team perspective, we just try to control the controllable. You know, what are some of the metrics that I know that matter that I can confidently report on and try to tie that back to revenue for the business? That's how I tell the story with my leadership team, and that's how I get them to invest in more content for us.” - Bethany Fagan

Time Stamps

[1:28] Get to know Bethany Fagan, Head of Content at PandaDoc

[2:38] Why are we covering Vanderpump Rules?

[3:31] Learn more about Vanderpump Rules

[7:20] Why is Scandoval so attention-grabbing?

[9:41] What contributed to Vanderpump Rules’ longevity?

[14:26] What B2B marketing lessons can we take from Vanderpump Rules? (And how has PandaDoc leveraged these lessons?)

[16:24] The power of diversifying marketing content and leveraging its divisible content

[24:01] About PandaDoc’s TikTok debut and how to measure success on a new social media platform

[27:23] Learn more about PandaDoc’s content strategy with their podcast, The Customer Engagement Lab

[32:27] How to get leadership on board to invest in new content

Links

Watch Vanderpump Rules

Connect with Bethany Fagan on LinkedIn

Learn more about PandaDoc

Check out PandaDoc’s podcast, The Customer Engagement Lab

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

It’s time to take a risk with your B2B content marketing. 

To create a top of funnel piece of content that’s truly unique. Because it’s easy to resort to the “safe” conventional strategies and industry jargon. With everyone using AI tools to pump out B2B content, you can’t afford to make one more thing that just fades into the crowd. 

So what if instead of a webinar or a slide deck, you made a murder mystery starring Kate Mara from House of Cards and Stranger Things’ Brett Gelman? We’re referring to the original podcast that debuted in the top 20 comedy fiction shows on Apple Podcasts: Murder in HR, presented by Gympass and produced by us here at Caspian Studios. 

On this episode of Remarkable, we’re showing you why it pays to take a risk in your content marketing. And how creative narratives can help your brand break through the noise, leave a lasting impression on your target audience, and revolutionize your B2B marketing strategy. So brace yourself for this very special episode of Remarkable where we talk with Gympass’ VP of Content Marketing, Chris Dean, about the creation of Murder in HR.

About Murder in HR

Murder in HR is a podcast about a woman named Jemma who just started a new job as Employee Experience Manager at a tech startup. On her first day at the company all-hands, one of her co-workers gets electrocuted. It’s while investigating his death that she discovers he was murdered. So she teams up with her Chief People Officer, Nicholas, to find out who the murderer is. So armed with her HR skills, Jemma investigates her toxic colleagues while trying not to become the next victim herself. Murder in HR is an original podcast murder mystery starring the voices of Kate Mara and Brett Gelman, produced by Caspian Studios and presented by Gympass. 

About our guest, Chris Dean

Chris Dean is VP of Content Marketing at Gympass, having joined the company in September of 2022. Prior to his current role, he served as Executive Director of Content Marketing and SEO at Ramsey Solutions. He has also served as Global Content Marketing & Public Relations Manager at Albemarle.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Murder in HR: 

• Take a risk. Create a piece of content that transcends expectations in B2B marketing. Infuse storytelling into your marketing efforts to create a compelling and relatable narrative that engages and resonates with potential clients. Chris says that the availability of AI along with the need to grow brand recognition for Gympass in the U.S. drove them to create something top of funnel and unique. He says, “We didn't want to do some crazy stunt that got us a spike of awareness for the wrong reasons. We wanted something meaningful. We wanted something that was going to resonate with HR representatives. We wanted to give them a reason to continue to come back to us.” And Murder in HR was born.
• Use brand integrations. Put your branding into the story in a subtle and seamless way to blend into the plot while hinting at the benefits of your product. Gympass wanted to use brand integrations like Steven Spielberg (e.g. Reese’s Pieces in E.T.), fitting marketing for Gympass organically into the story structure of Murder in HR. Ian says that the way they integrated Gympass in the story was that the company in the story uses Gym Pass as part of their benefits. It’s a proven technique used from B2C, Hollywood and beyond to drive business.
• Create an experience. Make every piece of content fit the customer journey. Chris says, “The worst thing that you can have in content marketing is a dead end piece of content. It all needs to be part of a longer experience.” And that experience pushes customers to your website. But the thing about Gympass is they’re not trying to rush it. For them, it’s about creating a more seamless, enjoyable, and one-of-a-kind experience. Chris says, “It's all about continuing the conversation and offering up the next logical step for them to take with us.” So sit back and enjoy the ride.

Quotes

*“If they're listening to the podcast, they might not even know they have an HR related problem at their company. We're introducing the problem to them so that now they're problem aware. And then they're solution seeking because it's like, ‘Okay, I don't want these toxic behaviors. What can I do about it?’ And then once Gympass is introduced into that, then they're solution aware and they know that Gympass could be a possible solution for them.” - Chris Dean

*”Our brand awareness activities need to be driving brand traffic. And so we should be seeing a continuous increase there from all of our activities. The challenge is associating one individual activity with that traffic profile. But whenever we have a launch of something, we can look on that traffic profile, and we see a distinct spike that perfectly aligns with that. And so that gives us an indication of the traffic impact of that activity.” - Chris Dean

Time Stamps

[1:55] Get to know Chris Dean, VP of Content Marketing at Gympass

[4:21] Why is Murder in HR groundbreaking?

[7:57] What was the impetus behind creating Murder in HR?

[8:48] Tell me more about Murder in HR

[15:45] How did the podcast incorporate brand integrations for Gympass?

[21:35] What was the inspiration behind Murder in HR? And how did they use experiential marketing?

[27:13] How do they think about the customer journey at Gympass?

[32:04] How does Gympass measure the ROI of top of funnel or brand awareness content?

[36:45] Chris Dean’s advice for other B2B content marketers

Links

Listen to Murder in HR

Connect with Chris on LinkedIn

Learn more about Gympass

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Simon Sinek says that a lot of organizations can talk about what they do and how they do it. But he says, “Very few organizations know why they do what they do.” 

And it’s the ‘why’ that is the most important. 

In this episode, we’re taking this lesson and more from Simon Sinek with the help of our special guest, Guru Sundar.

Together, we talk about finding your ‘why’, looking for inspiration in unexpected places, and timing your content so it feels fresh. 

About our guest, Guru Sundar

Guru Sundar is VP of Marketing at Abridge, a leader in generative AI for healthcare. Guru has been with the company since September 2023. He previously served as VP of Marketing at Looking Glass Factory and Butterfly Network. Guru holds a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Cornell University and an MSc in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Southern California.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Simon Sinek:

• Find your ‘why’. Figure out the reason your work is important and use that in your content. Guru says, ”Every company should have a ‘why’ that's rooted in a large problem. And it may be broken into a subset of problems that you tackle over time, but like really focus on that ‘why.’”
• Look for inspiration in unusual places. Inspiration for your content can come from unexpected places. Guru says, ”Drawing inspiration from outside is culturally ingrained in how we do what we do at Abridge, because if you look at who's next to you, you're not going to innovate. But if you look way far out and break down like, ‘Oh, that brand or that person is having similar challenges, but they're making t-shirts, but I can draw some inspiration from them,’ or like ‘That person over there is making music, or they're making some form of art that no one's ever seen before.’”
• Time your delivery so content stays fresh. Finesse is everything when delivering content to your audience. Guru says, ”No one likes fatigue. And so you have to keep fatigue, freshness, innovation in mind as you're generating these pieces of content. You could have like four or five different content streams. And people need to hear things multiple times, but they don't need to hear it seven times in a row. A lot of the content is developing the right things for your audience that are innately interesting. If you just ask someone, ‘Hey, is this interesting? Is this useful?’ They say yes. But then serving it at the right frequency, at the right time, in the right form factor and package, is what I think differentiates okay marketers from incredible marketers.”

Quotes

*”Drawing inspiration from outside is culturally ingrained in how we do what we do at Abridge, because if you look at who's next to you, you're not going to innovate. But if you look way far out and break down like, ‘Oh, that brand or that person is having similar challenges, but they're making t-shirts, but I can draw some inspiration from them,’ or like ‘That person over there is making music, or they're making some form of art that no one's ever seen before.’”

*”Every company should have a ‘why’ that's rooted in a large problem. And it may be broken into a subset of problems that you tackle over time, but like really focus on that ‘why.’”

*”You can break marketing down into two mainstreams. It's like  amazing content that resonates with your audience, you know, your buyer, your end user, and then you have to serve it on all the right channels with the right frequency, usage, et cetera, like cut it up the right way. But content is everything. So it's like, what is it that's going to inspire your buyers? What is it that's going to inspire your end users? And it's keeping it provocative.”

*”No one likes fatigue. And so you have to keep fatigue, freshness, innovation in mind as you're generating these pieces of content. You could have like four or five different content streams. And people need to hear things multiple times, but they don't need to hear it seven times in a row. A lot of the content is developing the right things for your audience that are innately interesting. If you just ask someone, ‘Hey, is this interesting? Is this useful?’ They say yes. But then serving it at the right frequency, at the right time, in the right form factor and package, is what I think differentiates okay marketers from incredible marketers.”

*”If I was to give advice to others, like, really understand your personas, and make sure you know what they need and do it in the most authentic way. If you don't believe in the content, don't serve the content.  And I think a lot of people in marketing just check the box. ‘We need to do emails. We need to do ads. We need to do a white paper,’ but like, why are you doing it? And then assess like, ‘Did this work? Did this not work?’ And use that as impetus to drive the next thing. But you have to really believe in your content. And I think a lot of people are very tactical and that's where I think it falls flat.“

*”The way we operate at Abridge is like you almost have this mentality that this is the last time you're ever gonna create a piece of content. So make it last, make it meaningful.  At some point, you gotta pull back and appreciate everything you've done. Take stock of it. But in the moment, like, don't look back. Don't look too far forward. Focus on today and crush it. And when you think about content that way, it's like, ‘I'm going to really focus on this piece of content. I don't really care what we've done in the past. I don't care what we're going to do in the future. I want to make this count.’”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Guru Sundar, VP of Marketing at Abridge

[1:53] Guru Sundar's Journey into Marketing

[4:31] The Role and Vision at Abridge

[7:35] The Importance of Brand and Inspiration

[16:37] Simon Sinek's Golden Circle

[19:29] Personal Mission and Healthcare Innovation

[23:25] The Impact of Transparency in Healthcare

[25:20] AI and Deeper Understanding in Healthcare

[25:46] The Importance of Patient History

[27:53] Marketing and Storytelling in Healthcare

[31:41] Challenges in B2B Healthcare Marketing

[33:09] Clinician and Patient-Centric Solutions

[43:12] The Role of Content in Marketing

[50:34] Final Thoughts and Takeaways

Links

Connect with Guru on LinkedIn

Learn more about Simon Sinek and “Starting with Why”

About 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Your content has the power to reposition your brand’s place in the industry. It’s time for you to take the lead. 

So we’re sharing a story with you about a campaign that did just that. IBM’s Outthink campaign declared the beginning of the cognitive era; an era in which they were no longer a company that just sells technology. The campaign repositioned them as a thought leader in this new era.

And in this episode, we’re analyzing IBM’s Outthink campaign with the help of our special guest, Founder & CEO of Omnia Strategy Group, Jessica Marie. Together, we talk about capitalizing on the moment, venturing outside your branding, and taking high quality photos and videos. So put your thinking caps on for this episode of Remarkable.

About our guest, Jessica Marie

Jessica is an accomplished visionary strategist and catalyst in the tech industry, renowned for her achievements within the B2B cybersecurity space. She's helped leading organizations in Silicon Valley, and played a pivotal role, from guiding companies through multiple funding rounds, to achieving notable successes and lucrative exits.

Her expertise in discovery, positioning, product marketing and thought leadership has driven multi-million dollar product launches, media campaigns, and helped transform organizational dynamics during times of uncertainty.

Recognized for her ability to think beyond conventional methods and bring a deeper perspective to any situation, Jessica's profound understanding of the technology industry and emerging trends has positioned her as a trusted advisor and industry influencer.

Jessica's personal philosophy is rooted in her manifold interests and experiences. As a writer, artist, and futurist, she delves into the complexities of societal patterns and trends, casting a visionary eye towards the potential futures of humanity. Her diverse areas of curiosity, including technology ethics, spirituality, ancient teachings, and economics, are colored by her personal voyage through depth psychotherapy, spiritual exploration, travel, and artistic expression.

As the founder of Omnia Strategy Group, she draws on both her personal and professional experience, leveraging her strategic insights to help companies and leaders create and maintain a positive impact in the world, while shaping the future of the technology landscape.

About Omnia Strategy Group

Omnia Strategy Group is a visionary guide for B2B tech startups poised to become market leaders. Their mission is to identify potential, fuel growth, and drive companies out of stealth mode and into the forefront of their industries. They specialize in product marketing, thought leadership, and strategic positioning, leveraging our unique insights to catapult tech companies to success. At Omnia, we redefine the future of technology, turning possibilities into reality, and startups into industry pioneers.

About IBM’s Outthink Campaign

IBM’s “Outthink” campaign was created by ad agency Ogilvy, and launched in 2015 to promote IBM Watson, a data analytics processor. Watson uses Natural Language Processing to understand a question, analyze tons of data, and come back with an answer based on the data. In other words, you ask Watson a question, and it returns momentarily with an answer based on data across the internet that it has analyzed. It’s named after former IBM CEO Thomas J. Watson, and became world famous after beating human contestants in Jeopardy in 2011. IBM CEO Ginni Rometty says the goal was to “redefine the relationship between man and machine.” It’s been used in healthcare, finance, retail, and more. 

So the “Outthink” campaign promoted this idea of cognitive business through the use of Watson. In that by using Watson, you’re leveraging a tool that will enable employees to work faster and smarter. And give you a leg up on your competitors. It was considered an integrated media campaign, and consisted of a series of print, digital and video ads, the print versions which featured in the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Each ad was different, so an example of what this looked like was an ad targeting the cybersecurity industry. It’s a full-color image of a network of connections lit up in the shape of an eye. And it says, “Outthink threats”. In smaller text, it says, “Seeing threats others might miss helps you respond to attacks before they endanger your business.” It goes on to explain how IBM Security and Watson scan blogs, forums and bulletins to gain security intelligence, while being able to search through unstructured data to find threats.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From IBM’s Outthink Campaign:

• Capitalize on the moment. Timing is everything. Jessica says IBM launched their Outthink campaign when “cognitive computing was just starting to enter the public sphere. AI was still this Star Trek concept. And IBM capitalized on that moment with a campaign that was both educational and inspirational. It set the stage for discussions about the future of technology in a way that was really accessible. And AI was suddenly a topic that we could have real conversations about.” So launch content that speaks to the moment in your industry and position your brand as a thought leader.
• Venture outside your branding. A standalone campaign is an opportunity to be adventurous in your marketing. Jessica says, “Creativity and design are incredibly powerful in helping to further messaging. Even when it's really out there and creative, it really stops you.” The Outthink campaign was a clear departure from the black and blue colors with stark geometric shapes normally used in IBM’s branding. And because it was, the campaign stood out. So create a campaign with its own unique look to grab attention.
• Take high quality photos and videos. The images in IBM’s Outthink campaign are captivating. They’re well-lit, sharp, detailed and vibrant. Ian says, “Get a photographer and take some really cool photos of your actual customers. It's always worth the money to take high quality photo and video.” It humanizes your brand, highlights your customers, and is visually compelling.

Quotes

*”With a lot of the earlier stage companies that I work with, there are so many priorities. And a lot of the time, unfortunately, what ends up happening is that their story isn't told. And so a lot of the time their messaging and positioning will suffer because of that. I don't think it's possible to really get to great content unless there is solid messaging and positioning. And you can't get to messaging and positioning without really diving deep into the story and the narrative of that company.” - Jessica Marie

*”There's a tendency to think that we have to be really technical about things to show the value. Like that's just not true. We can show value based on how we are solving a problem that no one else is in a way that no one else is. How is it making your life easier? Like, those things are compelling.” - Jessica Marie

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Jessica Marie, Founder & CEO of Omnia Strategy Group

[2:42] Why are we talking about IBM’s Outthink campaign?

[5:07] Tell me more about the Outthink campaign.

[9:22] What makes the Outthink campaign remarkable?

[16:32] What marketing lessons can we take from the Outthink campaign?

[26:00] How does Jessica think about marketing at Omnia?

[35:57] How does Jessica think about the ROI of content?

Links

See IBM’s Outthink Campaign

Connect with Jessica on LinkedIn

Learn more about Omnia Strategy Group

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

It doesn’t take magic to make content that resonates. You just have to be real. 

Show your audience that you “get” them by catering to their cares, frustrations, and the reality of their day-to-day lives.

But to do this, you really have to know your audience and their lived experience. 

Just like how Jeff Kinney wrote a runaway hit inspired by his lived experience as a boy. The key is that though the main character, Greg, wasn’t a hero, he was believable…and maybe a bit wimpy at times.

That’s right, we’re talking about Diary of a Wimpy Kid today with Founder of Furmanov Marketing Consulting, Anna Furmanov. Together, we talk about making a comic, entertaining before educating, and writing in your audience’s language.

About our guest, Anna Furmanov

Anna Furmanov is Founder of Furmanov Marketing Consulting, aka the Marie Kondo of startup marketing, helping clean up early stage startups. She has more than 12 years of marketing experience at big name brands like Groupon, Blistex, Del Monte Foods, and startups. She has also led marketing at two venture-backed Series A/B tech startups. She is the host of the Modern Startup Marketing podcast.

About Furmanov Marketing Consulting

At Furmanov Marketing Consulting, Anna acts as a Fractional Head of Marketing, helping VC-backed early stage startup founders and marketing leaders implement marketing programs that drive revenue. She helps startups in industries like  e-commerce, ed tech, higher ed tech, food tech, security tech, sales tech, martech, innovation tech, developer tech and more.

About Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a children’s book series about a boy named Greg Heffley. It’s his journal about navigating middle school and his relationships with his friends and family. It was created by Jeff Kinney based on his own experience growing up. 

Jeff Kinney started working on Diary of a Wimpy Kid in 1998 as a nostalgic book for adults. And it wasn’t until 2006 when he brought a sample manuscript to New York ComicCon when it was picked up by the publishing company Abrams. He signed a multi-book deal with them for a series and the first one was published in 2007. 

Now there are 17 books in 84 editions and it’s been translated into 69 languages. More than 275 million copies have been sold globally. There are three spin-off books within the Awesome Friendly Kid series, four live action films, two animated films on Disney+, and a musical as well as tons of licensed products. There are even emojis and a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Balloon of Greg.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Diary of a Wimpy Kid:

• Make a comic. Literally just turn your next blog post or ad into a comic. The style says anything BUT boring B2B marketing. Anna says, “This could really flip blog posts on their heads, right? Or case studies. If we would mimic something like Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and how they lay things out with words and pictures to tell a story, that's essentially what Diary of a Wimpy Kid is. You could mimic that and create something that looks so different from a typical blog post or case study or any long form content. Because that's the beauty of marketing, right? It's about trying out new ideas and seeing what sticks.”
• Entertain, then educate. Prioritize sharing content tailored to your audience’s interests, attitudes, and values. It shows that you “get” them. And your audience is more likely to re-share it.  Anna says, “A lot of content strategies are focused on educating and not as many are focused on entertaining. Kids want to get entertained. Adults want to get entertained, too. So don't forget about the entertaining side when you think about the purpose of your content. Like the absurdity of sales, the absurdity of marketing, the absurdity of your target buyer’s workday experience. That could be entertaining, too. It could be funny. It hooks you in. It keeps you coming back.”
• Write like your audience talks. Use “wanna” and “gonna” instead of “want to” and “going to.” Show that there’s a human behind the content by writing like you talk. At least in the formats that allow for a casual tone, like on LinkedIn or on your blog. Anna says, “You're not here to just be fake. You're here to be real. Creating a space for other people to be real with you. Which creates connection, which creates likability. So I use “wanna,” and “gonna,” and I think people connect to me much easier because of that. They like the posts I put out on LinkedIn, and I use those words when I post on LinkedIn. Sometimes I use it in my monthly newsletter. I never use that in my client contracts because I think that's going too far. But in my content, I'm going to use words like “wanna,” and “gonna,” because I think there's a place and a space to do that, and I pick that as my vibe. And Ian adds, “the message is not necessarily that you should use conversational language all the time. It's that you should use the conversational language of who you're selling to.”

Quotes

*”I've seen a lot of case studies that just look the same. They're boring. How can you weave more emotion into case studies? I know it's possible. Because one of the questions I like to ask in my Voice of Customer research work is, ‘How has this tool, platform, whatever, changed your life?’ And that's a big deal. That's emotional. When you hear the answers, maybe it's something that you can blow up a little bit more, make people laugh, make people cry. Overall, how can you make people feel more connected over the emotional stuff?” - Anna Furmanov

*”What is your personality? What's your vibe? A security startup might not want to use “wanna” or “gonna”. That's fine, but at least figure it out so that you have a direction and a roadmap for what you want your content to look like, sound like, feel like, because it's a package. You put it together, and the way that you show up online is a package of who you are and whether people will want to connect with that or not.” - Anna Furmanov

*”When you live with children, you're in those moments and I think it's easier to write about. But tying back to B2B though, you don't live with your target buyer, right? But somehow you have to mimic that knowledge of what they're feeling, what they're frustrated about. So that's why it's so important to check in with them and to have these Voice of Customer research conversations. I can't emphasize enough how important it is to do that. You can't write a book about something from that perspective if you're not in it. You can't write content if you're not in some way in it, right? And super in the community, talking to people, understanding their goals and challenges and emotions and frustrations and what they're worried about and what they're excited about. You just can't. So since you don't live with them, you have to kind of artificially create that.” - Anna Furmanov

*”Start with the foundational stuff like voice of customer research. Having these conversations with five to ten of your customers or prospects, understanding them, understanding how they relate to you, why they picked you, what's your differentiated value, all that is really important. And then tie that back into your content strategy.” - Anna Furmanov

*”What's my wedge? What is my point of view? What point of view will I own? What's that unique insight that only I have, or very few people have, very few people are talking about? What are the stories that are not being told yet that should be told?” - Anna Furmanov

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Anna Furmanov, Founder of Furmanov Marketing Consulting

[2:16] Why are we talking about Diary of a Wimpy Kid?

[5:29] What does Anna’s work at Furmanov Marketing Consulting entail?

[8:16] What is Diary of a Wimpy Kid about?

[12:09] What’s remarkable about Diary of a Wimpy Kid?

[22:36] What marketing lessons can we take from Diary of a Wimpy Kid?

[38:02] What advice would Anna give other marketing professionals?

Links

Read Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Subscribe to the Modern Startup Marketing podcast

Connect with Anna on LinkedIn

Learn more about Furmanov Marketing Consulting

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 Meredith Gooderham mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

So many marketers use dialogue as a crutch. They spell out what their product is, how their audience could benefit from it, and wrap things up with a run-of-the-mill CTA.

But you don’t need dialogue to make a powerful B2B marketing campaign. In fact, you might not need words at all.

This week, we’re looking at the iconic opening montage from Pixar’s “Up.” The “Married Life” scene tells the story of the film’s main character, Carl’s marriage to his childhood sweetheart, Ellie. We follow them from youth to old age – and Ellie’s death. These moments have no dialogue, instead letting the music, color, and shape tell Carl’s backstory. The animators didn’t tell us about Carl’s life – they showed it to us. The result? Perhaps the most iconic scene in Pixar’s storied history – and that’s no easy feat.

And we think your B2B marketing can leverage these same techniques to communicate your message so much more effectively than a voiceover ever could.

About Pixar’s “Up”

“Up” is a 2009 animated movie by Pixar. It was directed by Pete Docter and co-director Bob Peterson, who also wrote the story along with Tom McCarthy. The original score is by Michael Giacchino.

“Up” follows 78-year-old Carl Fredricksen as he rigs up his house with balloons in an attempt to fly to Paradise Falls and fulfill a promise to his late wife. He is joined by Russell, an 8-year-old Junior Wilderness Explorer, who has stowed away by clinging to the porch as the house lifted off its foundation. Together, they navigate the treacherous journey to the falls.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Pixar’s “Up”: 

• Let music do the emotional heavy lifting. The “Married Life” montage tells the story of Carl’s marriage to Ellie. Though the two tragically discover they can’t have children, they find hope in their childhood promise of trekking across the world to Paradise falls. The scene ends with Ellie’s funeral – and the promise left unfulfilled. These emotional moments are even more powerful because of composer Michael Giacchino’s score. In an interview, Giacchino said that the “Married Life” montage was the most difficult scene to write for. In order to make the scenes most effective, he wrote simple music for the scenes – or even opted not to score some of the most emotional moments. This restraint gave the scenes a gentle, melancholic feel, rather than a melodramatic one.
• Tell a story with color and shape. Whether they know it or not, viewers use basic visual cues to put together and understand a scene nearly instantaneously. So much of a scene can be told through these basic visual cues like color, and shape. In “Up”, each character is designed around a shape and color that conveys something about their personalities. Carl is blue and a square, Ellie is pink and a circle, and Russell is yellow and egg-shaped. The animators also adjusted the color palettes for scenes based on their emotional content: they used saturated colors in joyful scenes and drab colors in sad scenes. These visual cues may seem basic, but the connotations of specific colors and shapes will create instant context for your ad’s viewers.
• Focus on facial expressions and body language. We don’t just communicate with our words. The “Married Life” montage uses body language to show Carl and Ellie’s feelings towards each other. When Ellie points at a cloud, we see Carl’s blissful expression. We watch Ellie flinch as Carl smashes their savings jar again, telling us everything we need to know about how Ellie feels at that moment. Through intentional camera composition, editing, and directing, you can communicate a story with no words at all.

Key Quotes

*”By showing, not telling, especially in this example, it forces you to fill in the blanks with words that you understand or emotions that you can connect with.” - Dane Eckerle

*”When you show a story without any V.O., we have no idea where we're going. So each thing happens sequentially and it builds on itself. You don't know where it’s going. But by the end of it, you totally get it.” - Ian Faison

*”If you go on TikTok, they're telling, not showing at all. There's someone speaking to you, there's captions, there's big text on the screen and you're seeing and hearing everything [being] spoon fed to the point where now, moments like this land that much harder, because I'm not used to using my imagination as much. This technique will work better now than it would've 15 years ago because people are so used to being spoon fed stuff. So it's all the more relevant today.” - Dane Eckerle

*”It comes down to B2B companies seeing their audience as people first and not just other businesses. You are talking to people who have real needs and different personas and different target audiences.” - Anagha Das

*”You’re marketing a journey. So as a marketer, take a snapshot of your target customer at the midpoint of their journey, and then show the story of their journey.” - Ian Faison

Time Stamps

[2:12] Tell me more about Pixar's "Up"

[5:35] How did Pixar get audience buy-in within the first few minutes?

[10:37] How did composer Michael Giacchino craft music to tell a story?

[13:07] How did the storyboard artists use color and composition to convey meaning?

[14:55] Why is showing-not-telling more powerful today than ever?

[16:45] Examples of show-don't-tell in marketing

[19:27] How do I market a customer journey?

Links

Watch Pixar’s Up

Learn more about how Michael Giacchino wrote the score

How did Pixar design the characters?

See how Apple used show-don’t-tell in their accessibility campaign

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Drop the technical jargon. Instead, speak your audience’s language.

Language has power. And talking to your audience not as “marketer” but as someone who understands your customer’s world is key. This means speaking to their cares, concerns and frustrations. Do this and your audience engagement will soar. 

In this episode, we’re looking at a show that literally speaks its audience’s languages: Spanish and English. It’s Apple TV’s first bilingual comedy, Acapulco, a show that has been recognized by the Imagen Foundation for its meaningful portrayal of latinos in the media. And together with the help of our special guest, Head of Americas Marketing, Cristina Daroca, we talk about showing the outcome first, speaking your audience’s language, choosing a visually stunning setting, and more. So grab your sunglasses for this episode of Remarkable.

About our guest, Cristina Daroca

Cristina Daroca is Senior Director of Global Demand and Americas Marketing at Riverbed Technology. She joined Aternity in July of 2020 as Director of Global Demand Generation, and the company merged with Riverbed in December of 2021. She previously served as Senior Manager of Global Marketing Programs for DataRobot. She has also worked at companies like Mighty AI and LevelUp. She was born and raised in Spain, and now lives in Boston.

About Riverbed

Riverbed transforms data into actionable insights across the entire digital ecosystem and accelerates performance for a seamless digital experience. Riverbed is the only company with the collective richness of telemetry from network to app to end user, that illuminates and then accelerates every interaction, so organizations can deliver a seamless digital experience and drive enterprise performance. Riverbed offers two industry-leading portfolios: Alluvio by Riverbed, a differentiated Unified Observability portfolio that unifies data, insights, and actions across IT, so customers can deliver seamless, secure digital experiences; and Riverbed Acceleration, providing fast, agile, secure acceleration of any app, over any network, to users anywhere. They have thousands of partners, and market-leading customers globally – including 95% of the FORTUNE 100. Riverbed is headquartered in San Francisco, but they have lots of employees in the Boston area because of an acquisition.

About Acapulco

Acapulco is a TV show about a 20-something Mexican guy named Maximo who gets the job of his dreams working at a luxury resort in Acapulco. But then he finds out that it’s much more complicated than he expected. His new co-workers refuse to show him the ropes, the guests are super demanding, and he finds that it creates challenges at home. The story is told in flashbacks by an older Maximo who has clearly had a successful career, as he’s now living in a beautiful seaside house, looking back on his beginnings. 

The show stars Eugenio Derbez as the mature Maximo Gallardo, and young Maximo is played by Enrique Arrizon. Maximo’s best friend, Memo, who he works with at Las Colinas is played by Fernando Carsa. His boss, Don Pablo, is played by Damian Alcazar. And his love interest, Julia, is played by Camila Perez.

It premiered in 2021, with two seasons out on Apple TV, and a third on the way. And it’s been nominated for the Critics Choice Awards, Hollywood Critics Association Television Awards, Imagen Foundation Awards, and more. It’s Apple TV’s first Spanish bilingual comedy.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Acapulco:

• Show the outcome first. Customers want to hear about results. Then you can support those results with details of how you help them get there. It’s like how In Acapulco, we meet an older, wealthy Maximo who tells his story in flashbacks of how he became successful. Ian says, “A lot of times, we'll say 10 X ROI, here's your case study. But if we get the story element at the beginning part of it using flashbacks, you can tell a story that's gripping from the moment you dig into it.“ And Cristina adds, “Sometimes I think we get too hung up on, ‘What's the pain that the customer is feeling? What's the problem like?’ Let's paint a picture of what the end state looks like for them, and then walk them through, ‘This is how you get there.’” Give your audience a glimpse of their future after they’ve been using your product to grab their attention.
• Speak your audience’s language. Cristina says, “Especially in B2B, we tend to be very buttoned up and using fancy words. And hey, we're talking to humans. It's so important in marketing to know your customer's language, to use the language they're using to really speak the way they do.” She says that’s why Acapulco really resonates with her as a bilingual Spanish and English speaker. 
• Choose a visually stunning setting. 80s Acapulco was a beautiful and evocative place that had cachet as a celebrity vacation spot. This is hugely important, because Ian says, “If you were to tell the same story in Finland in the winter, for example, it would feel extremely different than telling the story in Acapulco in the 80s. It’s another piece that we often don't think of setting when we do our marketing stories, because we’re in an office. Setting is so important and we don't think about it enough in B2B marketing.”
• Capitalize on the resources you have. Everyone is working on tight budgets with limited resources. But Cristina says, “We can control what we have and what we can make out of it, and how we can make it a good experience for our customers, for our guests, for the audience that we're serving.” Maximo came from humble beginnings, having been raised by a single mother. But he used what resources he did have to find success. So focus on doing your best work with what you have.

Quotes

*”It's so important in marketing to know your customer's language. To use the language they're using to really speak the way they do. Especially in B2B. We tend to be very buttoned up and use fancy words. And hey, we're talking to humans. They're also humans. They're talking the same language. So yeah, just really understand your customers, know how they speak and use that same language with them.” - Cristina Daroca

*”This is what it is. The economy is what it is. It's all out of our control. We can't really control the budget cuts, the team cuts. What we can control is what we have and what we can make out of it. And how we can make it a good experience for our customers, for our guests, for the audience that we're serving.” - Cristina Daroca

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Cristina Daroca, Head of Americas Marketing at Riverbed

[1:50] Why are we talking about Acapulco?

[2:19] What does Cristina’s work at Riverbed entail?

[2:59] What is Acapulco about?

[6:05] Why is it important to speak your audience’s language?

[6:53] About the setting of Acapulco

[14:08] What are marketing lessons we can take from Acapulco?

[22:01] How does Cristina think about marketing at Riverbed?

[24:17] How does Cristina prove the ROI of content?

[25:08] What marketing strategy has worked well for Cristina in the past?

[26:10] Learn more about Riverbed’s roadshow

[32:12] What advice would Cristina give to other marketers?

Links

Watch Acapulco

Connect with Cristina on LinkedIn

Learn more about Riverbed

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

B2B ads can feel pretty soulless. But if you’re pulling your hair out and  struggling to connect emotionally with your audience, never fear. 

We have the key to build a deep emotional connection with your audience instantly. That key is NOSTALGIA. 

Take your audience on a trip down memory lane, and they’ll associate your company with something from the past that they already know and love. It’s a winning tactic that taps into feelings of familiarity, comfort, trust, and security. And on top of that, customers are more willing to pay for your product. 

On this episode of Remarkable, we’re talking with podcaster and comedian Jaz Zepatos aka Jaz Zapp. We cover how she connects with her millennial audience, why they’re all lactose intolerant, and going viral. Jaz is a content creator on Instagram and TikTok, and is the host of the Millennial Movie Club podcast. And with her help, we’re teaching you how to use nostalgia in your B2B marketing.

About Jaz Zapp

Jaz is a full-time podcast producer, creative director, and host of the Millennial Movie Club Podcast. A life-long storyteller and comedian with a flair for human connection and edutainment, Jaz enjoys making people laugh, networking with like-minded creatives, and trying to rollerblade without falling down.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Jaz Zapp:

• Define “nostalgia” for your target customer. Nostalgia is specific to different age groups. What’s nostalgic to  your parents will not necessarily be nostalgic to you. So, talk to your customers about what work was like for them 10 or 20 years ago, and create a marketing campaign using their stories. Whether it was handing out physical checks on payday or the vending machine selling out of everything but plain Fritos, there’s content there that’s ripe for the picking. Apple tapped into nostalgia targeting many generations of Sesame Street fans when they ran an ad with Cookie Monster using Siri. Apple was able to appeal to a few different demographics by bringing in a universal childhood favorite, Cookie Monster, and taking us back to the good old days. For Jaz, it started with a memory about crushing on the red Power Ranger and imagining he had fallen in love with her.

“I was like, look, maybe this is just very niche and weird to me. Or maybe there's somebody out there who also gets this. And nine times out of 10, there's a bunch of people that are like, ‘Oh my God, I thought I was just this weird.’ And suddenly you have this community. And it’s people that just want to be reminded of a simpler time. They feel seen and that they weren't so isolated in their experience growing up.” - Jaz Zepatos

• Get weird, get cringey, get real. The closer your ad can get to a nostalgic memory for your target audience, the better. That even includes all of the weird, cringey details. From getting the attention of work crushes, to in-office pranks, or stealing parking spots — sprinkle these personal details into your marketing. As Ian put it, there’s so much pressure as a professional marketer to be serious:

”I think part of the problem for marketers is that we feel like our job is to be a boring adult. If you're selling accounting software or whatever it is, you just feel like, ‘Well, I can't really do anything creative.’” 

Whereas Jaz found a niche audience of nostalgic millennials and cultivated a community there: 

”[I wanted to] just get more in touch with who I was. This was the kind of kid I was. And I like to harness that now because I don't wanna just be a boring adult. I wanna keep some of that with me.”

It’s easy for Jaz to take the lessons she’s learned on social media and apply it to B2B marketing:

”Behind that CRM platform, behind Salesforce, or behind whatever, is a bunch of people that also made their Barbies cheat on each other. I think it's remembering the humanity side of it, where it's like that's what you're appealing to, really. And then once you're in the door, then you can work together and get strategic on SEO and all that stuff. But at the end of the day, it means nothing if you're not striking a very human chord with somebody.”

Quotes

*”If you're playing to everybody, you're playing to nobody. Niching down is always a good idea.” - Jaz Zepatos

*”[I wanted to] just get more in touch with who I was. This was the kind of kid I was. And I like to harness that now because I don't wanna just be a boring adult. I wanna keep some of that with me.” - Jaz Zepatos

*”I think part of the problem for marketers is that we feel like our job is to be a boring adult. If you're selling accounting software or whatever it is, you just feel like, ‘Well, I can't really do anything creative.’” - Ian Faison

*”Behind that CRM platform, behind Salesforce, or behind whatever, is a bunch of people that also made their Barbies cheat on each other. I think it's remembering the humanity side of it, where it's like that's what you're appealing to, really. And then once you're in the door, then you can work together and get strategic on SEO and all that stuff. But at the end of the day, it means nothing if you're not striking a very human chord with somebody.” - Jaz Zepatos

*”The cringier you can get, the more accessible you become. The same thing if you're pitching your company or your product, you want people to feel comfortable with you. You don't wanna walk in like the jock down the hallway and make everybody feel self-conscious. You wanna level with people. And so like for you to be like, ‘Hey, I'm not that cool, but like none of us are that cool. Let's have a conversation,’ is a lot more welcoming.” - Jaz Zepatos

*”People just want to feel some sense of comfort and relatability, and feel like they're a part of something bigger. So I think finding those moments from history and pop culture, TV, or movies, and just figuring out what collectively a group of people were into, and then bringing that back 20 years later is such a smart move.” - Anagha Das

*”Nostalgia isn’t nostalgia for everyone. Like Jaz's content wouldn't be nostalgic for boomers. So you have to identify who your audience is and who you're going to market to.” - Meredith Gooderham 

*”Nostalgia allows you to transport the person instantly back to that feeling. Whether it's a vulnerable feeling, or fun or excitement, or any of those things. It can engender real emotions so quickly, and that's why it's so powerful. So if you're putting it into your marketing, it's a much faster, much deeper connection.” - Ian Faison

Time Stamps

[2:42] Tell me more about Jaz Zepatos aka Jaz Zapp

[3:11] How did Jaz tap into millennial nostalgia?

[8:03] Why marketers should embrace nostalgia as a powerful tool

[10:00] How can you use nostalgia to make your brand feel accessible?

[13:44] How do we apply nostalgia to B2B marketing?

[20:45] The emotional power of nostalgia and how you can use it in your marketing

[21:30] Examples of how nostalgia could be used in B2B marketing

Links

Check out Jaz on:

Instagram

Facebook

Twitter

TikTok

Spotify

YouTube

The Millennial Movie Club Podcast

eBaum’s World article on “Plant Daddy”

See how Apple tapped into nostalgia with their Cookie Monster ad

Listen to Ep. 4 of Remarkable on Mean Girls and how it uses nostalgia to connect with viewers

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

When do you put together a campaign and think, “This is my masterpiece”? 

You probably just need some inspiration. And today, that inspiration is coming from Francis Ford Coppola who created his masterpiece in 1972. 

So in this episode, we’re gonna make you an offer you can’t refuse.

We’re bringing you marketing lessons from The Godfather with the help of our guest, Director of Content, Digital Marketing & PR at Nexthink, Thomas McGrath. 

Together, we talk about appealing to your internal audience first, nailing the ending, and much more.

About our guest, Thomas McGrath

Thomas McGrath is Director of Content, Digital Marketing & PR at Nexthink, the leader in digital employee experience management software, and co-host of their DEX Show podcast, where he discusses the latest advancements in digital workplace experience with leading industry experts and his colleague Tim Flower. Thomas has been with Nexthink for over 4 years, having started in August 2019 as a Content Strategist. Previously, he served as Head of Content & PR at 1E. He has also led Content at Informa.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From The Godfather:

• Appeal to your internal audience first. Run your content by your colleagues before posting or publishing it. They’re like your “family”. Their reaction is a good indicator of how your content will perform out in the wild. Tom says, “If you're not creating enthusiasm and interest internally, with people who are going to be most naturally curious about what you're talking about and most invested in its success, how can you hope to begin to appeal to an external audience?” 
• Nail the ending. No spoilers here, but it’s important to wrap up your content and satisfy the need for a resolution. Ian says, “The ending of The Godfather is one of the most satisfying. The idea to have this massive, big,  satisfying ending I think is something that marketers can really think about with their campaigns, events or content. To be able to finish something with a lot of wrapping paper and having some big pizazz or big show. They landed the plane. And if they didn't land the plane, nobody would ever have remembered The Godfather as the best movie of all time.”

Quotes

*”You shouldn't have to point to your own success and explain it or justify it. It should be self-evident internally that it's been successful.” - Tom McGrath

*”Humanize your material. It's an absolutely vital part of marketing and I think that's where content marketers can come into their own. It's the difference between vehicles that are there to convey information, which absolutely have their place. The importance of web pages, explanatory videos, and assets such as podcasting, surveys, social media. Where you're trying to create interest and engagement or put a literal human face or voice on a story or a message is incredibly powerful.” - Tom McGrath

*”Sometimes marketers can be too nervous about upsetting people, which sounds like a paradox, right? When I say the most important people to impress are your colleagues and most important people to engage and involve in what you're doing are your colleagues. That doesn't necessarily mean they dictate the way you tell their story.” - Tom McGrath

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Thomas McGrath, Director of Content, Digital Marketing & PR at Nexthink

[3:04] The Godfather: A Cinematic Masterpiece Explored

[9:30] Behind the Scenes: The Making of The Godfather

[15:11] The Godfather and Marketing: Drawing Parallels

[19:06] Marketing Insights from The Godfather: Internal vs. External Focus

[24:50] The Vulnerability and Importance of Marketing Within Organizations

[27:38] Drawing Parallels: Marketing Dynamics and The Godfather's Succession Plan

[34:06] Marketing Insights from The Godfather: Nailing the Ending and Humanizing Content

[45:03] Content Marketing Strategies and Success Stories

Links

Watch The Godfather

Connect with Thomas on LinkedIn

Learn more about Nexthink

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

It’s every marketer’s dream to inspire a cult-like following, but that term is usually used for B2C brands. Until you use the tips from this episode in your marketing.

We’re pulling inspiration from the leather bag brand that brought in $128M in sales last year, Portland Leather Goods. With the help of our guest, Head of Marketing Production at Boomi, Danalynne Menegus, we’re talking about building a community, creating a sense of exclusivity, and personalizing your marketing.

About our guest, Danalynne Menegus

Danalynne Menegus is Head of Marketing Content Production at Boomi. She joined the company in 2018 as Senior Consultant, Marketing Communications. In her current role, she is the editorial lead and manager of Boomi's content production process for external-facing marketing assets, from concept through publication, and manager of the Boomi Blog. She is also the steward of the Boomi brand language and style guide, responsible for sharing standards and reviewing everything from press releases to event signage to ensure consistency in messaging. Her role combines strategy, process management, writing, editing, idea sourcing, resource management and assignment (for a team of internal and freelance/contract writers), editorial calendar management, research, and extensive collaboration with colleagues and stakeholders.

Danalynne brings with her more than 25 years of B2B experience and expertise in editorial processes, copy editing, messaging, positioning, content strategy, creation and marketing, sales enablement, and much more. She has previously served as Global Product Marketing Lead of Cloud & Virtualization Software Platforms at Dell; Managing Editor of Corporate Event News, an online publication for event professionals; and Director of Marketing at Sybase/SAP.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Portland Leather Goods:

• Build a community. Create a space for customers to come together and spread the word about your brand. Word of mouth is an incredibly effective way to drive sales. Danalynne says, “digital marketing is something that's gotten more and more sophisticated, but if you are going to do it, be smart about it and draw upon a community. Try and build a community because if you can get other people to really love your product and talk about it, evangelize it, then you are going to get many more customers or even just potential interest.”
• Create a sense of exclusivity. Invite top users to a special community with exclusive benefits and incentives. Danalynne says, “Fear of missing out can go a long way if people feel like they're only going to have a deal for a limited time, or even that you're doing something specially for them, and hopefully you really are, but to me that translates into programs like loyalty programs, or or Customers where, you know, you're a loyal customer. So we're going to give you a discount, or we're going to give you maybe a free pass for an event.”
• Personalize your marketing. Write to your viewer as if you were talking to them in person, and put your personality in it! Danalynne says, ”Behind every brand, there are people. So even in a B2B marketing outreach or B2B sell, you're still selling to a person. And you want to build those relationships. That's what any good salesperson does, or any community manager or customer advocacy manager, or anybody who has those relationships as part of their job does, because people want to buy from people. So if you personalize [your marketing], that's the best way to market.”

Quotes

*”If you're trying to draw people in who know nothing about what you do or your industry or your product, or more importantly, The problems that you can help them solve, you need to lay that out in language that they're going to understand, in the format that they want to consume it in, and on the channel that they want to receive it in.” - Danalynne Menegus

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Danalynne Menegus, Head of Marketing Content Production at Boomi

[6:09] The Birth and Rise of Portland Leather Goods

[13:36] Unboxing the Mystery: A Personal Experience with Portland Leather Goods

[17:26] Marketing Insights: Building a Brand and Community

[27:31] From Bags to B2B: Marketing Lessons from Portland Leather Goods

[31:47] Behind the Scenes: Crafting Content at Boomi

[39:56] Final Thoughts: Humanizing Your Marketing Strategy

Links

Check out Portland Leather Goods

Connect with Danalynne on LinkedIn

Learn more about Boomi

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

B2B marketers take themselves so seriously. A little more humor wouldn’t hurt.

Even if you’re thinking, “I already use humor in my content,” we’re going to convince you to ramp it up. Because today, we’re looking to a company that spends about a third of its content just on humor. And despite having "wasted" content on humor, it's thanks to their booming sales that they’ve raised over $8.6 million to fund sanitation projects around the world.

In this episode, we’re talking about the eco-friendly toilet paper brand, Who Gives a Crap, with the help of special guest, Shannon Howard. Shannon is Director of Customer & Content Marketing at Intellum. Together, we talk about dedicating a third of your content to making your audience laugh, edutainment, paying attention to the details, and much more. So take a bathroom break then tune into this episode of Remarkable.

About our guest, Shannon Howard

Shannon Howard is Director of Customer & Content Marketing at Intellum. She joined the company in March of 2023. Shannon is an experienced Customer Marketer who’s had the unique experience of building an LMS, implementing and managing learning management platforms, creating curriculum and education strategy, and marketing customer education. She loves to share Customer Education best practices from this blended perspective. Prior to Intellum, she served as Customer Marketing Manager at PeopleGrove. She has also held marketing roles at companies like Crowdvocate, Litmus, and The Predictive Index. 

About Intellum

Intellum is the learning management system powering the world's leading education programs. Intellum's scientific, data-driven approach is based on 20 years of industry experience, and the Intellum Platform includes all of the tools an organization needs to create, deploy, manage, track, and continuously improve highly personalized, engaging educational experiences. Large brands and fast-moving companies like Google, Meta, Amazon, Twitter, BeyondTrust, Randstad, AT&T, Verizon, Mailchimp, and many others rely on Intellum to improve product utilization, customer retention, and revenue. 

About Who Gives a Crap Toilet Paper

Who Gives a Crap Toilet Paper is a recycled toilet paper brand. They pride themselves on creating a product that’s better for the environment, as it has no inks, dyes, glues, chlorine or artificial scents. Their products can be delivered or picked up in store. And most orders ship free (over $25). But most importantly, they come with a mission to spread toilet humor and make the world a better place. They use 50% of their profits to build toilets and fund sanitation projects in developing countries. 

That money goes to a non-profit called WaterAid, which helps people in those countries access clean water, sanitation and hygiene education.

The company was started by Simon Griffiths, Danny Alexander, and Jehan Ratnatunga, who are engineers and product designers, in July 2012 after they found out that 2.4 billion people, or 40% of the global population, don’t have access to a toilet. Now, according to their website, that number is down to 2 billion. 

So they started a crowdfunding campaign on IndieGogo and it took about 50 hours to meet their goal, and they raised over $50,000. They launched their first product in March 2013. Now they also offer paper towels and tissues. Each roll is also wrapped in recycled paper in color and playful prints for sanitation purposes. 

They’ve now raised over $13.3 million dollars (that’s Australian dollars) or $8.6 million US dollars.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Who Gives a Crap Toilet Paper:

• Spend your time equally on creating content around product, impact, and humor. A third of the Who Gives a Crap blog is dedicated to bathroom humor. While that might seem like a lot of content that’s not dedicated to marketing or making a sale, Shannon says, “In B2B, we forget that there's not a company on the other side of our marketing. There's a person and they have dreams and aspirations and they have things that they struggle with and they have a sense of humor. Everybody's been asked to do more with less. We just need something to break through the noise and give us a little reprieve. And I think humor does that.”
• Edutain your audience on your mission. Who Gives a Crap educates their audience on their mission to provide access to clean water and sanitation around the world, but they make it fun. Shannon says, “They're talking about deforestation. They’re bringing things in that can be really heavy topics, but making them lighter. They do it in a way that's really organic and natural and funny.” Educate your audience on why what you do matters, and make it light, funny, natural and organic.
• Write like you talk. You’ve probably gone to a site where you have no idea what the business does, because the content is so dry and buzzword-heavy. Don’t write like that. Act like you’re explaining to a friend what you do and write it out. Shannon says, “This is something I try to think about for content when I'm writing for SEO. Okay, I'm writing for a search engine. But I'm also writing for humans. I can't write for search only, right? You need to write for real people who are going to read your content and give them a reason to want to read your content. If you can make it entertaining and maybe you're putting gifs in there or emojis, or you're breaking up the text, or you're giving some real life examples. Those are ways you don't maybe necessarily have to use humor. That's not part of your brand, but you can lighten it up a little bit.”
• Fit creative moments into the details. Every bit of real estate matters, whether it’s on your blog, in an email, or on a piece of packaging. Shannon says, “If you have an autoresponder, an email signature, real estate on your website, on your social media, are you paying attention to those details? Are you personalizing them? Are you speaking to your customers there?” The details and the little bits of space are opportunities to personalize, to be creative, and to speak to your customers.

Quotes

*”Surprise and delight is a big part of B2C companies. But it's not something we always think about in B2B. We think about, like, what is the thing that is going to provide the most value? But then you think about something like loading screens. Or in Asana, when you check off a task that needs to be done, you get a little unicorn, yeti or otter that flies across the screen. So just things like that, where it's small, it doesn't add value. No one's buying it for the unicorn, but it's a way to surprise and delight your customers. And that does make a difference. I think we forget those little things can mean a lot more to people. They can be really impactful moments.” - Shannon Howard

*”When it comes to brand voice, think about if you were to walk up to our brand at a party. What would they be like? Think about your brand and what would that brand look like personified in the real world.” - Shannon Howard

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Shannon Howard, Director of Customer & Content Marketing at Intellum

[2:03] Why are we talking about Who Gives a Crap toilet paper?

[3:57] What does Shannon’s work at Intellum entail?

[5:24] What is Who Gives a Crap toilet paper?

[10:22] What makes Who Gives a Crap remarkable?

[13:15] What are marketing lessons we can take away from Who Gives a Crap?

[26:51] What is Shannon’s content strategy at Intellum?

[35:14] How does Shannon think about proving the ROI of content?

Links

Check out Who Gives a Crap Toilet Paper

Connect with Shannon on LinkedIn

Learn more about Intellum

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

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 Finnerty

Brian 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 Advice

Links

Connect with Brian on LinkedIn

Learn more about D2L

About 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Imagine your marketing team working on a project with clear guidelines. They know what their end goal is. Everyone’s executing their role, communicating seamlessly, and meeting deadlines. The result? Marketing perfection. This could be you, after you listen to this.

We’ve all experienced the frustration of working on a project where expectations and roles aren’t clear. Some people put in more effort than others, work is sloppy, deadlines are missed. There’s an imbalance that makes getting any work done nearly impossible.

But there’s a magic that happens when you foster a culture of communication, trust, and cohesion; working together as one. And through this culture, you can power amazing results.

On this episode of Remarkable, we’re getting in the groove with the help of Webby Honoree and Global Executive Content Marketing Lead at VMware, Yadin Porter de León. Together, we’re exploring how to foster internal cohesion for B2B marketing success and taking lessons from The Mandalorian. So you can take your marketing team by the hands and say, ‘This is the way.”

About The Mandalorian

The Mandalorian is a Star Wars TV series that launched in 2019. It’s created and executive produced by Jon Favreau, who we know on Remarkable for also directing and executive producing Iron Man. Jon Favreau partnered with Lucas Film and Disney for the production of the series. It’s considered a space western and is the first live action TV series in the franchise. It stars Pedro Pascal as the main character, Din Djarin. And the show premiered on Disney+ on November 12, 2019. It’s now in its third season with a fourth in development.

The Mandalorian takes place after The Return of the Jedi and the fall of the Galactic Empire. Din Djarin is a lone bounty hunter who’s hired by Imperial Forces to go get the child Grogu aka Baby Yoda. Instead, Din Djarin ends up going on the run to protect Grogu and reunite Grogu with his kind.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From The Mandalorian: 

• Align across the C-suite about your strategic go-to-market strategy. Once leadership agrees on the strategy, messaging, channels, and target customers, they can direct the rest of the company. But Yadin says it’s not just about creating a doc or a presentation. It’s about building relationships, gaining trust, and getting buy-in from people. He says, “That agreement takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of alignment across so many different stakeholders and interests. And then once you have that, you have everyone who's bought into it able to move in the same direction.”
• Give your marketing team guardrails and the end goal, and then let them decide how they get to the finished product. You’ve got a brilliant team of marketers at your service, so trust their ingenuity. Give them the autonomy to use their creativity and problem solving skills to achieve the end result you’re looking for. Ian says, “The idea of ‘This is the way,’ this is our marketing strategy, allows people to be very creative within those left and right limits." And Yadin adds, "Don't tell them how to do it, but tell them what the vision and the outcome is and then see what amazing things they create.”

Quotes

*”The mantra of, ‘This is the way’ demonstrates the way in which multiple different people can follow the same path and produce great results, and create great value when they don't have to be born in the same area or be brought up in the same way.” - Yadin Porter de Léon

“That mantra applied to B2B marketing can be extremely powerful if you have messaging and branding consistency. Where you go to market in the same way across all of your geos, across all your departments, across all of your business units instead of having all these weird, crazy, fragmented things that may seem cool at the time, but not actually showing up in the market in a way that will actually tell a consistent story.” - Yadin Porter de Léon

“There are bad things too. Like, you can get stuck, lost in cookie pulling and retargeting and brand ads and all the things we've always done the same way. And so ‘This is the way’ means basically, you know, get on board, or else,” - Yadin Porter de Léon

*”Create a vision and then inspire those people who want to be creative to be creative, because now they have the guardrails. Don't tell them how to do it, but tell them what the vision and the outcome is and then see what amazing things they create.” - Yadin Porter de Léon

Time Stamps

[1:40] Get to know Yadin Porter de Léon, Global Executive Content Marketing Lead at VMware

[2:19] Tell me more about The Mandalorian

[8:52] What’s the story behind how The Mandalorian was made?

[12:11] What are the core truths behind the Mandalorian?

[14:58] How can “This is the way” be applied to B2B marketing?

[17:52] Learn more about OneVMware

[18:18] What role does leadership play in establishing internal alignment

[19:44] Tell me more about the podcast CIO Exchange 

[28:52] How to bring your brand to market in a way that will resonate with your audience

Links

Watch “The Mandalorian”

Connect with Yadin on LinkedIn

Learn more about VMware

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

What do you want your audience to understand about your brand? 

Ask this question with every piece of content you create. Because you want to drive home a specific message. 

If it’s not doing the job, you need to synthesize the information for your audience. Distill your message to show the value and benefits of your product. 

It’s how you cut through the noise and capture the attention of your audience. 

That’s what we’re talking about today with the help of Sproutloud’s Director of Demand Generation, Aaron Morrissey. 

Together, we watch Parts Unknown and chat about lessons we can take from Anthony Bourdain, including being yourself in your content and synthesizing your message. 

About our guest, Aaron Morrissey

Aaron Morrissey is the Director of Demand Generation at Sproutloud Media Networks, where he works with enterprise clients to help them launch, manage, and optimize digital campaigns across their distributed network. He joined the company in November of 2022. Prior to his current role, he served as Director of Demand Gen at Topia. He is also a content creator for HockeyStack and other B2B SaaS brands.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Parts Unknown:

• Be the same person in your content as you are in real life. Show that there’s a real person behind the content you’re creating, not some corporate bot. So breathe personality and soul into your content. Aaron says, “When the cameras turned on from when the cameras turned off, [Anthony Bourdain] was the same person. If I'm the same person all around, people will start to either  gravitate toward that or realize that I'm not their cup of tea. People talk so much about authenticity. The real authenticity is truly not being afraid of the consequences of being yourself.” 
• Synthesize your message to drive home the point you’re making. Supplement the visuals with a carefully crafted narrative in your voice that explains what you want your audience to understand. Ian says, “[Anthony Bourdain] brings you into a world that you don't know anything about. And he's giving you these visuals and these conversations. But then he's also synthesizing the information for you in an extremely tight narrative so that he's hammering home the point of what you're seeing with a very clear lesson in every episode. It’s what makes it so brilliant.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Aaron Morrissey, Director of Demand Generation at Sproutloud

[1:47] Exploring the Uncompromising Creativity of Parts Unknown

[5:36] Aaron Morrissey's Journey: From Content Creation to Demand Generation

[7:47] The Essence and Impact of Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown

[15:22] Crafting a Personal Brand: Insights from Anthony Bourdain's Legacy

[19:24] The Art of Content Creation: Learning from Bourdain's Approach

[21:09] Synthesizing Information: The Key to Engaging Content

[24:45] Exploring Culinary Delights and Conversational Skills

[25:35] The Art of Storytelling in Parts Unknown

[27:12] Anthony Bourdain's Legacy and the Power of Serialized Content

[28:18] The Impact of Following Bourdain's Footsteps

[30:35] Creative Evolution and the Importance of Authenticity

[36:49] Marketing Strategies and the Future of Content Creation

[47:06] Predictions on the Future of the Creator World and B2B Content

Links

Watch Parts Unknown

Connect with Aaron on LinkedIn

Learn more about Sproutloud

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Can you sum up your marketing message in three words? (And would customers “get” it?)

Like, can you write it in plain language—just a few words that would make sense to your audience? Because if you - the B2B marketer - get it, your audience will too, right? Maybe not.

On this episode of Remarkable, we’re learning from the 90s classic movie Speed about keeping it simple. The movie can literally be summed up in three words: “Bomb on bus.” It’s a blissfully simple premise that rocked viewers, made Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock stars, and raked in $350 million dollars at the box office. 

And we’re bringing on board Director of Content Strategy at 6Sense, Chris Hutchins, to talk storytelling, using character tropes, and fictionalizing your B2B marketing. So grab your popcorn and buckle up for the wild ride that is this latest, greatest episode of Remarkable as we talk about Speed (“Not the drug, but the movie” - Ian Faison).

About the movie Speed

Speed is a 1994 action movie starring Keanu Reeves as young police officer Jack Traven who has to keep a bomb from exploding on a city bus by staying above 50 mph. It also stars Sandra Bullock as the female counterpoint, Annie, who ironically had had her drivers’ license revoked for speeding but steps in when the bus driver is shot. And of course the villain is played by Dennis Hopper as Howard Payne, the madman who rigged the bus with the bomb in the first place. Speed was written by Graham Yost and directed by Jan de Bont.

About our guest, Chris Hutchins

Chris is a versatile, deadline-driven content director, editor and writer with corporate go-to-market, creative agency and professional journalism experience. He uses nimble workflows to produce world-class content at scale. His agency work has engaged millions of consumers worldwide.

Chris is currently the Director of Content Strategy for 6sense, an ABM platform. He also provides consulting services for SMBs that need help with content strategy, content production, branding and messaging.

In addition, he helps craft award-winning immersive marketing narratives, screenplays and novels for companies such as 20th Century Fox, A&E, Cinemax, Discovery, FOX Broadcasting, Infiniti, Macmillan Publishers and Ubisoft. He has been profiled by The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR’s Weekend Edition, ABC Radio and the BBC.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Speed: 

• Keep the story simple. Use simple, straightforward language to explain what your marketing message is. Drop the jargon and boil down your message. Chris says that your audience needs a simple story, especially in the beginning, “to get the hook and begin to get an understanding of our content or product.” He says you don’t want prospective customers opening your site to find the content to be far over their heads. Speed does this with its simple premise that anyone can understand, that grabs attention and conveys a sense of immediacy.
• Fictionalize your story. Add fictionalized elements to your B2B marketing to grab your audience's attention, invite their curiosity, and inspire them to share their experience on social media. Chris shared an example of an event that incorporated a sort of online scavenger hunt. He says, “You just need to color outside the lines just a little bit to make it memorable.” And that the effect can be dramatic, especially in the B2B world. We see fictionalized elements in Speed as well, like when the bus has to cross an unfinished overpass, effectively leaping over a 50-foot gap in the road. Viewers are invited to suspend their disbelief to continue following the storyline. That fictional element is an invitation to go deeper into the story, deeper into engagement.

Quotes

*”When I think about blissful storytelling, it’s uncomplicated. Here is a movie done 30 years ago that is just pure bliss because you don't have to have a deep knowledge of X, Y, and Z. You are just there for the ride.” - Chris Hutchins

*”As B2B content creators and marketers, we often assume our audience has the same kind of comprehensive knowledge about our product, when in fact, we are the ones who are drinking the Kool-Aid. They need the simple story - at least in the beginning - to get the hook, and to get an understanding and become delighted and dazzled by our solution. Make it as plain spoken as possible. And make sure that our readers who are coming to our site, likely for the first time, find something that isn't overwhelming or over their heads.” - Chris Hutchins

*”The B2B equivalent of a blissful story is simply told and invites curiosity. It gets you from the beginning of the story to the end. And then keeps you engaged to investigate more.” - Chris Hutchins

*”When you are starting to get sick of your messaging, that means that it's probably starting to sink in with your audience.” - Ian Faison

*“Don't try to be every single thing. Just try to focus and say, ‘This is exactly the utility that you're gonna get from this thing.’ It's not gonna be 50 other things. It's just gonna be this one.” - Ian Faison

“The first 30 minutes of the movie is not set on a bus. And the last 30 minutes of the movie is not set on a bus. But all we remember when we talk about speed is the stuff on the bus. So what do you want your audience to remember? What do you want them to remember feeling?” - Chris Hutchins

“There are ways to enhance your narrative with fictional elements or fictionalized elements. You just need to color outside the lines just a little bit to make it memorable for them. It’s wildly, wildly experimental stuff in the world of B2B. But the path of creating these experiences, while it's a non-trivial thing to accomplish, it's absolutely possible and the promotional upside can be really dramatic.” - Chris Hutchins

Time Stamps

[1:20] Get to know Chris Hutchins, Director of Content Strategy at 6Sense

[2:41] Tell me more about Speed

[7:43] What makes Speed Remarkable?

[12:23] How to keep your brand message simple

[16:08] Ask: What do you want your audience to remember feeling about your brand?

[19:39] What is 6Sense?

[22:40] How does Chris use his experience as a narrative writer in his marketing work at 6Sense, and what can we learn from it?

[28:53] Why don't we use fiction more in B2B?

[35:28] How could you apply fiction to a B2B event?

Links

Watch Speed

Connect with Chris Hutchins on LinkedIn

Learn more about 6Sense

Check out Chris’ work and writing

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

You would never send a postcard instead of an email, create a zine instead of a white paper, or take polaroids instead of digital headshots. 

But that’s why you, the digital marketer, should do it.

There’s an appeal to all of these lo-fi, analog mediums that call back to yesteryear. A nostalgia. A deliberate denial of modernity. 

Not only would it surprise your audience, it would lure them right in.

So in this episode, we’re making a case for lo-fi content. We’re doing so by pulling marketing lessons from Ken Layne’s Desert Oracle.

With the help of our special guest, Chief Evangelist at Contentful, Nicole France, we talk about creating lo-fi content, bucking convention, taking a distinct perspective, and much more.

About our guest, Nicole France

Nicole France is Chief Evangelist at Contentful. Nicole is a passionate customer advocate evangelizing new ways of thinking about content and organizing the work of digital business. It’s the wave of the future — and her mission is to make sure everyone knows why. She brings the perspective and critical thinking of an industry analyst and the first-hand experience of a practitioner. Before joining Contentful, Nicole worked as an analyst at Constellation Research and Gartner. She also held a variety of strategy and marketing roles at Fujitsu, Equinix, ITSMA, and Cisco. A graduate of UC Berkeley, Nicole enjoys the outdoors, flying small planes, and embarking on yet another house project in her spare time.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Desert Oracle:

• Create lo-fi content. Make a zine, a radio show or podcast, a book or comic book. Something your audience can touch and can use to get a bit deeper into your world. Make your brand real for them. Nicole says that when it comes to Desert Oracle, “There's something here that kind of harkens back to what the arts and crafts movement was. In the industrial revolution, you know, this idea of kind of going back to this craft, this artisanal, this very human, this very lo-fi way of doing things. And ironically enough, I think there's a real space for that, even in these digital channels.”
• Buck convention. Feeling disillusioned with the mainstream take on building an audience? Ken Layne grows his audience by creating niche, tangible content with a strong sense of place and it has garnered a dedicated following. In 2024, 44% of Spotify listeners were new to the Desert Oracle podcast, and it ranked among the top 5 or top 10 podcasts for 5,000 listeners. Nicole says, “ [Ken Layne] is actively rejecting conventional wisdom about how you build an audience. And yet that is absolutely part of what is making him successful at doing it. And it's almost like the extent to which I think of Patagonia a lot of times in this kind of context, where Patagonia is telling you, like, use the stuff you already have. And that somehow is part of what makes you want to keep going back to Patagonia. This is what makes people so loyal to Patagonia is the bigger mission. And like weirdly telling people not to buy it somehow is what makes them want to go and buy more, which is sort of, but not actually their intent.”
• Take a distinct perspective. What is the story that is unique to you? That’s the story you want to tell. Nicole says, “ That distinctiveness in that perspective and that point of view, I think that's something that really effective brands gravitate toward anyway. They're good at it consciously and sometimes unconsciously as well. And I think B2B marketing needs more of that. You know, where what we offer our customers, regardless of what we're selling is typically not generic stuff. So why should our marketing sound like generic stuff? And yet a whole hell of a lot of it does. For a long time, we’ve been in a world where there's a tremendous volume of noise and the kinds of things that get cut through are things like Ken Layne's curmudgeonly, somewhat dismissive and yet somehow totally compelling take on the world. That’s what draws people in."
• Curate an experience. Ken Layne curates an experience that captures the mystical nature of Joshua Tree and the greater Mojave Desert. And he does it by appealing to the senses - more than just the sight that digital content requires. You hear the voices of the desert through his podcast and radio show. You can hold an artifact of the desert: the Desert Oracle zine. His multimedia approach creates a world unique to Desert Oracle. And you get the inside scoop. Nicole says, “ There is a very specific point of view, it is Ken Layne's point of view. But he also brings in a bunch of stories from other people and from other places and sometimes from other times as well.  he's curating an experience for you. And I think that is a really powerful takeaway here.”

Quotes

*” What Ken Layne does with Desert Oracle is paint this very compelling picture of a place. In some cases, a literal place, like when he's hiking out in Joshua tree, or in some cases, it's more of almost like a spiritual place, a conceptual place that we want to be in.

*” How do we get back in touch with the things that are really fundamental, that really are the most important in our existence and nature and, you know, as people? And then how do we associate those meaningful things with what we do in the rest of our lives?”

*” [Ken Layne] is actively rejecting conventional wisdom about how you build an audience. And yet that is absolutely part of what is making him successful at doing it. And it's almost like the extent to which I think of Patagonia a lot of times in this kind of context, where Patagonia is telling you, like, use the stuff you already have. And that somehow is part of what makes you want to keep going back to Patagonia. This is what makes people so loyal to Patagonia is the bigger mission. And like weirdly telling people not to buy it somehow is what makes them want to go and buy more, which is sort of, but not actually their intent.”

*” When you have a really compelling idea or message at the core, you can find all of these different ways of communicating it really effectively.”

*” We found the podcast and then we found the publication. And I guess it really speaks to this idea that multimedia is everywhere. It's in a whole bunch of different stuff. And I think that is actually a really important message and takeaway here, too.  I think that  this idea of being able to explore different aspects of the story and the story world is really key.  Knowing where your audience is, but also being able to bring your audience to where you are, or where you want them to be.  Like, I have totally been brought in and then bought into the world of Desert Oracle. How I got there is almost immaterial, but like there are all these different places that I'm getting this enjoyment from, being part of that world and I feel like I have found a path that brought me in there.”

*”[Desert Oracle] is not for everybody for sure, but boy, it creates an incredibly loyal and dedicated audience. That's actually what we want to do as B2B marketers as well.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Nicole France, Chief Evangelist at Contentful

[3:45] Nicole France's Role at Contentful

[4:54] The Creation of Desert Oracle

[7:07] Ken Layne's Career Journey

[10:17] Marketing Lessons from Desert Oracle

[13:57] The Power of Authenticity in Marketing

[14:49] The Role of Generative AI in Marketing

[39:06] The Importance of Longevity in Content Creation

[41:34] Final Thoughts and Conclusion

Links

Connect with Nicole on LinkedIn

Learn more about Contentful

About 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Vanderpump Rules is proof that a spinoff can not only be hugely successful, but be its own Sexy Unique Content. Not only did the show capitalize on the success of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, but on the star power of Lisa Vanderpump.

Those are a few of the things we’re talking about today with the Senior Content & Communications Manager at UserGems, Amber Rhodes. 

Together, we explore the marketing lessons of Vanderpump Rules, including capitalizing on the moment, using character-driven storytelling, and much more. 

About our guest, Amber Rhodes

Amber Rhodes is Senior Content & Communications Manager at UserGems. She joined the company in December 2021 as a Content Marketing Specialist. She is also the host of the podcast Everything’s Coming Up Marketing. Amber previously served as a Content Strategist at EmberTribe and a Communications Specialist at Galactic Fed. Outside of work, she likes to watch reality TV, read and hang out with her beagle.  

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Vanderpump Rules:

• Capitalize on the moment. Take advantage of what’s working or effective and make the most of it. Lean into that strategy or tactic and see where it takes you. Ian says, “A lot of marketers try to capitalize on the moment, when they're trend-jacking or doing things like that. And you see a lot of great marketers creating moments, too.” Vanderpump Rules is a great example of capitalizing on the moment, because Bravo was seeing the success of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and combined that with the screen time and star power of Lisa Vanderpump to create a massive hit they knew would work, because it had already been proven popular on Real Housewives.
• If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. If you are already seeing results with your marketing, keep it going. Amber says that for your audience, “Sometimes people just like what's comfortable. They like the consistency, the repetition, the comfort. They like coming back to the same things. You don't need to always push it.” This applies to Vanderpump Rules too. Amber says, “The original cast is pretty much what stuck around. There was a time where they tried to add in new people and the audience was not having it. There was something about the lightning in the bottle of the original cast, and when they tried to add in other people and manufacture drama in that way, it just didn’t work.”
• Use character-driven storytelling. Focus on the people, their personal stories, their drama. Ian says, “The character is the key thing here. And in the B2B world, we are trying to create characters out of real people, out of the CIO or the VP of data. And we do an absolute crap job of creating the character a lot of times. They’re not quirky, they’re not weird. They aren’t mean or spiteful. They don't do all the things that make people human. And I think if we stop telling stories with rose-colored glasses, then perhaps we would find more authentic storytelling and more believable storytelling. Tell stories that have thorns, not just roses.” Vanderpump Rules is compelling because it explores a range of human emotion, not just the positive. 

Quotes

*”I'm trying to find the feedback loop between social and content. How do we use content to distribute on social? How do we use social to listen to conversations that should then be content that we are creating? And create that wheel so that we're always having fresh conversations about the topics that we need to educate our audience on.”

*”Original research is going to be a big differentiator for content teams. We'll ask the questions the same way that you do. No one else will be able to put your own spin on that data like you do.”

*”I think that probably the best thing that you could do is ask for help early and often. You'll want to prove yourself [as a new content marketer], but there's only so much that you can actually know. So I think asking a lot of questions early and often, and getting used to setting expectations only helps everyone.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Amber Rhodes, Director of Content & Communications at UserGems

[2:37] Exploring UserGems: Innovations in B2B Marketing

[4:11] The Vanderpump Phenomenon: Lessons for Marketers

[10:46] Marketing Mastery: Capitalizing on Moments and Character-Driven Storytelling

[19:50] Behind the Scenes at UserGems: Content Strategy and Impact

[31:11] Advice for B2B Marketers

Links

Watch Vanderpump Rules

Connect with Amber on LinkedIn

Learn more about UserGems

About 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Your audience is like a fickle love interest. We’re going to show you how to romance them.

That’s to say that your audience could be at any place in their buyer’s journey. So it’s important to meet them wherever they are and woo the heck out of them.

So in this episode, we’re going straight to the heart of the matter by talking about B2B marketing lessons from 

500 Days of Summer 

with the help of our guest, April Weber. April leads integrated marketing at Infobip. Together, we’re talking about how to meet the customer wherever they’re at in the non-linear buyer’s journey, the importance of presenting your products honestly, and incorporating real stories in your marketing. So brace your tender heart for this episode of Remarkable.

About our guest, April Weber

April Weber is Director of Integrated Marketing at Infobip, having joined the company in 2022 as CX Expert. Prior to joining Infobip, April served as Director of New Demand Solutions at INFUSEmedia. She has also held marketing and demand roles at companies like QuinStreet and HID Global.

About Infobip

Infobip is a global leader in omnichannel engagement powering a broad range of messaging channels, tools and solutions for advanced customer engagement, authentication and security. They help their clients and partners overcome the complexity of consumer communications, grow their business and enhance the customer experience – all in a fast, secure and reliable way. Over the last 15 years, they’ve grown into an Engineering Powerhouse with 70+ offices in 6 continents and over 3,700 experts, aiming to change how the world communicates.

About 500 Days of Summer

500 Days of Summer is a love story about a relationship that lasted 500 days with a girl named Summer. And the story plays out in flashbacks to memories of the relationship. The main character, Tom, meets Summer after she becomes the new hire at his job, a paper greeting card company. They start seeing each other, but Summer says she doesn’t believe in love and so it’s casual even though Tom wants more than that. They end up arguing and breaking up and Summer quits her job at their company. The next time they see each other, Tom notices an engagement ring, which raises all the questions about why she wouldn’t want to settle down with him, but felt true love with someone else. When Tom does meet someone new, he finds out her name is Autumn.

The movie came out in 2009 and stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Tom and Zooey Deschanel as Summer. It was directed by Marc Webb from a screenplay written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, and produced by Mark Waters. It’s an indie movie that premiered at Sundance, and was picked up by Fox Searchlight Pictures. It’s generally considered a sleeper hit, and brought in $60 million worldwide. It had had a $7.5 million budget.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From 500 Days of Summer: 

• The buying journey is often non-linear, so meet the customer where they are. Ian says, “People want that extremely organized fashion, and other people don’t. You as the marketer need to plan those different pathways and journeys, and to be able to tell stories in the moments that matter.” It’s like how in 500 Days of Summer, the story is told in flashbacks to Tom and Summer’s relationship. In the beginning, the viewer needs to see the positive parts of their relationship to understand Tom’s attachment to the relationship. And then as the story goes along, we see the disconnects and the miscommunications, the more negative parts of the relationship. That’s how the viewer understands that Tom is falling out of love with Summer and healing from the breakup. So as the marketer, you need to highlight the moments that matter for your customers and meet them where they are in their buying journey.
• Present your products honestly and transparently. Over-hyping your products in marketing is misleading, and ultimately leads to disappointment where customers aren’t likely to return. April ties this back to 500 Days of Summer when she says, “Tom idealized his relationship with Summer. We fall into that trap when we're over-hyping our products or solutions to potential clients, when honesty and transparency are crucial in building trust.” So though it’s tempting to play up your products to get higher engagement and sales, don’t do it. Present their real benefits and you’ll earn audience trust. 
• Incorporate real stories. 500 Days of Summer was inspired by a real relationship screenplay writer Scott Neustadter was in while studying in London. April says that “because it was a real story, it was relatable to me. We should be doing the same thing. We should be doing this with our clients, with our content. It adds a human touch. It resonates deeply, I think, when you can actually incorporate real stories behind it.” So add that human touch to your marketing by including real stories in it. It makes your content more relatable and more human.

Quotes

*”We should always focus on emotional connections and relatable storytelling, whether that's B2B content or B2C content. To make an emotional connection with your audience no matter who they are.” - April Weber

*“500 Days of Summer made us laugh. It made us feel sad. And it definitely makes you reminisce about your own experience, which is a great way to have any kind of content. If you can get in all the emotions at once, that's awesome.” - April Weber

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet April Weber, Integrated Marketing Manager at Infobip 

[1:40] Why are we talking about 500 Days of Summer?

[4:13] What is April responsible for at Infobip? 

[5:14] What is 500 Days of Summer about? 

[10:32] Why is 500 Days of Summer remarkable?

[12:28] What marketing lessons can we glean from 500 Days of Summer?

[32:58] What’s April’s content strategy at Infobip? 

[38:44] How does April think about the ROI of content?

Links

Watch 500 Days of Summer

Connect with April on LinkedIn

Learn more about Infobip

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Selling to multiple customer personas is tricky. Can your marketing appeal to all of them at once? 

You probably think, “Well, each persona has different pain points and things they care about.” But once you start thinking about all of the personas as just being people, you realize that they do care about the same things. Success at work, their family, and their quality of life, to name a few. So when you can appeal to the things your prospects care about most, you unlock the secret to creating an emotional bond with your audience that will place you above your competitors.

To explore this idea, we’re watching the hit animated series that The Guardian called, "arguably the best television series in the world," Bluey. It appeals to parents just as well as kids. And is a great example of how to market to multiple customer personas. Here with us is content master Nate Bagley to help discuss evoking strong emotions in your marketing, captivating your audience with relatable stories, and how to build trust to propel sales. Now it’s time to tap into that inner child for this episode of Remarkable.

About our guest, Nate Bagley

Nate Bagley is a content leader who has served in media and marketing roles at companies like Clozd, OrangeSoda, Mindshare Technologies, Romacorp, and Bold Academy. He founded relationship coaching company Growth Marriage in 2017, co-founded “date-in-a-box” subscription service Unbox Love in 2014, and started a podcast called Loveumentary in 2012.

About Bluey

Bluey is an Australian animated tv series about the daily life of a blue heeler cattle puppy and her friends and family. As blue heelers are known as super energetic dogs, Bluey is always turning things into an adventure and using her imagination to do it.

It premiered in 2018 and is currently on its third season, and was created by Joe Brumm. It stars the voices of David McCormack as the dad and Melanie Zanetti as the mom. Bluey, Bingo, and some of their friends aren’t credited because they’re voiced by children of the TV production crew, and it’s to protect their identities.

It’s the #1 Australian children’s TV show, Nominated for the 2023 Logie Award for Most Outstanding Children’s Program. 2022 AACTA Award winner for Best Children's Program. 2019 International Emmy winner for Kids: Preschool. The Guardian has called it "arguably the best television series in the world".

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Bluey:

• Tap into emotion. Think of your audience as human, and appeal to their very human needs, wants and desires. It could be that your product saves them time to go enjoy more family time, time outside, or time doing literally anything other than working. Appeal to that. Nate says, “”In marketing, emotion is the number one tool that we have to use. I think especially in B2B marketing, it's probably the most underutilized tool, is trying to elicit some sort of emotion in the content that you create.” And Bluey does this by exploring real life situations like a boy who has ADHD and struggles with sitting still in school all day, or Bluey’s dad making a mistake and feeling inadequate as a father. B2B marketing isn’t for robots; use emotion and see engagement hit the ceiling.
• Make it quick. Boil your story down to create maximum impact in a short amount of time. Bluey episodes are a few minutes at most. Which makes them insanely digestible, and they still draw tears from parents watching with their kids. Of course, this masterful storytelling isn’t easy to do. Nate says, “How can you tell the most compelling story that evokes the most emotion in the most efficient way possible? And that requires a lot of work.  I don't think most people are willing to do that work. I think it's much easier to write out a list of features on your website and say, ‘This is how we can help you.’ But the alternative is more powerful.” Spending time to craft a campaign that tells your story efficiently and with emotion pays off.
• Show that you understand your audience to earn their trust. Research your target buyer to figure out what they care about. Then leverage that in your marketing as a powerful trust-building tool. Nate says, “If you can describe the problem, the life, the struggles that your buyers are facing better than they can describe it themselves, they will automatically assume that you have the best solution. Having that empathy and understanding, and being able to communicate that back to them through your marketing messaging is going to accelerate the buying process and help you win business faster than anything else that you can do.” It’s like how parents have learned to trust Bluey to thoughtfully explore real life topics in a compassionate way that children will understand. So when kids want to watch something, Bluey is not just a safe option, but an educational one as well. Bluey then becomes an easy go-to. Just like your product will be.

Quotes

*”Accounting, a great example. Accounting might be boring,  but accountants are not, because accountants are people. And people are not boring if you ask them the right questions. If you're trying to sell accounting, then you're going to fail. But if you're trying to solve a problem for accountants and you do a really good job understanding them, understanding what they're struggling with and what they want out of life, and you have empathy for their situation as an accountant, then you can find some really compelling stories to tell. But it's curiosity about the people that creates the good story. It's not what the people do. It's not the activity that's interesting in and of itself.” - Nate Bagley

*”Focus. Focus more of your time and energy on learning how to tell good stories, and learning how to tell good stories in a really powerful way that evokes emotion and makes people feel understood and seen. And they'll trust that you have exactly what they need to take away the pain or increase the rate of success around what they're doing on a day to day basis.” - Nate Bagley

Time Stamps

[0:50] Introducing Content Leader Nate Bagley

[1:22] What makes Bluey impactful?

[3:33] What’s Bluey about?

[7:45] Why is Bluey Remarkable?

[10:54] What B2B Marketing lessons can we take from Bluey?

[20:06] How does Bluey use emotion?

[26:03] How can we applying Bluey's storytelling techniques in marketing?

Links

Watch Bluey

Connect with Nate on LinkedIn

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 and Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Your marketing budget is limited. It might even be bare bones.  And, believe it or not, that could be a really good thing for you.

Here’s the thing about limitations: they inspire creativity. Limited resources force you to figure out how to take advantage of what you have in order to create the most impact. When you lean into those choices, you can create something stylistically unique and compelling – and become the stuff marketing legends (and Remarkable episodes) are made of.

On this episode of Remarkable, we’re taking lessons from one of the most iconic scenes in Monty Python and the Holy Grail: the coconut scene – aka the very first scene of the movie.

For those who haven’t seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the movie opens with the distant sound of a galloping horse heard through thick fog. But what emerges from the fog is not a horse. It’s King Arthur skipping around on foot. His squire Patsy is following him, rhythmically knocking a pair of coconut shells together to mimic a horse’s trot.

There’s a reason this knight is using coconuts to stand in for a horse: the film couldn’t afford real horses. Instead, they improvised one of the funniest scenes in film history. They grabbed a couple of coconuts and knocked them together to sound like the gallop of a horse. This absurd yet brilliant idea is just one of the many reasons Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a cult classic. Today, we’re going to show you how you can embrace your own limitations – and hopefully create a cult following of your own.

About Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a 1975 low budget British comedy that satirizes the legend of King Arthur. It stars the Monty Python comedy troupe in key roles: Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, John Cleese, Michael Palin, and Eric Idle. Carol Cleveland and Sandy Johnson also star in the film. Gilliam and Jones directed the movie, and Gilliam also did the animation and artwork.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Monty Python and the Holy Grail: 

• Acknowledge your limitations and brainstorm creative ways to work around them. Don’t dwell on your limitations. Embrace them! Think outside the box about how you can tell your story with what you have. Monty Python thought WAY outside the box with their coconut solution, but it worked – and according to co-director Terry Gilliam, it even helped set the stage for the film: "We would never have got through that movie with real horses,” he said. “It makes a wonderful leap, because with that opening shot you accept the kind of lunatic logic that's there." Caspian team member Dane Eckerle gives us another example from his work producing an independent film:

“We could only afford stunt coordinators on a certain amount of days, which meant that a lot of the action needed to get consolidated into those days. But we wanted the action that we did have to look really good, and we didn't want to have to stretch ourselves too thin trying to cram in 50 stunts in two days. So we decided to do 10 stunts really, really well in those two days. Then we leaned into the emotion of it. And so instead of showing the action, we captured the first part of the action. And the cameras slowly push into the character’s face, and you hear the carnage.” - Dane Eckerle, Producer, and Head of Development at Caspian

• Demonstrate self-awareness about your workaround. Emphasize your workaround to let your audience know that it was truly a choice, not some mistake or half-baked idea. They’ll feel like they’re in on your secret, and it can help create audience awareness as well. For the premiere of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the comedy group advertised that they would give out free coconuts to the first thousand people who bought tickets. The next morning, fans were lined up as early as 5:30 in the morning to get their hands on a coconut!

Quotes

*“I just feel like when you have the money, when you have all the resources - and this isn't to say that big movies or big commercials or big marketing campaigns are bad, but there's no limitations. There's no box that you're put in that breeds a new level of creativity or outside-the-box thinking. It's just, you do what you can or what's been done before, or what you can afford, which is anything. I think it robs a little bit of that DIY scrappy thinking. You lose a little bit of that inventiveness when you have it all. It's easier to stand out from the crowd if you're embracing your limitations.” - Dane Eckerle

*”’Do more with less’ is really interesting to me because it implies two things. Number one, that you need to do more. So, you need to push the boundaries of what you have done in the past. So if you had a million dollar budget and you achieved X results, now you need to surpass what you used to do. And then the second piece is that you have less to do it with, which means you have less physical dollars that you can invest.’ - Ian Faison

*”When you don't look at it realistically and just go, ‘Okay, this is what we got and this is how we're gonna have to work with it,’ When you fight the tide, it actually ends up looking bad. Like if you try and stretch something and make something that you really don't have any business making, everyone can feel it.” - Dane Eckerle

Time Stamps

[2:02] Why are we covering Monty Python and the Holy Grail?

[2:52] Tell me more about Monty Python and the Holy Grail

[4:02] Learn more about the making of the movie

[5:59] Where did the financing of Monty Python and the Holy Grail come from?

[8:20] Exactly how tight was the budget for this movie?

[9:28] Why did the troupe use coconuts for the horse sound effects?

[12:30] How do you manage being on a super tight budget?

[17:22] How does a tight budget affect creative decisions in videos or movies?

[21:25] How do you apply this to B2B marketing?

[28:23] How does NY-based clothing company Minted embrace their limitations?

[31:21] How does Bionic do more with less on their glassboard videos?

Links

Watch “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”

Check out Minted New York on TikTok

Take a look at Bionic’s glassboard videos

Follow Alex Willis and see the studio Caspian Studios helped him build for Leadership Surge

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

B2B marketers aren’t creating serialized content. But you should be. 

We felt so strongly about this that we literally wrote a book about it. Well, not “we”. Ian wrote it. And we’re sharing key insights from that book with you in this episode of Remarkable. 

Because you, the B2B marketer, could be capitalizing on a more efficient content strategy proven to boost sales and improve ROI. Stop making one-off pieces of content. Make a series and make marketing not only easier and more productive for you, but more bingeable and more addictive for your audience.

So tune in for an exclusive sneak peak of The Serialized Content Framework, by Ian Faison, CEO of Caspian Studios. And get ideas churning for your next new content series. This episode is going to revolutionize the way you do content marketing.

About Ian Faison

Ian Faison is CEO of Caspian Studios, a video podcast-as-a-service company. Ian founded Caspian Studios to help CMOs and marketing teams to create world-class podcasts and video series. Caspian Studios now produces and manages over 60 podcasts and video series across a variety of industries.

About the Serialized Content Framework

The Serialized Content Framework is an ebook three years in the making, written by Ian Faison, CEO of Caspian Studios. It answers the questions:

1. Where is B2B marketing headed?
2. How is Hollywood-style storytelling evolving?
3. How do you drive pipeline from B2B content?

What B2B Companies Can Learn From the Serialized Content Framework: 

• Series>one-off pieces of content. You spend so much more brain power trying to come up with the newest, freshest material for every single piece of content than in creating a formula for a content series. Series are a more productive, more efficient use of your marketing team’s time and resources. Ian says that content powerhouses like Disney, Mattel and Marvel are capitalizing on this tactic. He says, “Each of these franchises is multiple seasons. It's multiple episodes within a season. And a lot of times they have other types of shows that are similar in either format, characters or universe. Then you get to market the entire franchise and your marketing is more productive over time.” B2B companies should do the same to multiply productivity and ultimately revenue.
• Don’t always try to sell to your audience. 95% of the time, people are not in buying mode. They don’t want to be sold to. So instead, continually and consistently put quality content where your audience is. Ian says, “You want to create really good, really impactful content in that 95% of the time so that when they go into the research phase, they're already thinking of you and you're already top of mind.” This is why top of funnel content is important. Because it builds brand awareness and affinity that leads to sales.
• Niche down. Your product is not for everyone. It is for a specific persona. So create persona-driven content for greater impact. Ian says, “The more segmented and targeted on a specific persona, the better off [your content will] be. Look at industry, look at role, look at geography.” 
• (And much, much more.)

Quotes

*”Serialized content is so important because it compounds. By the time you get to episode 40, 50 or 60, you have this valuable back catalog of content that has been working for a long time. As you continue to grow and expand with more and more episodes, all of that back catalog starts to perform even better over time. And you can cut it up to use as derivative content. ”

*”If you're creating serialized content, for example, a video podcast, and every single week a new episode comes out, this is something that is a consistent, repeatable process to drive brand gen. It is constantly fresh, but it also is evergreen, and it impacts various parts of the funnel.”

*”If serialized content is not nested right in your go to market, then it's never going to get approved, and it's never going to get any results. It's never going to get the support and the effort that it needs. So we need to make sure that this fits right into our go to market strategy.”

Time Stamps

[1:35] Part 1: What’s the Serialized Content Framework about?

[3:52] Part 2: How do you engage prospects who aren’t ready to buy yet?

[7:11] Part 3: Why should you niche down?

[15:33] Part 4: Where do series fit in your GTM?

[21:29] Part 5: How do you create a video podcast series?

[32:44] Part 6: How do you drive pipeline with a video podcast?

[43:46] Part 7: What KPIs should be you be tracking?

[50:54] Part 8: How does content shape community?

[53:50] Part 9: What are some examples of serialized content portfolios and video podcasts?

[55:20] Part 10: Advice and resources

Links

Check out the Serialized Content Framework

Connect with Ian on LinkedIn

Learn more about Caspian Studios

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

The role of the marketer is changing. 

Scott Galloway, aka Prof G, says that to be successful today, marketers have to act as “coaches, advisors and strategists” to their company.

That’s what we’re talking about in today’s episode with the help of our special guest, VP of Marketing & Corporate Strategy at Verbit, Michael Rosman.

Together, we talk about finding the right channel, being bold, and avoiding clickbait.

About our guest, Michael Rosman

Michael Rosman is VP of Marketing & Corporate Strategy at Verbit, having joined the company in April 2022. He has extensive work experience in Corporate strategy and Marketing. Prior to this, he worked at Amdocs, where he held various roles including Customer Business Executive, Director of Corporate Strategy, and Manager of Corporate Strategy from May 2016 to April 2022.

Before joining Amdocs, Michael worked at Degania Medical as the Head of Strategy, Business Development & Innovation from May 2015 to May 2016. Michael also has experience at Biometrix, where he served as the Head of Strategic Planning and subsequently as the Interim COO from November 2011 to May 2015.

Michael started his career at Tefen Management Consulting in July 2007, where he worked as a Senior Consultant for over four years. During his time at Tefen, he successfully led cross-functional and international teams on various projects in industries such as pharmaceuticals, automotive, chemicals, and healthcare.

Michael Rosman completed his Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from Tel Aviv University between the years 2004 and 2008. Later, between 2011 and 2012, he pursued an Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Scott Galloway:

• Find the right channel. Test different channels to see which one your content achieves the best reach and resonance on. People on LinkedIn might engage with your content way more than on your blog. Use that to your advantage by creating more content gauged for your LinkedIn audience. Michael says, “Finding the right channel is a big takeaway for me. So I know everybody has the standard channels of paid ads and events and SEO and whatever is, but find a channel that maximizes your impact. Figure out your puzzle. Figure out who you are and something that might be unique [to you]. Maybe it's a channel that doesn't exist for anybody else.”
• Be bold. Know what you stand for and express it clearly and without fear of losing your audience. Michael says, “Go all in on something. [Scott Galloway] has so much conviction and so much belief in doing what he does, he can really go all out.” When you express your message authentically and with clarity, your content will resonate with your intended audience.
• Avoid clickbait. Make sure the meat of your content is valuable to your audience. Don’t just give it all away in the title. Michael says, ”So many times, people have a hot take-y headline to lure you, to get you in, but then there's nothing else. All of the content that you wanted to consume is in the title and everything else is meaningless. [But] Whenever I tune in [to one of Scott Galloway’s podcasts], I always feel like it was worth my time. I came in, I came for value, and it consistently delivers value. It's always interesting. There's always substance behind the title.”

Quotes

*”I really think about niching down, and about the shorts, shows and moonshots sort of positioning. You want to create stuff that your people can tap into for a minute or two. You want to create stuff that they can subscribe to and get like an hour a week. And then you want stuff that's definitive, could be viral and bingeworthy. If you have 15 different personas that you're selling to, if you could create a single bingeable asset for those 15 personas, that's far more valuable than creating 150 pieces of content for those 15 things.” - Ian Faison

*”The world changes every minute. What was published a week ago is now no longer potentially relevant. So it's your job as a brand to reach forward into the future and say, ‘I think that based on what we know, what we're saying on our proprietary information and what our customers are saying, I think that this is where the world is going.” -  Ian Faison

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Michael Rosman, VP of Marketing & Corporate Strategy at Verbit.ai

[2:19] Verbit's Marketing and Customer Insights

[7:29] Scott Galloway's Marketing Philosophy

[10:42] The Journey and Impact of Scott Galloway

[19:31] The Power of Serialized Content

[24:52] Marketing Takeaways from Prof G

[29:42] The Value of Definitive Works in Content

[31:07] Challenges in Content Creation for Multiple Personas

[32:04] The Importance of Niching Down and Binge-Worthy Content

[39:39] Balancing Quality, Speed, and Cost in Video Production

[42:16] The Future of AI in Content Creation

[45:48] Verbit's Content Strategy

Links

Connect with Michael on Linkedin

Learn more about Verbit.ai

About 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

What is the one thing that only your brand can bring to the table? Tapping into that thing is key to better messaging, better positioning, and better engagement.

And here to help us sift out that marketing gold is our special guest, Content Marketing Manager at Varonis, Lexi Croisdale. 

Together we’re talking about the podcast New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce. 

Together, we’re pulling marketing lessons from it, like fighting where you can win, making your teammate the face of your content, and prioritizing social content.

About our guest, Lexi Croisdale

Lexi Croisdale is the Content Marketing Manager at Varonis. Prior to joining Varonis in May 2023, Lexi served as Senior Content Marketing Manager at higher education engagement platform Mongoose, where she developed and executed the company’s content and social media marketing strategies. She brings with her over 7 years of experience helping marketing teams across various industries make creative content.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From New Heights:

• Make your teammate the face of your content. Who you choose depends on a handful of factors. Lexi says, “A lot of times, especially in content where you're like, ‘I have this video I want to create, but I need someone to be on camera.’ Like you always think of your CEO, or someone like that. But maybe the subject matter expert or like the specialist on your team is really good at public speaking and actually has the time and the bandwidth to also be that person. And then you kind of can create that personality internally.”
• Fight where you can win. What can you do that no one else can? For the Kelce brothers, they’re both elite NFL players, Superbowl winners and (obviously) brothers. That’s what makes the podcast special, and stand out among other football podcasts. Ian says, “As a lesson for marketers, they're doing something that only they can do. And it's like, when they talk about stuff, that's familial, it's only something that only they can talk about. Nobody else can have that sort of talk track.”
• Put social first. New Heights focuses strongly on social promotion. They cut the episode into clips that are distributed across social media channels which increases engagement, listenership and awareness of the podcast. Lexi says, “The editing style and the way that they go about it evolves with each episode, even though the template might be the same. They find a way to repurpose it and keep going without it just needing to tie to like, ‘Here's two brothers talking about football.” It’s a way that non-listeners find out about the show, and are drawn to their banter instead of just football content.

Quotes

*”Not every piece of content has to fit into a box or be the way that you thought it would be to build an audience. Like you just need to focus on delivering the content in the right way, and being relatable and having that niche outlook.”

*”Just because you start [your content] some way doesn't mean it always has to be that exact thing. It can evolve as long as you keep the core tenets of it.”

*”A lot of times, you put a lot of work into content or a campaign and it doesn't work. Like, it doesn't give you the ROI or the kind of results that you were hoping for. But if you sit back and you take that as a lesson and you just see it more as a learning experiment, something that you did and test it out and learned from instead of a failure, you're going to see a lot of growth in your creative strategy and how you're executing and adapting your content to fit your channels that you're posting it on.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Lexi Croisdale, Content Marketing Manager at Varonis

[3:12] Varonis and Content Marketing Strategies

[7:22] The Making of New Heights Podcast

[14:32] Marketing Lessons from New Heights

[26:41] The Power of Social-First Content

[27:09] Engaging Guests and Evolving Content

[29:01] The Importance of Social Clipping

[30:58] Building an Audience Through Relatable Content

[36:43] Content Strategy at Varonis

[38:50] The Impact of Video Content

[48:53] Advice for Content Marketers

Links

Connect with Lexi on LinkedIn

Learn more about Varonis

About 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

You may know Sex and the City as a massive hit and content machine - and the reason everyone was drinking cosmopolitans. 

But you may not know that it started as an actual newspaper column.

So let’s talk about how and why that one piece of content made a lasting mark on the cultural zeitgeist. 

And what we can take from the show and apply to our own marketing.

In this episode, we’re talking about the Emmy Award-winning show with the Head of Content at Dandy, Rocky Rakovic. 

Together, we talk about how content marketing is like dating your audience, why style and design are important, and why it’s crucial to report back to the group.

About our guest, Rocky Rakovic

Rocky Rakovic is Head of Content at Dandy. He has been with the company since September 2022. Prior to Dandy, Rocky served as Director of Content & Community at Ro. He has also led content and brand activation for Time Out Group, and worked as Editor in Chief at Inked, and Editor at Playboy.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Sex and the City:

• Content marketing is like dating your audience. Rocky says, “You're courting the customer. You want to make sure that you find the right person. Ultimately what a marketer does is they play matchmaker between company and customer. And your ultimate goal is to look for a mutually beneficial relationship between the two.”
• Style and design are important. Once your messaging is tucked away, dial in the visual details. Rocky says, “If Carrie wore Crocs, I wonder if she would have had the same draw, if the show would have done that well. Fashion was such the fifth character - and maybe the city was the fifth and fashion was the sixth character in that show. And I've been in conversations like, ‘Let's just do the scrappy, quick and dirty video.’ And it's like, ‘Or we could take our time and do it right and have the design look [good].  And I just think good design, good look and feel really enhance whatever message you're giving.” He adds, “The quality of content speaks to the care that the company has in everything they deliver.”
• Report back to the group. Bring your content ideas back to your team for feedback. Rocky says, “In content creation, you gotta go off and do parts of it on your own. That's not gonna happen in a room or a Zoom, the really great stuff. But I think that you can come back to your team and say, ‘What do you think of this thing that I came up with?’ And if you've got a good team that you can trust, they'll be a great barometer.” It’s like how Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte all get together and talk about the guys they’re dating. It’s how they connect and process their romantic lives.

Quotes

*”You got to be a champion of your audience over everything else. Like as a marketer, you are translating the brand mission into pain points that you can tell your audience about that will help them. And you've got to feed back what you're hearing from that audience to the higher ups to explain like, ‘No, no, no, here's where we should be spending our time. Cause here's what potential customers and current customers are looking for.’” - Rocky Rakovic

*”What we seek to create in content is not something great. It is something different. You need to create the thing that makes you unique at the party.” - Ian Faison

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Rocky Rakovic, Head of Content at Dandy

[3:01] Dandy's Innovative Approach to Dentistry

[6:54] Rocky's Career Journey

[12:21] Sex and the City: Origins and Impact

[30:12] Real Talk in 'Sex and the City'

[32:32] Impact of HBO Shows

[35:27] Design and Marketing Insights

[40:34] Content Strategy and Audience Engagement

[41:58] Creative Campaigns

[47:58] Journalism in B2B Marketing

Links

Connect with Rocky on LinkedIn

Learn more about Dandy

About 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Humanizing your brand is one of the most difficult challenges in marketing.

But there’s a proven solution to getting people to associate your business with more than just its logo: a spokesperson.

A spokesperson is the voice and face of your company. It can’t just be anybody. You need someone with a trusted voice. Someone who can speak about your product with authenticity. Someone who can talk to your customers in the language they use. And it doesn’t have if that someone is a little charming, too.

This week, we’re taking lessons from comedic actor and entrepreneur Ryan Reynolds, who has become the face of his own brands like Aviation Gin and Mint Mobile. 

Here to help us is SaaS SEO thought leader Liam Barnes, Head of Demand Generation and Programs at Bionic, an application security posture management platform. With Ryan and Liam by our side, we’re showing you how to choose an effective spokesperson, why hiring a celebrity isn’t so far out of reach, and why you shouldn’t gatekeep your content.

About Ryan Reynolds

Ryan Reynolds is a Canadian-American actor, producer, and entrepreneur whose career took off after he starred in National Lampoon’s Van Wilder. He’s also starred in Waiting, Adventureland, Free Guy, and the Deadpool franchise.

Ryan’s track record as an entrepreneur may be even more impressive than his work in film. Three businesses he has either invested in or owns have sold for incredibly impressive figures: Aviation Gin ($610 million), Mint Mobile ($1.35 billion), and film production and digital advertising agency Maximum Effort (undisclosed). He also has financial interests in the Wrexham Association Football Club, 1password, and Wealthsimple.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Ryan Reynolds:

• Choose an in-house evangelist for your brand. There’s no one who knows your product better than someone who lives and breathes it on a daily basis. Your ideal evangelist is someone who can vouch for your product and speak the language of your customers – and has a stake in the business's success. Ryan Reynolds is not only the owner of Mint Mobile, but also the company’s in-house evangelist. He has the authority, investment, and understanding of the product to share the benefits of becoming a customer. And because one of Mint Mobile’s values is that they’re cheap, he highlights it by, for example, featuring his family in the ads as “barely paid spokespeople.” Chances are that you already have some great brand evangelists in your B2B company. This could be a CXO with a strong social media presence who’s established as a thought leader in your industry, someone on your product team who is consistently engaging with your community in popular forums, or even the new hire who’s documenting their journey at your company.
• Hire a celebrity to be your company spokesperson. We love internal brand evangelists. But we also love influencer marketing, and what’s hot right now? Getting a celebrity to be the face of your brand. They’re more accessible than you think. Partnerships come at a range of price points, and you don’t need a mega A-lister to make a big impact. According to an article in the Journal of Advertising Research, celebrity endorsements can increase a company’s sales by an average of 4%. Ping Identity hired actor and athlete Terry Crews to be their “chief identity champion” for a brand awareness campaign that launched in October 2020. According to Ping Identity CMO Kevin Sellers, the company’s website traffic increased 1000 percent after the launch of the campaign. So dig deep into your brand’s voice and mission and find a celebrity or influencer who can embody your brand. The results speak for themselves! Bonus points if they bring a little humor into it!
• Make your content accessible. Distribution is key! There is a lot of great B2B content out there – but too often, companies limit their audience by gatekeeping their content. With his businesses, Reynolds takes a different approach. His businesses don’t spend heavily on advertising, but the ads they do create are funny, engaging, and accessible to everyone. The ads often go viral, further expanding their reach. (If you want to see a textbook example of what we’re talking about, check out this Mint Mobile ad!) And while we understand that not all B2B content can be a quirky one-minute advertisement, the key here is simple: unlock the gate. Don’t keep your best ideas in an email newsletter or in a hotel conference room. You’re limiting your audience when you do.

Key Quotes

*“He has this sense of ownership and everything is tongue in cheek. When we're buying his stuff, we're buying a little bit of Ryan. He vouched for it. And it's just really novel, how he productizes himself. A gin is just a gin. But when Ryan Reynolds is behind it, now it means something more.” - Ian Faison

*”It’s important to surround yourself with good people who are very good at their job. And with Ryan Reynolds, he has George Dewey as his business partner, who is that creative genius, that ad genius. He understands marketing, he understands culture, he understands people.” - Ian Faison

*”It’s important to have someone who is likable, charismatic and engaging as the spokesperson. Someone who's very close and tied and invested into the company driving the story and driving the thought leadership of the company. Especially in security, we have a really hard time getting founders, getting evangelists, getting technical people to want to push the story forward. And it's because they just don't have that advertising expertise, the marketing expertise. They’re engineers, they're not writers. And if they were writers, they were like research-based writers, so the creativity side of it was lost. And so it's important to do both things. Partner the front running technical people in your company with solid marketers, and help them push the narrative forward. - Liam Barnes 

*”Something that Ryan Reynolds understands is the distribution of the content that he's creating. He could definitely go and headline user conferences or go and do features where he goes and shows up at certain places where people ask him questions and pay attention to him for an hour. But then there's nothing after that. And something that companies get really wrong is they put all this time and energy into a user conference and then they gate it. They put it behind this paywall, or they make you give your information to them and then nobody sees it after the conference…Honestly, what most people would react more positively to is, go ahead and have the user conference, then go spend time distributing the content correctly. It's just something that's a completely missed opportunity. It's an interesting kind of dynamic that you see a lot in b2b, where everything's gated and nobody has access, and they're wondering why they're not getting the returns from it. It's because nobody ends up actually seeing it.” - Liam Barnes

“To make your ads better, make the creative more memorable and funnier. And then just put a little bit of that marketing engine behind it, retargeting and AB testing, and all the stuff that we have at our disposal to supercharge that really good creative. Because at the end of the day, if you're just promoting bad creative and boring creative, it's never going to get legs.” - Ian Faison

“It's less about trying to make your chosen spokesperson charismatic. It's more about trying to make that person relatable to who we're selling to. So our CEO and CTO are engineers and security folks. And we're selling to engineering and security folks. So I don't have to make them the most charismatic people. I just have to make them relatable. They have shared experiences with those people. They've been in security before, they've been through writing code and building systems and doing DevOps and running security teams, and doing the security research. And so just talking about those personal experiences and relating it to what those teams are going through. That's all you really need.” - Liam Barnes

Time Stamps

[1:31] Introducing Liam Barnes, Head of Demand Generation and Programs at Bionic

[2:13] What’s Bionic?

[4:05] Who’s Ryan Reynolds?

[5:55] What makes Ryan Reynolds an effective spokesperson?

[12:14] How did Ryan Reynolds become a marketing powerhouse?

[18:50] What can we learn about B2B marketing from Ryan Reynolds?

[23:54] How can B2B companies use celebrity spokespeople?

[36:22] How can companies make their CEO an effective spokesperson?

Links

Listen to Demand Gen Visionaries with Liam Barnes

Tune in to Everyday Demand Gen with Liam Barnes

See the Axonius x Simone Biles ad

Check out IBM Watson’s collaboration with fashion designer Gaurav Gupta

Take a look at Microsoft’s collab with National Geographic in their “Make What’s Next” initiative 

Create your own business thriller starring an A-list celebrity

See Coinbase’s $7M Superbowl ad that got people talking

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

How much of the realities of your business do you want your audience to see? The truth is, there are benefits to baring it all.

Especially when you’re a startup, showing your trials and tribulations endears your brand to viewers. It feels raw and real and trusting. 

It’s a way to build an audience of dedicated fans. And in this episode, we’re learning about this kind of radical transparency from Jeremy Clarkson.

Known in the car world for his shenanigans and quick wit on the show The Grand Tour, Jeremy Clarkson is now learning how to farm on his new show, Clarkson’s Farm. 

He’s doing what we call “building in public,” and showing viewers what it’s really like to grow a farm from the ground up. 

That’s one of the things we’re talking about this week on Remarkable with the help of our special guest, Co-Founder & SVP of GTM Strategy at Passetto, Sidney Waterfall.

Together, we talk about the benefits of building in public, using comedic tropes to add humor to your marketing, and transitioning your audience to a new POV. 

About our guest, Sidney Waterfall

Sidney Waterfall is the Co-Founder and SVP of GTM Strategy at Passetto. She’s a sales and product-led B2B SaaS Marketer that transitions marketing teams from MQL’s to revenue. Prior to her current role, Sidney served as SVP of Growth at Refine Labs. She has also previously held marketing roles at Ally.io, Trupanion, Simply Measured, Microsoft and Verizon.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Clarkson’s Farm:

• Build in public. Show the real, raw moments with your audience as a way to be transparent and build trust. Sidney says, “Share your experience to connect with your audience and become relatable. [Jeremy Clarkson] was known in the car world. He has a huge audience. He's trying something else. So he's like, ‘I'm just going to show the real raw moments.’ And they do on the show. They show exciting moments, they show frustrating moments. I think that is becoming more popular in the B2B space. People are sharing their journey of building a company or building a product or using a product, and they're being a little bit more transparent with the ups and downs of that, even when they're marketing to a certain ICP.” She adds, “I think that helps content really resonate with people and that helps people build audiences and brands build audiences through that type of strategy.”
• Add humor by using comedic tropes. Sidney says, “Good writing or copy stands out with a bit of humor. And wit is very effective.” Ian adds, “There's a comedic lesson there any time you have a fish out of water. You take someone who knows nothing and put them with a bunch of people who know lots of stuff.” It’s like how Jeremy Clarkson doesn’t know anything about farming and he’s surrounded by farmers trying to help him work his land. Viewers are also learning while watching the show, so it’s a great way to edutain as well.
• You can transition your current audience and acquire new audience members from a new POV or a new niche. Jeremy Clarkson will draw viewers from his previous show, The Grand Tour, to his new one, Clarkson’s Farm, because he’s built a name for himself. And he’ll also gain new viewers who are interested in the concept of his new show. So some will have been interested in cars, some in farming or homesteading, others in Jeremy Clarkson as a personality. Sidney says, “This is applicable to my current situation of going from one brand that was very well known with a huge founder brand, and now standing up another company underneath that same founder.” She says, “We have an incredible audience to use and leverage. So really positioning our founder's brand as multiple businesses. And he’s talking to a different level of audience than he previously was. So from his content strategy, we're changing up who the content is targeted for. And then on the side of that, it's like, ‘Okay, how do we build the brand of Passetto outside of the founder at the same time as we start to scale so that people in the market know the difference between Refine Labs and Passetto?'”

Quotes

 *”One of the things that I thought you did so well at Refine Labs was naming the problem with something specific. To say, ‘Dark social is the thing that is happening. And here is how you go attack it.’That is the part of thought leadership that just frames the audience so quickly into solve and learn mode, and is super important. You have to find the thing that's going to resonate, and be easy to say and easy to understand.” - Ian Faison

*”[Jeremy Clarkson] is definitely the main character, what kind of makes the show. And I relate that to marketing as, like, that's the founder brand, or like, that's like the face of the company or the spokesperson. And he's been able to take his massive audience and transition some of that over, but also acquire a new audience into his brand. But he's still being very true to himself, his personality and his character. It's like rinse and repeat what he was doing over in the automotive space in this new space.” - Sidney Waterfall

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Sidney Waterfall, Co-Founder & SVP of GTM Strategy at Passetto

[2:28] About the Creation of Clarkson's Farm

[4:01] Jeremy Clarkson's Farming Journey

[7:50] Showing the Realities of Farming

[20:39] Marketing Lessons from Clarkson's Farm

[24:12] Using Comedic Tension in B2B Marketing

[25:46 How to Transition Audiences with a New POV

[27:50] Building a Brand Outside the Founder

[28:47] Sidney’s Content Strategy and Execution

[36:00] The Importance of Thought Leadership

[40:40] Sidney’s Favorite Content Projects and How She Proves ROI

[46:51] Sidney’s Advice for Other Marketing Professionals

Links

Connect with Sidney on LinkedIn

Learn more about Passetto

About 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Muscle memory is killing your marketing strategy. It’s time to get off autopilot and take the helm.

It’s tempting to repeat marketing tactics that worked once. But if you do the same thing over and over, those tactics can lose effectiveness over time. So we’re bringing you fresh marketing ideas inspired by a show that explores the benefits of navigating uncharted waters. 

In this episode, we’re talking about Taika Waititi’s hit romantic comedy, Our Flag Means Death, with the help of special guest, Director of Content & Communications at People.ai, Mariah Petrovic. Together, we chat about hiring a crew that’s better than you, ditching muscle-memory marketing strategies, and humanizing your content. So all aboard for this episode of Remarkable.

About our guest, Mariah Petrovic

Mariah Petrovic is Director of Content & Communications at People.ai. She joined the company in May 2023. Prior to her current role, she served as AI Messaging & Thought Leadership Lead for Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG) at Dell Technologies. She has also worked as Senior Content Marketing Writer at Esri. 

Mariah is a B2B and B2C marketer with broad experience in developing and executing go-to market messaging and strategy for leading companies like Dell and Esri (location technology). She also excels in leading content marketing strategy including content audits, content optimization, and development of assets including ebooks, whitepapers, articles, blogs, social content, videos, podcasts, and targeted ABM assets. She spent five years working for a membership organization for C-Suite executives and helped plan and execute events ranging from intimate dinners to national conferences.

About People.ai

People.ai is an AI-powered revenue intelligence platform that helps customers win more revenue by providing sales, RevOps, marketing, enablement, and customer success teams with valuable insights. Companies such as Verizon, IBM Red Hat, Snowflake, Zoom, and Palo Alto Networks rely on their enterprise-grade, patented AI technology. Their unique dataset, consisting of 1 trillion+ sales activities, millions of deals, 160 million business contacts, and 69 approved patents related to AI-based business insights, sets us apart. They use this data to train their models and provide our customers with tailored business predictions and unique buyer insights. They’ve also received validation via Gartner Market Guide for Revenue Intelligence Platforms, the 5000 fastest-growing companies list, named a strong performer and the only enterprise-grade data management platform by Forrester Revenue Operations and Intelligence Wave, listed on the Y Combinator Top Companies List, and the Forbes AI 50 list in 2022.

About Our Flag Means Death

Our Flag Means Death is a show about an aristocrat in the 18th century named Stede Bonnet who decides he’s going to become a pirate. So he buys a ship named “Revenge”, hires a crew, and sails off on the high seas. So it’s about him trying to hold together his crew who are constantly at the brink of mutiny. And in the meantime he runs into Captain Blackbeard and they fall in love. 

It stars Rhys Darby as Stede Bonnet and Taika Waititi as Blackbeard. The series was created by David Jenkins and premiered in 2022. It’s now in its second season, and is available on HBOMax. 

Our Flag Means Death is loosely based on the true story of Stede Bonnet, who was called the “Gentleman Pirate.” He was born to a wealthy English family in Barbados and in 1717 he decided to become a pirate. He did meet Captain Blackbeard whose real name was Edward Teach in the Bahamas. And they did team up to pillage and plunder other ships along the eastern coast of the U.S. Whether he had a romantic relationship with Blackbeard or not is uncertain.

David Jenkins, the creator, said that pirates weren’t really his “bag” but the idea of someone in what he called “existential freefall” like Stede Bonnet was fascinating to him. The fact that Stede was a wealthy landowner in an unhappy marriage who just wanted to leave it all was really appealing.  

About it being a love story, Jenkins said, “It’s show about falling in love more than it’s a show about people’s reaction to gayness in that era.” And he added that so often, shows about gay romance are really about gay trauma. And Our Flag Means Death is more about romance.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Our Flag Means Death:

• Hire a crew that’s better than you. Get people on board who have skills and knowledge your company needs. Even if - and especially if - they’re better or more experienced than you. They will only be an asset to your growth. Mariah says, “Stede is completely incompetent as a pirate, and he hires a crew that is marginally better than him. But they all come together and they get the job done.”
• Muscle memory is killing your marketing strategy. Yes, it’s good to market in a way that you know works. But after a while, it just gets stale. Mariah says, “So many times, we kind of get this muscle memory and do things the same way over and over again. It's hard to break out of that. Be brave and try new things. And if something's not working, it's okay to start over.” Though Stede Bonnet was not always brave, it’s in starting his new life as a pirate that he goes on a journey of self-discovery. And that’s pretty brave, in the end.
• Fly your human flag. Drop the high tech facade, and be human. Write like a human, and include pictures of your customers and employees. Mariah says, “Being vulnerable and authentic is something that we don't do enough of and B2B marketing in general. We don’t humanize our companies. I'm in the AI space, and it's all these super high tech terms. We can talk about productivity and all this stuff, but really we're speaking to human beings. And so I think that that ability to be vulnerable and really speak to people is something that we can learn from this show.” Our Flag Means Death shows the vulnerable side of their male characters, which you would have never seen in something like Treasure Island, which was all swashbuckling machismo. In this show, the crew read each other stories and are encouraged to talk about their feelings. It sucks viewers into the story and results in their investment in the characters.

Quotes

*What are the stories we're telling that are building that trust? Where are we helping people right now when they really need it without asking anything else of them in that moment? And being patient and knowing that the efforts that we're putting into it right now are leading to that moment and of change, of making that purchase and influencing those decisions?” - Mariah Petrovic

*”Messaging is the foundation of everything at a company. It's the way we talk about ourselves. It's consistency in storytelling. It's your website and your social and everything else. So getting it right, putting it out into the world, and really defining who we are as an organization is something that is really exciting.” - Mariah Petrovic

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Mariah Petrovic, Director of Content & Communications at People.ai

[2:09] Why are we talking about Our Flag Means Death?

[2:35] What does Mariah’s work at People.ai entail?

[3:00] What is Our Flag Means Death about?

[7:30] What makes Our Flag Means Death remarkable?

[21:03] What marketing lessons can we take from Our Flag Means Death?

[25:21] How does Mariah think about content?

[26:43] What’s Mariah’s content strategy? How does she prove the ROI of content?

[29:22] What will Mariah be working on and investing in in the future?

Links

Watch Our Flag Means Death

Connect with Mariah on LinkedIn

Learn more about People.ai

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

If a friend of yours said, “There’s a new show you have to watch about a mid-size paper company in Scranton, Pennsylvania,” would you want to watch it? 

The crazy thing is we’re talking about the most popular sitcom of all time. But it sounds boring as heck. So what makes it so good? The actual content.

The Office was relatable, cringey, absurd, and lucky for us, chock full of B2B marketing lessons. And that’s what we’re talking about today with our guest, VP of Content Marketing at Crayon, Sheila Lahar. Together, we’re chatting about B2B marketing lessons from the U.S. version including holding a writers’ room, recognizing when your marketing playbook is stale, and making every word count. This episode of Remarkable is sure to leave you satisfied and smiling. That’s what she said.

About our guest, Sheila Lahar

Sheila Lahar is Senior Director of Content Marketing at Crayon, responsible for making sure that everything they publish is unique, compelling, and valuable. Prior to joining Crayon, she built successful content marketing programs at a number of B2B SaaS companies, including Flatfile, Datto, and Eloqua.

About Crayon

Crayon, the leading competitive intelligence platform for mid-market and enterprise businesses, brings a complete, real-time picture of what competitors are up to—delivering valuable insights to key departments in a range of formats that can be easily accessed and acted on. So companies can quickly see and seize opportunities, and build a sustainable business advantage.

About The Office

The Office is an Emmy Award-winning mockumentary about the employees of a paper company called Dunder Mifflin in Scranton, Pennsylvania. It was originally a U.K. series created by British comedian Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. But we’re covering the U.S. version, which was adapted from the original by SNL writer Greg Daniels. It was co-produced by Deedle-Dee Productions and Reveille Productions in association with Universal Television. Members of the original cast included Steve Carrell as the Scranton regional branch manager, Michael Scott. Assistant to the regional branch manager, Dwight Schrute, is played by Rainn Wilson. John Krasinski is Jim Halpert, Jenna Fisher is secretary Pam Beasley, and B.J. Novak is the temp, Ryan Howard. The 9 seasons aired from 2005 to 2013.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From The Office: 

• Hold a writers’ room. Brainstorm ideas with your colleagues. Sheila says, “This works really well in person. One person will have an idea that’s funny. And then you just build off that. By the end of it, you're suggesting the craziest, wackiest things, which seem like The Office in some of the scenarios and situations. I've seen that play out in B2B marketing when you just get a creative group together and you're kind of like, ‘All right, this is what we've got, but what can we do here to make it funny or more appealing?” It’s how you elevate your product or service with great content. 
• Recognize when your marketing playbook is stale. And pivot fast to give your audience something new and better than the last. Sheila says The Office just wasn’t the same once Steve Carrell left, that it felt like the show ran out of funny ideas. She says it would have been better to pivot to a spinoff after five seasons to give their audience something new. So when it comes to marketing, it’s important to always think critically about your content strategy. To ask “Is my content stale?” And move on. Sheila says, “It's like we've got these playbooks that we've developed and we just go to the same thing. And we're all doing the same thing just because it worked.” Go on to experiment and find new things that work better than the last.
• Make every word count. When you’re writing ad copy with a 1,000 character limit, each word has to pack a punch. Sheila says, “It has to be so impactful or funny or something. You have to get that emotion. I think back to the writers for The Office. They were so good at writing one-liners, whether it was for Creed or Ryan.” So think about the impact of every word when writing your next copy.

Quotes

*”For so much of the stuff that's out there, whether it’s billboard ads or other types of ads, there's just such a lack of enthusiasm to be bold, to say something funny or interesting. Let's get back to the Creed joke where he's like, ‘I sprout mung beans on a damp paper towel in my desk drawer. Very nutritious but they smell like death.’ It’s that absurdity that makes his character so freaking hysterical. And that absurdity is also the stuff that stands out in your mind.” - Ian Faison

*”We're in this noisy world where everyone's just scrolling really fast. You’ve got less than a second, you just have no time. The bold and the funny and anything that stands out, that's your chance. That's your only chance to get noticed.” - Sheila Lahar

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Sheila Lahar, VP of Content Marketing at Crayon

[2:02] Why are we talking about The Office?

[4:15] What is The Office about?

[7:34] Why is The Office remarkable?

[14:12] What are some marketing lessons we can take from The Office?

[28:28] What’s Sheila’s content strategy at Crayon?

[30:38] How does Sheila prove the ROI of content?

[34:55] What are some initiatives Sheila is working on for the future?

Links

Watch The Office

Connect with Sheila on LinkedIn

Learn more about Crayon

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Imagine this: possessing the power to not only understand your customers' deepest desires but also plant ideas in their minds, making them believe it was their idea from the very start.

It may sound like something straight out of a dream, but it may not be as far-fetched as it seems. See, the genius of Christopher Nolan's Inception conceals marketing insights if you look close enough. It's the marketing movie you never knew was about marketing.

While we can't offer you a PASIV device to enter your customers’ dreams, we can provide you with the tools to craft marketing strategies that work like inception - subtly influencing, inspiring, and engaging your audience.

So in this episode, we’re deciphering the intricate layers of marketing with the help of Emburse’s Chief Experience Officer, Johann Wrede. Together, we discuss how to utilize emotions to ‘plant ideas’ in your customers’ heads, avoid fixating on initial customer expectations throughout the customer journey, and leave room for your customers to co-create their narrative to boost engagement. So grab your totem for this episode of Remarkable.

About our guest, Johann Wrede

Johann Wrede is the Chief Experience Officer at Emburse. He is responsible for leading a cross-functional marketing and customer success organization, with the goal of delivering a world-class customer experience from first awareness through subscription renewal.  Over the course of the last 25 years, Johann has written, implemented, sold and marketed a variety of customer database, CRM and customer experience (CX) products. An evangelist for customer experience, he has delivered keynotes and press interviews in 18 different countries, and written numerous articles on the topic.

About Emburse

Emburse is the global leader in spend optimization. Their expense, travel management, purchasing and accounts payable, and payments solutions are trusted by more than 12 million business professionals, including CFOs, finance teams, and travelers. More than 18,000 organizations in 120 countries, including FORTUNE 100 corporations, high-growth startups, public sector agencies, and nonprofits, count on their intelligent automation, sophisticated analytics, and unmatched spend control to streamline processes, increase spend visibility, enhance compliance, and deliver positive financial outcomes.

About Inception

Inception is a sci-fi action, mind-bending movie about a corporate spy who enters people’s dreams to steal secrets from their subconscious. Leonardo DiCaprio plays the main character, Dominic, or Dom, Cobb, who is basically gifted with this ability that’s made him extremely successful, but he’s lost everything because of it. Namely, his marriage and children. His wife is played by Marion Cotillard. And so he’s kind of haunted by her in his subconscious and she ends up sort of thwarting his every move. So anyway, he’s given a chance to redeem himself by planting an idea in someone’s mind, and having to go layers deep into their subconscious, which is of course, a nearly impossible task.

The movie was released in 2010, and directed by Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer, Dunkirk, latest Batman series with Christian Bale AND Memento). Nolan also produced it along with Emma Thomas - his wife and producing partner - for Warner Bros. It also stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Arthur, Elliot Page as Ariadne, and Tom Hardy as Eames.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Inception:

• Utilize emotions to ‘plant ideas’.  Emotions are your superpower to accessing the deepest corners of your customers' minds. People don't just buy; they invest for emotional reasons—this is an intrinsic part to our human nature. Johann says, “our whole mission is to plant ideas into customers' heads and convince them that it was their idea from the first. And the first time I saw [Inception], that is, it just jumped out at me and I thought, wow, that really sums up the marketing profession in a nutshell.”
• Don’t fixate on initial customer expectations. Customers evolve, and so should your strategy. What matters most in the end is if they are happy. Just as Inception leaves us with an ambiguous ending, Cobb’s happiness is undeniable. Whether it's a dream or reality, his happiness is the ultimate goal, mirroring how you should approach your customer journey. Johann emphasizes, “it doesn't actually matter if the value that they thought they were going to get is the value that they got. What's more important is that the value that they want right now is the value that they're getting right now. Are they happy with the result?”
• Leave room for your customers to co-create their narrative. This fuels customer engagement and is exactly what Christopher Nolan did when creating Inception. We witness this concept in two distinct ways: co-creation within the dream state, as the dream world is designed in a way that allows the subject to fill in details, and ambiguity in the ending, with Inception's enigmatic conclusion inviting audience speculation. Johann says, “All too often, we build these elaborate cities that we put our buyer into. And we orchestrate this narrative that is so complete and so full. And we try to be so precise in our language that we don't leave room for them to bring their own perception and perspective to it.”

Quotes

“One of my first sales mentors said to me, people buy for emotional reasons and then back it up with facts. That became really clear to me that what we needed to do as marketers was peel away those layers of the onion and get past the business person and down to the human, and speak to that person.” - Johann Wrede

“If you can create content that authentically seeks to inform and to add value, then you start to move into the trusted advisor quadrant, which is where you really want to be. And the other piece of this puzzle is that we have to look at the content we create through the lens of the customer journey.”  - Johann Wrede

Time Stamps

[01:00] Introducing Chief Experience Officer at Emburse, Johann Wrede

[1:34] Why are we talking about Inception?

[3:34] Tell me more about Inception 

[13:48] What are some marketing lessons we can learn from Inception?

[22:16] Marketing insights from Inception's mind-bending ending

[32:02] How to identify needs and craft messages that resonate

[45:53] How does Johann think about content marketing?

[54:49] Johann’s view on the ROI of content

[57:49] Johann’s favorite upcoming marketing campaigns at Emburse

Links

Watch Inception

Connect with Johann on LinkedIn

Learn more about Emburse

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Hear us out. A children’s book, a novella, a fictional crime podcast, but make them B2B. 

Because B2B marketing doesn’t have to be a webinar, a blog post, an email newsletter… Every B2B company does those. Today we’re challenging you to rise above the noise and make radically different content. 

In this episode, we’re learning from a company that has created B2B content as all three: children’s book, novella, and fictional crime podcast. That company is Tenable. We’re chatting with their CMO and Chief of Staff, Jérôme Robert, about the art of creating fictional content that feels realistic, lived in, and resonates with your audience while also improving brand affinity. So grab a coffee from your local barista, tip well, and settle in for this episode of Remarkable.

About our guest, Jérôme Robert

Jérôme Robert is CMO and Chief of Staff at Tenable. He previously served as Managing Director of Alsid’s U.S. operations. His responsibilities included enabling users to harden their Active Directory and detect attacks. and supporting PSG. Prior to Alsid, he served as SVP of Product and Marketing at EclecticIQ. He has also worked at companies like Orange Cyberdefense and Arkoon Netasq.

About Tenable

Tenable® is the Exposure Management company. Approximately 40,000 organizations around the globe rely on Tenable to understand and reduce cyber risk. As the creator of Nessus®, Tenable extended its expertise in vulnerabilities to deliver the world’s first platform to see and secure any digital asset on any computing platform. Tenable customers include approximately 60 percent of the Fortune 500, approximately 40 percent of the Global 2000, and large government agencies

About The Hacker Chronicles

The Hacker Chronicles is a podcast about a barista named Alice who’s struggling to make ends meet, and that’s when a friend suggests buying a Ransomware-as-a-Service kit. So she starts exploring the Dark Web as a way to make some extra cash and ends up becoming America’s most wanted hacker. It’s now in its second season, “Digital Nomad”. It stars Chloe Taylor as Alice Mitnick and Michael C. Hall as John Doe. And it’s presented by Tenable.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From The Hacker Chronicles:

• Create marketing content in a non-marketing genre. Like a children’s book, like a fiction podcast. Because not only will you appeal to marketers, you’ll tap into a much broader audience who enjoys the story. Ian says, “What I heard a ton of when we launched season one was, ‘I don't normally listen to podcasts like this, but I binged it with my girlfriend,’ or, ‘I listened to the entire thing in the car.’ We talked a lot about, ‘How do we make it bingeable?’
• Ground your fictional characters in a real world. Make your content resonate with your audience by creating hyper realistic scenarios. Accuracy in the details is key. Ian says in creating the storyline, “The characters had to experience the world in a certain way in order for it to feel real. Like, they need to have real stakes. They need to have real relationships. They need to have real pressures.” And Jérôme adds that, “W​hen you see a movie and there's a supposed hacker, but you see their screen and it's a dumb script that they are running that has nothing to do with cyber security, when a cyber security person watches this movie, we're like, ‘This is awful. I can't stand it.’ That's exactly what I didn't want. So everything [the main character Alice] does has been thought through and is realistic.” The Hacker Chronicles is based on a lot of real hacks, and so anyone in the cybersecurity industry would believe it.
• Get rid of ads. Try entertainment instead. Jerome says, “Everybody believes that the opportunity for ads is shrinking dramatically. People don't like interruptions. You have to provide something that is enjoyable. That rewards your audience.” And he said after bringing this up, his team no longer got pushback from the leadership on updating their marketing strategy.

Quotes

“Tenable was one of the founders of cybersecurity as an industry. And there's a lot of good things that come with that heritage. But there's also the tendency to not try new stuff from a marketing perspective. And there were people at the company when we joined that had an innate desire to challenge that.” - Jérôme Robert

“You have to be self-critical about what you're doing all the time. It's not easy, I think, from a brain gymnastics standpoint. It involved a lot of effort, but it's very rewarding. You're very happy when you end up with something that you think cannot be attacked, cannot be challenged. I mean, yeah, they could say they don't like it, but they can't say it's wrong. You have the eureka moment when you think, ‘Yeah, we got it.’ It's very cool.”  - Jérôme Robert 

*”You do something that is fundamentally different from the rest of the industry, you are going to stand out. Which is, as marketers, what we're looking for. But as a company that is managing their risk doing something that makes the company stand out creates mixed feelings. They think, ‘If the outcomes are not what we hoped for it's a huge risk, it could backfire, and you don't have any ROI to put in front of it, so, no, I'm not going to do it.’ There’s too much risk in being different, somehow. And I think that's totally overstated. I think, notably in an industry where the marketing practices are very mature and very identical from one company to another, there's very, very little downside in standing out, in doing something that is entirely different.” - Jérôme Robert  

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Jérôme Robert, CMO & Chief of Staff at Tenable

[1:57] What does Jérôme do at Tenable?

[5:45] What is The Hacker Chronicles?

[11:26] About the inspiration behind The Hacker Chronicles

[17:17] The importance of realism in a fictional piece of content

[19:39] How scary is it to make a primer on hacking as a cybersecurity company?

[35:30] How do you prove the ROI of content?

[40:02] Why does Jérôme have a long-term approach to content like a podcast?

[44:40] How does Jérôme tie the podcast back to Tenable customers?

Links

Listen to The Hacker Chronicles

Connect with Jérôme on LinkedIn

Learn more about Tenable

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

There’s a very real shift in mindset between making a single piece of content and making a long-standing series. 

But that shift in mindset launches a content machine that can fill your calendar, grow a dedicated audience, and build a name for your brand.

And in this episode, we’re learning from one of the biggest content machines in reality TV: Survivor. 

We’re looking at the show that’s been running for 46 seasons to date with the help of our guest, Founder of Distribution First, Justin Simon. 

Together, we talk about repeating your winning formula, creating a distribution plan, and staying true to who you are.

About our guest, Justin Simon

Justin Simon is founder of Distribution First, a membership community where smart marketers create less, distribute more, and grow together. He is also a consultant and the host of the Distribution First podcast. Prior to starting his consulting firm, Justin served as Senior Content Marketing Manager at metadata.io. He also previously served as Global Content Strategy Manager at TechSmith Corporation, a global provider of screen capture and screen recording software. He worked for TechSmith for over 10 years, having started as a Sales Intern in February 2011.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Survivor:

• Repeat your winning formula. Be consistent over time with the things that have proven successful. With some tweaks here and there, Survivor has followed essentially the same formula for 46 seasons, making it one of the longest lasting reality TV shows of all time. Justin says, “I think that that's like the magic of what has made it last, amongst many other things, for so long. It's consistent, it's repeatable, and you always know what you're getting.”
• Have a plan for distribution of your content before creating the content itself. Justin says, “Know what distribution channels you have available to you. Pick one or two that you're really going to hammer in on and get really good at those. Make sure your audience is aware that you exist on those channels. It goes back to consistency. Be able to consistently deliver value to the audience on those channels.” And then understand “How much content do you actually need? And then reverse engineering back to that. Because I think a lot of people get themselves stuck on a hamster wheel of creating content because they don't actually know how much content they need.”
• Stay true to who you are. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Keep your core values at the center of your content. From the first season, first episode, Survivor has used the tagline “Outwit, outplay, outlast.” And it's become an iconic slogan for the show. Justin says, “My biggest lesson from Survivor is just staying true to who you are and being able to create something that is really long lasting and not a flash in the pan. There's lots of flash in the pan marketing. And so how do we build up plans? How do we keep saying the same things over and over and talking about those things in a way that resonates, adjusting angles, and switching things?”

Quotes

*”Creating content for the sake of creating content is not good enough anymore. And I think a lot of teams still feel the need to hit a drumbeat of production without a ‘why’ behind that, or how the audience is going to engage with that, or a reason that it fits in with the larger marketing strategy, business strategy, all that type of stuff. But hey, we're creating content, so we're ahead of the game here. And so I think for me what that caused is a lot of stress, a lot of burnout, a lot of just trying to keep that ball rolling up the hill and then no time or energy or effort to be able to actually step back and be more strategic or be creative or experiment or any of these things that we wanted to do when we started to be marketers, do the fun stuff, try new things, try new formats, because we've got to still pump out all this content.” -Justin Simon

*”Most people have no clue what's happening with the content they create. The irony of it all is very, very thick that we're spending so much time and so much effort to create all of these things and we have no way of knowing how that's getting in front of anybody, if people care, in what ways they’re going to use it. How are we going to maybe reintroduce that same concept in different formats and in different ways? I think especially for folks who are creating evergreen content, it's a huge miss to not be repurposing and distributing that content.” - Justin Simon

*”In a typical marketing content landscape, distribution gets tacked on at the end. Like, ‘All right, we've got the thing. Now, what do we do?’ Versus throwing it at the beginning, distribution first, and thinking through, ‘All right, as we're creating this podcast, as we're creating this monthly event series, what's going to happen once the show goes live? So now they're creating a real engine that they can just kind of repeat and reuse and then adjust as necessary.” - Justin Simon

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Justin Simon, Founder of Distribution First

[1:49] Survivor's Enduring Appeal: A Deep Dive with Justin Simon

[7:16] The Evolution of Survivor: From Concept to Cultural Phenomenon

[10:28] Survivor's Winning Formula: Strategy, Diversity, and Adaptation

[19:16] Survivor vs. Alone: Analyzing Reality TV's Survival Shows

[22:48] Marketing Insights from Survivor's Success Story

[24:15] Unlocking the Secrets of Content Longevity and Consistency

[25:50] The Aspirational Power of Location in Storytelling

[27:25] The Role of the Evangelist in Content Creation

[28:50] Redefining Leadership and Charisma in Content Series

[33:01] Survivor's Lessons for B2B Marketing and Content Strategy

[40:34] The Art of Repurposing and the Power of Distribution

[47:08] Final Thoughts on Content Marketing and Distribution Strategies

Links

Watch Survivor

Connect with Justin on LinkedIn

Learn more about Distribution First

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

There’s nothing like a B2B event. Right?…. Right? [[ *crickets* ]] 

That is, there won’t be anything like a B2B event after you apply the lessons in this episode of Remarkable to your events. 

It’s like how Deadheads say “There’s nothing like a Grateful Dead concert.” That’s because the Grateful Dead were selling the experience. 

It was a place to go with people to meet, and all of the sights, sounds, and good vibes that made it an experience of a lifetime. 

So in this episode, we’re listening to the Grateful Dead with our guest, Director of Content at LeanIX, Matthew Grant. Together, we talk about giving away content to build an audience, selling the experience, and recording the event. So grab your tie dye tee for this episode of Remarkable.

About our guest, Matthew Grant

Matthew Grant is Director, Content Marketing at LeanIX. Over the last 14 years, Matt has created content focused on a wide range of B2B technologies including cloud management, cloud security, content management, product lifecycle management, data center cooling, generative design, quantum computing, and edge computing. He has also written and spoking on user experience design, content marketing strategy, social media strategy, and patent law, among other things. Matt has hosted podcasts on data in the enterprise, B2B marketing, and cloud computing. He has a PhD in German Studies.

About LeanIX

LeanIX’s Continuous Transformation Platform® offers SaaS solutions to help IT architects, IT asset managers, business leaders, and DevOps teams achieve transparency and control over their enterprise architecture, SaaS, and microservices landscapes. They offer Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) for managing Enterprise Architecture and multi-cloud environments to enable organizations to take faster, data-driven decisions in their IT. 

About the Grateful Dead

The Grateful Dead is a psychedelic band that got together in California in 1965. The founding members included Jerry Garcia (vocals, guitar), Ron “Pigpen” McKernan (vocals, organ, harmonica), Bob Weir (vocals, guitar), Bill Kreutzmann (drums), and Phil Lesh (vocals, bass). Their home stomping grounds were the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood in San Francisco. And they got their musical careers started off around the time of the Summer of Love and the counterculture movement.

About the Grateful Dead Europe 72 Record Album

The Grateful Dead’s Europe 72 Album is a triple album (17 songs split across three vinyl records) that was recorded in 1972 while the band was touring in Western Europe (England, Denmark, Germany, etc.)  It was recorded in April and May of that year, and released in November. The hope was that proceeds from the sale would help them recoup what they spent while on tour. Especially since they toured with an entourage of 43 people. Most of the songs were new, but it also included some live renditions of songs from studio albums. It has songs like “Brown-Eyed Woman,” “China Cat Sunflower,” and “Cumberland Blues”. Notably, it marked the last time Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, one of the original members, would play with them before passing away from an autoimmune disease that affects the liver. The album charted in the U.S. for 24 straight weeks after its release, and it was one of the first triple-record rock albums to be certified gold, and has since been certified double platinum.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From the Grateful Dead:

• Give away content. Your content provides value to your audience while driving brand awareness. So when the buyer is ready, your brand is the one they think of. Matt says, “You could argue that the model for content marketing comes from the Grateful Dead. Which is, you give away content to build an audience. ‘Hey, Deadhead, send us your postcard!’ And then you get them to pay for something that can't be commodified, like an in person live experience that's only happening once.”
• Sell the experience. Create a unique experience for your audience around the product. When talking about the Grateful Dead, Matt says, “Music on some level is a commodity. There are better musicians than the people in The Grateful Dead, there are better songwriters than the people in The Grateful Dead, especially now when you have Spotify and all those other things, your access to music is unlike anything I had in my earlier part of my lifetime. So you've got to give people something else. The music is almost secondary. What they're really selling is an opportunity, or a space, for you to be yourself, or do your own thing, or be a freak, or be weird, or whatever, and it’s a non-judgmental zone.” So sell your audience an experience. Especially if it has good music.
• Record the event. So people who missed out can see it, and fans can re-live it. Ian says, “It’s a fan service to create a live album. It’s like a time capsule. And the idea that at any point in time, you could transport someone back to this moment is really interesting. Even if you weren't there, you still get to have that moment.”

Quotes

*“It was more about the cult than it was about the actual music.” - Ian Faison

*“When people say they like The Grateful Dead, what they're remembering is this show they went to. And that time, you know, in Southern California, and it was outside, and it was at night, and everyone was chill, and we had a lot of fun. That's why they like it.”  - Matt Grant

*”It's this experience. You have to give people more if you want them to come back. If you play the same songs every time and it's a cookie cutter thing, maybe they'll see you once. But why come back?” - Matt Grant

*”In B2B tech, you can focus on content and the message. But if you don't have a product that can deliver on it, it doesn't matter.” - Matt Grant

Time Stamps

[0:56] Meet Matt Grant, Director of Content at LeanIX

[2:11] What makes the Grateful Dead’s Europe 72 album remarkable?

[27:41] What can the Grateful Dead can teach us about authenticity in marketing?

 [28:35] How did the Grateful Dead build a community of Deadheads?

[30:50] Where did the Grateful Dead bear come from?

[34:25] What do the Grateful Dead and HubSpot have in common?

[38:51] What we can learn from the Grateful Dead about knowing your audience? (And more marketing lessons)

[46:32] How does Matt think about content at LeanIX?

[56:04] What does Matt think about AI when it comes to building content?

Links

Listen to the Grateful Dead’s Europe 72 album

Browse the Grateful Dead Collection on Archive.org

Read Marketing Lessons from The Grateful Dead by Brian Halligan and David Meerman Scott

Connect with Matt on LinkedIn

Learn more about LeanIX

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

“Each man carried, along with a sea chest, his own burdensome story.” - Excerpt from The Wager, by David Grann

This 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 Ragan

Shannon 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 Ragan

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Shannon Ragan, former Director of Content Marketing at Authentic8

[3:50] Content Marketing Insights from The Wager

[5:33] David Grann's Research Journey

[14:33] Crafting Authentic Content

[15:21] Engaging with Customers through Content

[16:11] The Power of Co-Creating Content

[25:30] Marketing Strategy Overhaul

[38:05] Character Development in Writing

[42:06] Final Thoughts on Content Strategy

Links

Connect with Shannon on LinkedIn

Learn more about Authentic8

About 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Everyone loves getting the insider view.

It’s like getting let in on a secret. There’s an exclusivity to it that’s all too appealing. 

So why not lure your audience in with the chance to be a fly on the wall in your story?

That’s one of the things we’re talking about today with the help of our special guest, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer at CSG, David Pendery. 

Together, we’re taking marketing lessons from The West Wing including pitting two characters against each other with opposing views, going for the walk-and-talk, and much more.

About our guest, David Pendery

David Pendery is an award-winning creative, business-focused enterprise marketing & communications leader with extensive experience building brands and businesses, connecting stakeholder needs to company solutions and driving impactful results for 10-figure and Fortune 500 B2B and B2C organizations. He has more than 20 years of experience elevating the visibility, media sophistication and global internal and external interactions of diverse national and international public and private organizations in a wide variety of industries, representing some of the most well-known B2B and B2C brands.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From The West Wing:

• Give the fly-on-the-wall insider view. Let your audience in on the inside scoop of your story. David says in The West Wing, “ It was like you were a fly on the wall in these super secret conversations, right? The way it was written, I think is what was so successful about it.  You just felt like you were the secret observer and it drew people in.” And Ian adds that “ fly on the wall content is crazy valuable.  You feel like you are intruding on a conversation that you are not invited to. And like, that's incredibly cool for the audience.”
• Pit two characters against each other with opposing views. It’s an easy formula for a compelling plot, it’s repeatable, and it works every time. Plus you have one of the greatest writers - Aaron Sorkin - using it in his content. Ian says, “ The way that Sorkin wrote the show, is The West Wing happens in the west wing of the White House. So he would repeatedly say to his staff, ‘Our show is at its best when it's one of our characters that we love, they’re disagreeing with another character that we love, and they are on either side of something. And it is happening in the West Wing.’”
• Go for the walk-and-talk. In The West Wing, a character is often walking down the hallway and other staffers are coming up and updating them or giving them important information on the way. The movement gives the information immediacy and importance. Which are great attributes to lend your content. Ian says, “ I think it's an interesting thing to put your CEO or executive or whoever it is - your persona - and it's a really good way to get video content, right? It's like having them walking and having other people come up to them and jump in and do this. You never see that in B2B, never. You never see that. And it's funny. It's pretty cool.”

Quotes

*”The biggest thing is you've got to establish some credibility with the stakeholders. So I think it’s not really something you're going to be able to come in and do on day one, but if you can prove some value, if you can deliver on the results that you've been tasked with delivering, you'll build up this credibility bank and your stakeholders will let you push the envelope a little bit more.  That credibility allows you to be a little bit more experimental, a little bit more agile, and not get too hung up when things don't always work exactly the way you had hoped.”

*”Have your A players up front, make sure you've got the right people surrounding you. Having the right people in the right seats on the bus, so to speak, I think is super important because you wouldn't have that same sort of beautiful orchestration that you saw with The West Wing if it wasn't for the right blend of talents and personalities and experiences in all the right seats.”

*”Well, so much B2B marketing is so perfectly staged, right? You've got the perfect talking head and everything's polished and overproduced. You've got the perfect soundtrack and the perfect graphics and everything else. And I think sometimes just getting something a little bit more raw like that walk-and-talk kind of gives you that. It's a little unfiltered. It doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't have to be the 15th take to get the talking points just right. It's just a real, authentic kind of moment that I think is a lot more endearing. And people are much more interested in something that isn't perfect, cause it's more relatable.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet David Pendery, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer at CSG

[1:41] Why the West Wing?

[4:00] The Origins of the West Wing

[11:52] Marketing Lessons from the West Wing

[26:24] Embracing Raw and Authentic B2B Marketing

[26:59] The Importance of Creativity in Marketing

[28:36] Understanding Customer Needs Through Direct Conversations

[30:57] Timing and Flexibility in B2B Marketing

[37:59] The Role of Personal Branding in Company Success

[43:54] Investing in Content and Brand Strategy

[47:03] Exciting Trends and Future Plans

[48:00] Final Thoughts and Advice for CMOs

Links

Connect with David on LinkedIn

Learn more about CSG

About 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Your next campaign is going to go viral. That is, if you use the marketing lessons we’re sharing in this episode of Remarkable.

There’s a recipe basically guaranteed to get you eyeballs, likes, comments…pure and fevered engagement from your audience. 

And we’re taking that recipe from Solo Stove’s viral ad featuring Snoop Dogg. That’s what we’re talking about in this episode of Remarkable with the help of special guest, Chief Evangelist at purple cork, Corrina Owens. Together, we talk about collaborating with an A-list celebrity, creating buzz, and timing your campaign just right.

About our guest, Corrina Owens

Corrina Owens is Chief Evangelist at purple cork. She has over a decade of experience driving revenue for high-growth B2B SaaS organizations and B2C organizations with integrated and multi-channel marketing strategies, building and scaling demand generation and account-based marketing departments, programs, and campaigns from the ground up. She also co-hosts Direct, a podcast that features unsung GTM heroes who make magic happen for their organizations. Corrina is also a GTM Advisor at Navattic, GTM Partners, and Postal.io. Prior to purple cork, Corrina was Senior Manager of ABM and Enterprise as well as podcast host at Gong.

About purple cork

Purple cork was started by former CMOs and go-to-market specialists offering end-to-end event management. They create fun, fresh and professional virtual tastings designed for business value. They’re helping hundreds of leading SaaS and other companies create unique and memorable experiences no matter where they are. They’ve driven over $3 million in closed won revenue from accounts who’ve attended their Taste of Qualified events.

About the Solo Stove

Solo Stove makes a suite of portable, smokeless fire pits and camp stoves, along with a pizza oven and grill, and all the accessories. The unique thing about the Solo Stove is that it’s smokeless. The company explains that it works more efficiently than a traditional fire pit by funneling air through the pit twice for a second burn. So not only is there no smoke, but it also burns hotter. Solo Stove was started by brothers Jeff and Spencer Jan in 2011 as a Kickstarter campaign that raised $15,000. It now has an enterprise value of nearly $500 million after going public in 2021 as Solo Brands. It has also since acquired the brands Chubbies, Oru Kayak and Isle.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From the Solo Stove:

• Aim for the stars. Solo Stove took a big swing when they asked Snoop Dogg to partner with them. And it paid off big. Corrina says, “What we see with B2B brands is that the ones that take big swings and make big bets - those are the ones that are going to stand out from the noise. So what's the risk here when the upside is just so massive? If nothing else, at least Snoop Dogg knows about solo stoves, right?” She adds that “leveraging celebrities that have that kind of vast appeal, but don't have so many endorsements quite yet, I think is the way in for marketers.”
• Spark buzz. On November 16th, 2023, Snoop Dogg posted to his Instagram account that he was “giving up smoke,” and to “respect his privacy at this time.” The post sent his fanbase into pure pandemonium. That is, until four days later when Solo Stove launched their collab with Snoop Dogg. One Snoop fan then responded to his Instagram post, “Got me one and I love it!!! 🔥❤️.” So drop hints and build anticipation for new campaigns, products, features, and services to drive engagement and make your content so remarkable it goes viral.
• Time your campaign right. Solo Stove’s Snoop Dogg campaign launched just days before Thanksgiving 2023 when, Ian says, “everyone is going to be talking around the dinner table and your weird uncle is going to bring up something weird. And you can be like, ‘Hey, did you know that Snoop's giving up smoking? That's crazy!’ Time your campaign launch so that it drops right when people will be together and in the perfect situation to talk about it, whether It be around a holiday or an event.

Quotes

*”Until Solo Stove has some comparable competitors for price point and offering, they really have a unique moment in time to make these big investments and take these really big swings to corner the market even further before potential new competition can catch up.” - Corrina Owens

*”Early into the pandemic, Conan was starting to get more creative with ads where you would hear him do ads, but it sounded like he was just doing a bit. They actually made a summer campfire series with him, his assistant, and his producer. They do it just for Solo Stove, Solo Stove is the only brand that sponsors it. And it's a unique part of their podcast. It's a video series, where it's after dark, they're not in their studio, they're all around the Solo Stove campfire, using it to make marshmallows, using it to keep themselves warm, like actually utilizing and showcasing the product in use, which is very cool.” - Corrina Owens

*”People love events. Going in person and meeting people is always important. But what we learned is that virtual events democratize information and access if you can't be there in person or you can't afford it. Like, if budgets are tight, then you can't go. That's not great. We see this with these massive events and conferences. Budgets are freaking wild for these events. They’re really expensive. And so virtual is one way to solve that.” - Ian Faison

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Corrina Owens, Chief Evangelist at purple cork

[1:21] Why are we talking about Solo Stove?

[1:54] Learn more about Corrina’s role at purple cork

[2:20] What is the Solo Stove?

[10:51] About Snoop Dogg’s ad for Solo Stove

[14:10] How did the Snoop Dogg ad come about?

[16:17] Marketing lessons from the Snoop Dogg x Solo Stove ad

[25:20] Engagement results from Snoop Dogg x Solo Stove ad

[36:38] About how purple cork hosts virtual events

[37:44] What is Corrina’s marketing strategy at purple cork?

[44:22] How does Corrina think about the ROI of content?

Links

Check out the Solo Stove

See Snoop Dogg’s Instagram post about “giving up smoke”

Watch Solo Stove’s ad with Snoop Dogg

Connect with Corrina on LinkedIn

Learn more about purple cork

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

The fastest growing entertainment industry is not music and it’s not film. It’s video games. And they’re doing a lot of things right when it comes to marketing.

Ever since arcades opened in the 1970s and Pong became popular, video games drew in a massive audience. So let’s talk about how the industry draws in all the eyes, ears, and thumbs.  

In this episode, we’re chatting with the VP of Marketing at Hackuity, Skyler Schmanski. Together, we talk about how spending money doesn’t equal making money, and making money doesn’t equal business efficiency, and much more.

About our guest, Skyler Schmanski

Skyler Schmanski is the VP of Marketing at Hackuity, formerly Head of the Marketing Innovation Lab at Tenable, and – prior to acquisition – Deputy Chief Marketing Officer at Alsid. He is also the Executive Producer of the award-winning, #1 tech podcast, The Hacker Chronicles, and a LinkedIn Top Cybersecurity Voice with extensive experience in demand gen and growth hacking across hypergrowth tech startups, scaleups, and multinationals. After calling France home for more than eight years, Skyler is now growing EU businesses from Madrid. 

What B2B Companies Can Learn From the Video Game Industry:

• Spending more doesn’t equal making more money. Making money depends on the efficacy of your campaigns; grabbing your audience's attention, speaking directly to them, and engaging them. And you can do that on a lean budget. Skyler says, ”When you drop 10 years and $500 million on a project, that doesn't always translate to a better project. Sometimes you see these lean teams of 10 to 20 people on $10 million producing something higher quality. And so I think there's that balance to strike there that yes, that unprecedented level of investment is a good thing, but it's not enough to simply grow your teams and grow your budgets in 2024. You need to be doing it smartly. Efficiency is the name of the game, pun absolutely intended, in 2024.”
• Making more money doesn’t equal business efficiency. Focus first on operating efficiently before investing in a larger team. Skyler says, “Maybe if you are hitting 50% of the same revenue that you'd be hitting with 50 people at five people, well, that’s remarkably more efficient. And in that case, you definitely want the more agile team and direct link to the studio culture we were talking about, where you just see this constant inflow of contractors. When you come back to that minimum viable product from a team structure standpoint, you start to think, ‘Okay, how do we operate as efficiently as possible?’ And then you build from that.”

Quotes

*”People would say, ‘Under promise, over deliver.’ I don't wade into that. I would say, ‘Promise and then deliver.’ It's as simple as that. You cut the BS, you cut the fluff. And if what you say works, works, you're going to have a pretty happy client base.”

*”It's not ‘Do more with less.’ It’s ‘Do less things better.’”

*”I'm a big proponent of ‘Done is better than perfect.’ So I'm not saying that you need that 4k texture pack and everything is flawless. Especially when you're a startup or a scale up, you're working toward a grander vision. And I think people are very willing to forgive some of the glitchiness if the underlying product is working, if it's delivering results.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Skyler Schmanski, VP of Marketing at Hackuity

[3:21] The Evolution and Impact of the Video Game Industry

[8:24] The Shift in Game Development: From Perfection to Patching

[21:00] Marketing Insights from the Gaming World

[22:14] Evolving Budgets in Cybersecurity and Gaming

[22:50] Marketing Agility and Team Efficiency

[24:06] The Essential: Making Games That Work

[24:22] Marketing Strategies: From Email to Engagement

[25:52] Under Promise, Over Deliver: A Marketing Mantra

[29:00] The Power of Authenticity in Product Development

[30:13] Innovative Content Strategies in Cybersecurity

[32:07] Leveraging Thought Leadership for Brand Growth

[34:42] Future Marketing Strategies and Cross-Media Impact

[36:40] Closing Thoughts on Creativity and Storytelling

Links

Connect with Skyler on LinkedIn

Learn more about Hackuity

About 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

“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 Fleischman

Jeffrey 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 can tell you, 99 percent of everything we started out with was a small project. And now we have extremely large engagements. They trust us, they know us, and those relationships grew over time.”

*”You're basically in a newspaper business. You have to invest in content, it's 24/7, it never ends. If you think putting a PDF up on a website or, you know, putting new colors onto your website is the idea of content, you know, it's a big miss. So, content is an investment, it's an asset, and it's very dynamic. You have to put the right content at the right place at the right time on the right, you know, device or environment. And it just never stops. Technology's gotten better, data's gotten better, AI is now in the mix. So as you think about B2B marketing and where you really can make a difference, it's taking content that gets noticed. And, you know, the more you do that, the more you'll get noticed.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Jeff Fleischman, CMO of Altimetrik

[5:41] Learn about Jeff's Role at Altimetrik

[7:43] About the Creation and Success of Modern Family

[10:59] Casting Challenges and Character Development

[15:17] Marketing Takeaways from Modern Family

[27:48] What Marketers Can Learn from Jay Pritchett's Competitive Spirit

[29:12] Grit and Persistence in Marketing

[33:48] How to Build a Strong Social Media Presence

[34:49] The Role of Earned Media

[46:14] AI in Marketing: A Game Changer

[52:02] Jeff’s Advice for First-Time CMOs

Links

Connect with Jeff on LinkedIn

Learn more about Altimetrik

About 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

If you want to make a big impact in a 15-second ad, there’s one trick of the trade that instantly gets an emotional response: place your ad in a relatable setting.  

It could be the DMV, an airport, or a drive through —what matters is that it’s a place your audience has been to. They know what it’s like getting a bad driver’s license photo, or struggling to find an outlet to charge your phone while you wait for a connecting flight. By putting your story in a familiar setting, you don’t need to do very much explaining – and you can capitalize on those precious seconds to highlight your message. 

This week, we’re talking about Mean Girls. Mean Girls is a perfect example of what it means to have a relevant, reminiscent setting. In this episode of REMARKABLE, we talk about how to do the same in your B2B marketing.

Why Mean Girls?

Mean Girls is a modern classic that introduced the word "fetch" into our vocabulary. But we picked it for this week's episode because it's an excellent example of a film taking a common setting and building off it. You know what setting we're talking about: high school. The movie's production design evokes the all-too-familiar feel of the American high school. But it's not just that; it's also the scenes in the movie as well. We’re talking about high school — the physical place as well as the experience. Mean Girls perfectly captures both, so you watch the movie and go, “I’ve been there. I know what that’s like.” The high school feels familiar because it’s pretty generic. Everything from the hallways and lockers to the cafeteria and classrooms in the movie look like ones in real high schools across the U.S. But it’s more than that — it’s the experience of going to a new school, trying to make friends, having crushes, getting bullied…there’s something for everyone.

Did you know that Mean Girls is based on a self-help book? That’s right, Tina Fey wrote the screenplay after reading Queen Bees & Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends & Other Realities of Adolescence by Rosalind Wiseman. The book was written for parents who wanted to help their teen daughters better navigate the social complexities at school. Fey took key components of the high school experience from the book, along with unforgettable characters and a juicy plot, and Mean Girls was born. 

Mean Girls became a state-of-the-art classic because of how Tina Fey elevated the high school genre. With her cutting sense of humor and subversive voice, she made Mean Girls one of the most quotable and enduring of its kind.

A Quick Mean Girls Refresher 

Mean Girls tells the story of Cady Heron, who gets her first taste of public high school after her scientist parents move from Africa to the Chicago suburbs. Outcasts Janis and Damien show Cady the ropes, but Cady winds up going her own way. Despite her friends’ warnings, she is drawn into the cool girl clique, “The Plastics,” led by Regina George. Cady finds out how cutthroat The Plastics truly are after making the mistake of falling for Regina’s ex. So Cady, Janis and Damien plot to bring on Regina’s downfall.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Mean Girls: 

• Set the stage. We know it’s important to choose a memorable setting, but don’t forget to give it some history. On Cady’s first day in class, she was told not to sit in a certain seat because Kristin Hadley’s boyfriend sits there. Do we know who Kristin Hadley is? No. But we’ve all walked into a situation where we accidentally took someone’s seat. B2B companies can take common themes and everyday elements to create a familiar setting for their audience.
• Use compelling visuals. Use imagery that's authentic and tells your brand’s story. Mean Girls is set in a real school that’s still functioning today. The interior shots of the high school in Mean Girls were filmed at Montclair High School in Montclair, New Jersey. There’s a reason why the style of the halls, the lockers, the cafeteria and classrooms look like the ones at your school. MHS was built in 1959, during the baby boom that followed World War II. In order to efficiently meet the needs of a growing population, school architecture designs were standardized, and the components pre-fabricated. That’s why the school in Mean Girls looks so real to all of us – and don’t forget that it’s also a real, actual school! That’s why we identify so much with the film, even if it takes place in a heightened, comedic world. Bottom line: in your B2B marketing campaigns, pull visuals that will have an emotional impact on your audience.
• Make it entertaining. Here we go, talking about edu-tainment again! Don’t forget to add some humor to your marketing. It’s an understatement to say that Mean Girls is a prime example of this – after all, Tina Fey wrote the screenplay. But she uses comedy to explore the bullying that happens among teen girls – while also keeping the audience engaged through tight plotting, intelligent pacing, and well-drawn characters. Do the same with your B2B work. Create ads that will immediately captivate your audience and leave them wanting more. Entertaining tidbits can be weaved into assets like LI ads, social posts, video campaigns, and blog posts. Remember, the shorter the asset (think short social posts or 30 second video ads), the higher the chances of engagement and viewership are.

Key Quotes

*”If you only have 15 or 30 seconds in the age of TikTok to grab somebody, if you're leaning into something that people know, to establish a setting, a time, a place, then you free up your runway to talk about the things that you really want to get across because those things are already built in.” - Dane Eckerle

*”When it comes to setting, it's about being really relatable but also super relevant to your audience. When B2B marketers split up their target audience into personas, for example, know that they're people first, and more than just personas. They’re professionals who want to make better impressions and build stronger relationships. You have to be relatable to sell to them as a marketer, but also show your true self and be authentic. And I think that comes with knowing exactly the groups that they’re in and what they care about.“ - Anagha Das

Time Stamps

[1:13] What’s Mean Girls about?

[3:41] What does it mean to be relatable?

[7:10] Mean Girls’ box office success

[8:54] Why is the high school setting important in Mean Girls?

[12:05] Is there a psychological reason consumers gravitate towards relatable content? 

[14:25] What are our marketing takeaways from Mean Girls?

[18:48] How do you apply the takeaways to B2B Marketing?

Links

Watch Mean Girls

Check out #LifeinsideDropBox

Take a look at how HubSpot highlights employees

And then there’s Corporate Bro

Vidyard is doing cool stuff with videos too

About the Show

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Nailing down your brand voice is tough. Especially when you’re writing content for videos, blogs, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok…we could go on forever. 

Because a strong brand voice helps you stand out, drives brand affinity, and improves conversion rates. But where do you even start? What tone do you use? How wordy or concise should you be? We have answers for you. 

We’re tuning in to the Queen of brand voice today: Taylor Swift. Along with VP of Brand, Content and Communications at ZoomInfo, Meghan Barr, we’re exploring how Taylor Swift listens to her audience, how she defines her writing style, and how that changes with each reinvention. So grab your glitter pen and take notes on this episode of Remarkable.

About our guest, Meghan Barr

Meghan Barr is VP of Brand, Content and Communications at ZoomInfo. She joined ZoomInfo in January 2021 as Senior Director of Content and Communications. 

After nearly two decades as an award-winning journalist at The Associated Press and The Boston Globe, Meghan joined the tech world at ZoomInfo, a software company that is modernizing how businesses go to market.

During her journalism career, Meghan covered some of the biggest breaking news stories in the world, including Occupy Wall Street, Superstorm Sandy, and the Boston Marathon bombings. As a reporter based in several Midwestern cities and, later, New York City, she broke news about serial killers, witnessed a death row execution by lethal injection, followed politicians on the 2008 presidential campaign trail, drove through flooded roadways, chased ambulances and tornadoes, climbed to the top of the World Trade Center on a rickety ladder, interviewed famous athletes, and generally had a lot of amazing adventures. Over the years, her areas of expertise included crime, income inequality, transportation, and tourism. She also became one of the AP's trained video journalists capable of shooting and producing my own video reports streamed globally to clients for AP Television News.

As an editor, Meghan directed metro news coverage on Boston.com for several years before becoming an editor at The Boston Globe Magazine, where she commissioned and edited longform narrative features and adapted excerpts from forthcoming works of nonfiction.

Meghan is passionate about telling impactful stories that resonate. She’s also dedicated to helping working parents succeed in a world where the odds are stacked against them, particularly for working mothers. At the Globe, she was part of a fierce committee of women who successfully lobbied for a better family leave policy. At ZoomInfo, she launched a caregivers employee resource group to help support and advocate for employees who care for children or elderly relatives.

About ZoomInfo

ZoomInfo (NASDAQ: ZI) is a leader in modern go-to-market software, data, and intelligence for more than 30,000 companies worldwide. ZoomInfo’s revenue operating system, RevOS, empowers business-to-business sales, marketing, operations, and recruiting professionals to hit their number by pairing best-in-class technology with unrivaled data coverage, accuracy, and depth of company and contact information. With integrations embedded into workflows and technology stacks, including the leading CRM, Sales Engagement, Marketing Automation, and Talent Management applications, ZoomInfo drives more predictable, accelerated, and sustainable growth for its customers. ZoomInfo emphasizes GDPR and CCPA compliance. In addition to creating the industry’s first proactive notice program, the company is a registered data broker with the states of California and Vermont.

About Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift is a singer and songwriter and all-around music industry phenomenon who is currently on her much-talked-about Eras Tour. She was originally known for country music but is overall considered a pop artist. She has collected Grammys, American Music Awards, Billboard Music Awards, and more #1 albums than any other woman ever. She has a strong, defined personal brand that fans tap into, namely the red lipstick, wearing the number 13, and wearing friendship bracelets. She’s also a strong advocate for artist’s rights. 

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Taylor Swift:

• Decide who you are as a company. What are your values? What’s your mission? How would you describe your company? Answer these questions first, and that will inform your brand voice. Meghan says, “Which brand archetype are you? You can be the hero. You can be a helper. It’s an important question of like, ‘Who do you want to be as a company? Who do you want to be as a brand? What are you all about, basically?’
• Lurk on your audience. Tune into their social media to find out what matters to them. Then create content that plays to your audience’s values. Taylor Swift calls her approach “Tay-lurking.” She investigates what fans are doing and saying on social media, and that’s how she understands what they care about. She then builds it into content. This way, she gives fans what they want (another concert, hidden Easter eggs, etc.).
• Put effort into building your community. Community doesn’t build itself; it depends on give and take. (Emphasis on the “give” part). The energy and attention that you invest in your community comes right back to you in the form of brand affinity. Taylor Swift is constantly engaging with her fans, whether it’s at her concerts and giving away her black fedora to a special fan, on social media, or at meet and greets. She gives the impression of being very accessible, and that she “gets” her fans. So put some effort into building that emotional connection and reap the benefits.
• Reinvent your brand to renew audience interest. As your company grows and develops, refresh your brand to reflect the change. Taylor Swift has reinvented (aka rebranded) herself many times, from country music to pop, album to album. Each has had a different feel and look. Even the name of her tour - The Eras Tour - plays to this. She has grown and changed through each era, each album. And her fans have grown with her, gaining momentum. Taylor Swift even uses different voices in her songs. At the 2022 Nashville Songwriters Association International annual ceremony, she said she has three styles of lyrics: quill lyrics, fountain pen lyrics, and gel pen lyrics. The important part is that Taylor Swift is the one writing them. And it’s her personal brand fans are attached to. She already made a psychological bond with them, and they are always looking out for new content from her. So keep your branding feeling fresh, including your brand voice, so your audience stays invested.

Quotes

*“The Tay-lurking thing is her listening. Like every good marketer, she spends time with the customers. She's out there listening to what her fans want and responding to that stuff. That's how she can layer in all these little hidden messages and hidden secrets and know that people are going to find them because she's probably reading how much people love that stuff.” - Ian Faison

*”She's investing the time in her fans that they are investing in her. She’s feeding the frenzy of her fans, of the community. You have to invest in your audience. You have to listen to them and actually put the work in.” - Meghan Barr

*”One of the big marketing takeaways from Taylor Swift in the totality of her career is her acknowledgement that ‘I know my fans better than you know them.’ She knows what she’s making and who it's for. And if you don't like it, it's not for you.” - Ian Faison

*"You can't be everything for everyone. You have to pick a lane, you have to decide what you're doing and commit to it.” - Meghan Barr

*”If you don't know your audience, you're going to fail. You have to know who they are, what they think about, what they're worried about, what they're stressing about… you have to really put in that time and effort. Because otherwise you can't get inside their heads. You can't figure out what's going to resonate with them." - Meghan Barr

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Meghan Barr, VP of Brand, Content and Communications at ZoomInfo

[1:33] Why are we covering Taylor Swift?

[2:52] What does Meghan do at ZoomInfo?

[4:07] Learn more about Taylor Swift

[9:49] Why is Taylor Swift remarkable?

[13:09] Why authenticity is more important today, after the advent of AI in marketing

[24:14] More marketing takeaways from Taylor Swift

[38:45] Learn about the modern go-to-market index

Links

Listen to Taylor Swift

Connect with Meghan on LinkedIn

Learn more about ZoomInfo

Read the AdWeek article on ZoomInfo’s collaboration with Colossus

Check out ZoomInfo’s go-to-market plays

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

B2B marketers take themselves so seriously. A little self-deprecating humor wouldn’t go amiss. 

It makes your brand more relatable, your content more shareable, and builds trust by acknowledging your brand’s imperfections.  

That’s one of the things we’re talking about today with Reveal CMO Isaac Morehouse. Together, we’re taking marketing lessons from the Emmy-nominated show, Silicon Valley, including using self-deprecating humor, showing the hero’s journey, and trusting your audience’s intelligence.

About our guest, Isaac Morehouse

Isaac Morehouse is the CMO of Reveal and nearbound.com, working to bring the era of Nearbound to B2B Go-To-Market. He believes that trust is the new data and the future of business isn’t about more crappy sales calls, ads, and spammy SEO-optimized content, but genuine connection to those buyers have faith in.

He founded and now serves as an advisor to Praxis, and Career Hackers, and opting out of the education and career status quo to be your own credential remains near and dear to his heart.

Isaac is dedicated to the relentless pursuit of freedom. He loves writing, building companies, his wife and four kids, a good cigar, and getting angry about sports.

He’s given hundreds of talks and interviews, written over 2,500 articles, authored or edited eleven books, and helped thousands of people launch their careers and dozens of businesses tell their stories. He is a firm believer in learning out loud and daily commitment to creation.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Silicon Valley:

• Make fun of yourself. Don’t take yourself too seriously - create self-deprecating content to make your audience laugh. Isaac says, “Content marketers, this is such a missed opportunity if you're not doing this. Make fun of yourself, make fun of your market, make fun of your marketing. Don't be precious. Accept and amplify the criticisms. The inevitable objections, if you can surface those ahead of time, get those up front in marketing. Poke fun at the things that you know people are going to poke fun at behind your back anyway.”
• Show the hero’s journey. Don’t just try to sell your product. Instead tell a story your product plays a part in, and include a beginning, middle and end. Isaac says, “It's so easy as content marketers to forget that very basic thing. Like, every story has a beginning, middle, and end. Every story should have a protagonist and should follow the journey. Make sure you're not losing that and just doing like, ‘Here's our product,’ right? Tell the story. That's what people can relate to. That's where they feel seen. If you're telling a story of a person facing adversity and achieving an outcome, I think [Silicon Valley] does that really well.”
• Don’t underestimate your audience’s intelligence. Don’t shy away from discussing technical or complicated topics, but do it in a way that’s understandable for anyone. Isaac says, “[Silicon Valley] does a phenomenal job of not running away from some of the complicated, complex concepts or insider jargon. I mean, they have discussions about, you know, letters of intent and legal contracts and stock preference stacks and waterfalls with exits. That's very insider lingo. They don't shy away from it. Because that's what makes it real and believable. But they do it in such a way that makes it understandable. Like if it's confusing, it's your fault as the content creator. You have to find a way. And this show does such a brilliant job of explaining these concepts in such a way that even outsiders can get the gist of it.”

Quotes

*”I think it all starts with the core of knowing your market, living in market. [Mike Judge] nails the little slice of the world that he’s trying to satirize so, so well. And I think with satire especially, you can only do it well when you are the subject you're satirizing. Like, someone from the outside trying to make fun of a group that they're not part of, it's going to come off as offensive. They're going to get some things wrong. But when you're able to make fun of the little cluster of the world that you live in yourself, you're going to get it so much more right. And it's going to be so much funnier. And at the same time, the redeeming qualities are captured.”

*”For me, living in market is so crucial and the best way to live in market Is with a forcing function of daily creation. Because I know that's the only way I'm going to be close enough to the market and what's happening. If I have to come up with content every single day to put in this newsletter, I've got to figure out, ‘Where are the watering holes. What are people talking about? What are the conversations?’ And then I'm going to have to do near bound marketing, which means bringing other voices in, reaching the market through the voices they already trust.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Reveal CMO Isaac Morehouse

[4:54] Behind the Scenes of Silicon Valley: Creation and Comedy

[20:58] Content Marketing Insights: Humor, Realness, and the Hero's Journey

[31:05] The Power of Storytelling in Marketing

[32:14] Embracing the Hero's Journey in Business

[32:54] Lessons from Silicon Valley: Making Complex Concepts Accessible

[37:33] The Importance of Trust and Expertise in Content Creation

[48:21] Building Nearbound: A New Approach to Partnerships

[51:56] Executing a Community and Content Vision

[56:21] Final Thoughts on Trust and Influence in Marketing

Links

Connect with Isaac on LinkedIn

Learn more about Reveal

About 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

If you don’t want to just create content, but you want to create iconic content, this episode is for you.  

Though your brand might not be identifiable by the color pink, swirling font and long blond hair, there’s so much we can take away from Barbie, the movie. Because Mattel created branded content that has lasted for over six decades - and the new movie with Margot Robbie has rejuvenated the brand appeal. Barbie, the movie, was part of a power play that would transform Mattel from a toy company into an IP company that manages franchises. With that in mind, we’re taking a look at the movie that sparked so much anticipation around the world and brought in over $1.4 billion dollars globally.

We’re talking about B2B marketing lessons from Barbie with the help of the Director of Content Marketing at Mach49, Angelica Valentine. Together, we’re discussing why you should market your brand literally everywhere, how to deliver your content the “right” way, and utilizing and leveraging product placement. So put on something pink for this episode of Remarkable.

About our guest, Angelica Valentine

Angelica Valentine brings a decade of marketing experience to her role as Mach49’s Director of Content Marketing. She focuses on telling impact stories about the client outcomes and builds thought leadership programs to champion Mach49’s expert perspectives. From international event management to customer stories to social media campaigns, Angelica leverages traditional and experimental channels to help the world's best firms accelerate growth that matters.

Prior to Mach49, Angelica worked on the editorial team at fintech unicorn, Carta. She has also held marketing roles at several other B2B and B2C SaaS startups. In those positions, she focused on exponentially growing qualified leads by managing organic content marketing programs, securing media placements on sites like TechCrunch, and developing partnerships. Over the course of her career Angelica’s work has appeared on Forbes, VentureBeat, SAP, Hacker Noon, and more.

Angelica is an Oakland, California native and holds a BA in sociology and race and ethnic studies from Columbia University in New York City.

About Mach49

Mach49 is a growth incubator for global businesses. They partner with global businesses to build their growth engines through venture building, venture investing, strategic partnering, and targeted M&A. 

About Barbie, the Movie

Barbie is about the classic toy having a wonderful time in her perfect world, Barbie Land, until she has an existential crisis. So she goes on a journey to experience the real world, and discovers the complexities of what it means to be truly human. The movie came out in 2023. It was directed by Greta Gerwig from a screenplay by herself and her partner, Noah Baumbach. It was produced by Margot Robbie’s production company, LuckyChap, for Warner Brothers in association with Mattel. It stars Margot Robbie as Barbie and Ryan Gosling as Ken, as well as Kate McKinnon, America Ferrera, Michael Cera, Issa Rae, Will Ferrell, and more. 

The movie has broken many records, being 2023’s biggest opening weekend; the largest opening for a female director ever; Warner Bros.' highest grossing domestic release in history. Barbie has also become the highest-growing movie of this year - 2023 - having brought in $575.4 million in the U.S. as of this week, according to Variety. It has already grossed $1.3 billion globally. It was expected to make $55 million its opening week, but it made $162 million. 

Mattel has recently launched Malibu Barbie cafés and announced partnerships with Bloomingdale’s, Crocs, and Hot Topic.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Barbie: 

• Market your brand everywhere. Barbie was marketed so pervasively before its release in theaters that it was hard to simply exist without seeing a Barbie ad, toy, billboard, meme, you name it. Ian says, “It was brilliant marketing, but it also enhanced the actual day of activity because you had so much emotion and excitement for the thing. And I think that's a lot harder to do in B2B. But if it is something really exciting and you are generating a lot of anticipation, then that's worth it.” Especially for a re-brand or a product launch, put your ads across channels and even in unexpected places, so your audience just stumbles across them.
• Deliver your content the right way. Marketers are usually under pressure to get content out quickly. But instead of rushing it out and saying “good enough”, make sure that it’s done right. The right images, the right words, the right video clip, the right edits. Barbie wouldn’t be Barbie if it had been directed by someone other than Greta Gerwig, or played by anyone other than Margot Robbie. Ian says, “The fact that they did wait, and they did it the right way, and they brought in the right writer and creator, they brought in the right lead, and the right cast, and doing it the right way, rather than trying to rush it out is a lesson too. it worked in their favor. That it was a standalone, massive, huge launch that is befitting of Barbie's legacy in America and the world.”
• Utilize and leverage product placement. Birkenstocks were featured in Barbie, which Angelica says was 1) very relatable, since she’s a Birkenstock wearer. And 2), she says, “There’s all the news about Birkenstock having an IPO. These product placements really work. I don’t know the cause and effect relationship between the IPO and the movie, but clearly something had been in the works for a long time, and it definitely helped.” And Ian added that “women's Birkenstock sandals reportedly saw a 346 percent surge in sales after the movie.” So work with partners to have your products featured where they will gain a larger audience to improve brand awareness and increase sales.

Quotes

*”Barbie was a movie that had something for everyone. Children could go, my fiance's nieces went, and they're five and eight and had a great time. Their mom went and cried, probably at the same point that I did. So I mean, there really was just something for everyone.” - Angelica Valentine

*”The holistic aspect of the marketing for this film definitely stood out to me. It seemed like there was no stone unturned. Like, if you like Birkenstocks or if you go to Burger King, there is something for you in this marketing campaign. I really feel like they thought of everyone.” - Angelica Valentine

Time Stamps

[1:14] Meet Angelica Valentine, Director of Content Marketing at Mach49

[2:55] What does Angelica do at Mach49?

[5:46] What’s the Barbie movie about?

[8:51] Behind the scenes: The making of Barbie

[12:32] How is Barbie, the movie remarkable?

[14:31] Discussion on Barbie's cultural impact

[19:52] What marketing lessons can we take from Barbie, the movie?

[26:46] How do you build anticipation in marketing?

[28:12] The power of experiential marketing: The Barbie movie experience

[29:47] The impact of brand collaborations in marketing

[31:15] The power of product placement in marketing

[35:20] The role of nostalgia in marketing

[46:35] How does Angelica approach the challenge of measuring ROI in content marketing?

Links

Watch Barbie

Connect with Angelica on Linkedin

Learn more about Mach49

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Marketing is like comedy. It has to be bold, memorable and perfectly timed to hit home. 

Great marketing knows how to turn heads, make an impression, and leave the audience wanting more, just like Midge Maisel.

In this episode, we’re taking marketing lessons from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

Together, with the help of our special guest, Head of Content & Brand at Close, Chelsea Castle, we’re talking about using niche references, making your audience laugh, and making every word count.

About our guest, Chelsea Castle

Chelsea Castle is Head of Content and Brand at sales productivity platform Close. She joined the company in April 2024 and formerly served as a content leader at Lavender.ai. She is a former journalist who became a content strategist and marketer, and brings with her more than 12 years of experience. She also formerly served as Director of Content Marketing at Chili Piper.  

What B2B Companies Can Learn From The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel:

• Use niche references. Don’t be afraid to use obscure or niche references that target your ideal customer. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is so detail-oriented that a general audience will see and hear content that’s true to the era, but people who know the period well will find meaning and humor in the minutest of details. Ian says, “I would rather hit one person in the heartstrings with the arrow and miss a hundred than sort of just hit a lot of people in the shoulder and have them be like, ‘Yeah, you know that I felt it, but, you know, I didn't feel it in my soul.’ And you can do that with every post. If you're going to post, you know, 10 times in a week, then throw some obscure [references] out there, right? 80/20 rule. Have 80 percent of your posts be stuff that is mainstream and 20 percent of your posts be super obscure. And probably the ones that would go viral are the ones that are more obscure anyway.”
• Make ‘em laugh.  Humor is not just about getting giggles. Chelsea says, “Humor fast tracks trust, but it also helps [content] stick more.” You’re building a connection with your audience, earning credibility and humanizing your brand by showing that you have a sense of humor - and understand theirs as well. 
• Make every word count. Quippy, smart dialogue is a hallmark of Amy Sherman-Palladino who created both The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Gilmore Girls. To the point where there are no throwaway lines - each word is meant to be there, every line counts. Chelsea says, “I think that is probably one of the most valuable marketing lessons I think that could be helpful in this industry right now, where, especially with writing, I teach my team [that] every single word needs to earn its spot on the page. We don't really think a lot about where certain things go, or you just usually throw it up on the blog, where it's like, ‘What if we created an interactive page? What if we created a unique landing page for this one type of content?’ Or thinking too about magazines where you have restricted word count, where every single word needs to be valuable and really earn its spot. And I think we should think about that with everything.”

Quotes

*”You can't do anything cool without taking some risks along the way. So you kind of just weigh that balance. As marketers, we're so driven to just drive action, to drive a conversion that we kind of miss the opportunity to build some sort of connection with our audience. And that's harder. It takes more time, more thought, more intentionality.  But that's how you get longer-term dividends and payoffs, is building more connection through what you create.”

*”​​I worked in a branding agency, so I cut my teeth there where I was also essentially the content producer and executive producer of websites that I would create. So I feel like I've always had a lot of that in my career in terms of thinking through the whole experience of something with the magazines, I would think about the magazine having a heartbeat. And I apply that to my content now where you kind of want it to like ebb and flow, go up and down. You don't want it flat lined and you don't want it to be like peak the whole time. So I still apply that sort of thinking to how I think about content now, whether it's a virtual event, an in person event, a blog, of thinking about everything as [having] a heartbeat in a way that it's a full experience.”

*”I think curiosity and gut are two of the biggest things to think about as a content leader. You've got to be tenaciously curious, ask all of the questions, dig as deep as you can. It's really hard. But it's also really fun work and you have to really lean into your curiosity and also your gut. Trust your gut. I think we don't talk enough about vibes or instinct in marketing. Like at Chili Piper and Lavender, for example, we had an idea of our brand, but a lot of the success came from just trusting our gut and experimenting and kind of just feeling what felt right. And you can't really put that in like a nice strategy doc, right? Like you kind of just have to go with your gut and your instinct and what feels right.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Chelsea Castle, Head of Content & Brand at Close

[2:26] About Chelsea's Role at Close

[3:38] The Making of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

[7:31] Marketing Lessons from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

[13:50] The Importance of Detail in Storytelling

[23:03] The Power of a Strong Pilot Episode

[27:45] Confrontation and Conflict

[27:50] Character Development and Story Arcs

[28:31] Minor Characters and Their Impact

[30:27] Marketing Takeaways from Mrs. Maisel

[32:59] The Power of Dialogue

[42:21] Humor in Marketing

[44:34] Humanizing Marketing

[47:56] Building a Brand at Close

[55:19] Final Thoughts and Advice

Links

Connect with Chelsea on LinkedIn

Learn more about Close

About 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

It’s easy to feel like you’re on your own lonely marketing island. You’re so focused on what you’re doing that your process starts to feel stale. Wouldn’t it be helpful to hear how other marketers are driving sales?

Especially if those marketers are at companies like G2, Deel and Gigster; successful names in B2B that know what works, and are pushing the envelope for what B2B content could look like. That’s what we’re bringing to you this week. 

In this episode, we’re wrapping up Season 3 by highlighting the winning content strategies from top B2B brands. You’ll leave with new ideas and insights to use on your very next campaign. So all aboard, we’re getting you off that lonely island on this episode of Remarkable.

About our guests

Kim Courvoisier, Senior Director of Content Marketing at Lob

Gillian Jakob Kieser, Director of Content Marketing at CircleCI

Anja Simic, Director of Content Marketing at Deel

Martha Aviles, Vice President of Marketing at Gigster

Palmer Houchins, VP and Head of Marketing at G2

Meghan Barr, VP of Brand, Content and Communications at ZoomInfo

Johann Wrede, CEO at Emburse

Chris Sheen, Director of Content and Social at Celonis

Jérôme Robert, CMO and Chief of Staff at Tenable

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Season 3 of Remarkable:

• Provide some free, valuable content to your audience. It proves that your product is worth the investment and helps you establish domain authority. Gillian Jakob Kieser, Director of Content Marketing at CircleCI says, “When we were smaller, we were really banking on utility. So we invested a lot in single pieces of content that people would share because there was nothing better than it. So once you saw it, you would have to pass it on. An example is our team open sourced our entire competency matrix and wrote about how we developed it. And that's a document that is like five years old and it's an open Google doc. Every time I go on there, there's still like 12 Anonymous Raptors on there using the content. And that was worth it because they've become tools. And that's been a great marketing strategy.”
• Create content for people at different points in the buying process. Your content should look different for people who are just exploring their options vs. people who are ready to make a purchase. Anja Simic, Director of Content Marketing at Deel says, “The readiness to purchase is very important when you think about content marketing.” She says you can think of it like the marketing funnel. “Top of the funnel content is informational, it's educational. It's a lot of articles or listicles, and lighter content. Closer to the middle of the funnel, your content needs to be a bit more product heavy. It needs to talk about specific solutions, specific questions that your prospects may have. But not all of it has to be salesy and pushy, because they're just considering. They're exploring their options. And then the very bottom of the funnel is where you really push them over the edge. They're really thinking about it. They're considering your product, and know enough about it.”
• Make something different. Get away from the B2B content formula. Jérôme Robert, CMO and Chief of Staff at Tenable says the risk in making something outside-the-box is overstated. He says, “Notably in an industry where marketing, the marketing practices are very mature and very identical from one company to another, there's very, very little downside in standing out, in doing something that is entirely different.” He says, “Worst case scenario, it’s not going to get a lot of engagement. But I don't think anyone would laugh at you or discard you as a company because you did something different. I think people respect the originality, the boldness, in doing something entirely different.”

Quotes

*”A lot of what we think about with content marketing is how do we show a bit more of the heart behind what we do? How do we make us not just a brand, but show that there's a real company and people behind that? If you are choosing a provider, you're actually going to choose those guys, you're going to bet on them.” - Chris Sheen, Director of Content and Social at Celonis

*”Without trust, you can't do business. And today, buyers are really sophisticated. If we don't produce excellent content that genuinely seeks to inform, educate and help the customer, then they're just going to ignore it and they're going to go somewhere else. If you can create content that authentically seeks to inform and to add value, then you start to move into the trusted advisor quadrant.” - Johann Wrede, CEO at Emburse

*”We are all bombarded with content every day. And so we try to cut through the noise and provide content that can help our audience do their jobs better. That's the overarching goal of everything that we create.” - Meghan Barr, VP of Brand, Content and Communications at ZoomInfo

Time Stamps

[0:58] Introducing the Season 3 Roundup! Content strategies from…

[1:22] Kim Courvoisier from Lob

[2:38] Gillian Jakob Kieser of CircleCI

[4:38] Anja Simic of Deel

[7:17] Martha Aviles of Gigster

[8:28] Palmer Houchins of G2

[10:39] Meghan Barr of ZoomInfo

[12:09] Johann Wrede of Emburse

[16:44] Chris Sheen of Celonis

[19:37] Jérôme Robert of Tenable

Links

Listen to the full Season 3 episodes, featuring:

Kim Courvoisier, Senior Director of Content Marketing at Lob

Gillian Jakob Kieser, Director of Content Marketing at CircleCI

Anja Simic, Director of Content Marketing at Deel

Martha Aviles, Vice President of Marketing at Gigster

Palmer Houchins, VP and Head of Marketing at G2

Meghan Barr, VP of Brand, Content and Communications at ZoomInfo

Johann Wrede, CEO at Emburse

Chris Sheen, Director of Content and Social at Celonis

Jérôme Robert, CMO and Chief of Staff at Tenable

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Don’t try to sell your product. Sell your story.

Your audience mentally unsubscribes from you if you try too hard to just sell your product. Instead, tell a compelling story around the product that people will want to share with their friends.

That’s what we’re talking about in this episode with the help of special guest, Director of Content & Thought Leadership at Clari, Devin Reed. Together, we talk about creating a piece of fiction, painting a “before” and “after” picture, and including a moment that resonates emotionally with your audience in every piece of content.

About our guest, Devin Reed

Devin is a sales pro turned marketing leader. He built and scaled Gong's content strategy, one of the most successful B2B SaaS brands, and now he's Head of Content at Clari. He's also an advisor, newsletter author, and writer for his consulting firm, TheReeder.co.

About Clari

Clari’s Revenue Platform improves efficiency, predictability, and growth across the entire revenue process. Clari gives revenue teams total visibility into their business, to drive process rigor, spot risk and opportunity in the pipeline, increase forecast accuracy, and drive overall efficiency. Thousands of sales, marketing, and customer success teams at leading companies, including Okta, Adobe, Workday, Zoom, and Finastra, use Clari’s execution insights to make their revenue process more connected, efficient, and predictable.

About niche sports documentaries

Niche sports documentaries are by definition about a small, specialized segment of the sports world. And “niche” can be considered as a relative term. So for instance, instead of being about football, baseball, basketball, or soccer, it’s about golf, tennis, boxing or even more niche like rock climbing, fencing, Formula 1 racing, skydiving, etc. 

These documentaries attract and retain viewership because they focus on the drama behind the sports to appeal to more viewers. There’s an emphasis on high stakes, and the character-driven drama helps viewers connect more deeply with the competitors. The documentaries also take the time to teach you about the sport, including the rules, jargon, major competitors and their relationships.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Niche Sports Documentaries:

• Create a piece of fiction. The storytelling in your campaign doesn’t have to be true. Ian says, “You control the narrative, you control the characters, you control everything, and you can tell the exact story that you want, rather than finding the story.” It gives you control to craft a great narrative around your product. Devin says - though it’s not about a sport - The Queen’s Gambit was a piece of fiction and it sold a ton of chess sets. He says, “The best way to promote chess boards is not to tell me about chess boards.” It’s to share the human stories that viewers will relate to and draw them to the product.
• Paint the “before” and “after” picture. Show your prospects the benefits of your product by showing them the struggles and frustrations the product will solve. Make the case for doing business with you by juxtaposing their life before the purchase, and the improvements after. Devin says, “Typically, the execs are so obsessed with their product that they want the case study just to say all the good things that the customer got once they started using the tool, but that's only half of the story. What people really want is conflict, tension, and controversy, because that's what makes a good story. Most case studies don't have the ‘before.’ Who was the customer before? What were the struggles before? What were the feelings that they had before? And then what was the catalyst or the climax of like why decided something had to change? All of that needs to be in your customer stories.”
• Is there an “Oh, sh*t” moment? Devin says when he’s editing content, there needs to be a moment of revelation or relatability or surprise. In other words, you need to make your audience think and engage more deeply about the topic. To feel something. Devin says, “where their eyebrows move because there's something emotional, whether it's confusing - and when I say confusing, I'm thinking like, ‘Oh, I'm not sure I understand that all the way. Let me think through that,’ or it excites them. It has to have some sort of moment like that, because that’s what makes it shareable. That's what makes people want to talk about it. And that's what gets people in the pocket that you want to sell to.”

Quotes

*”There's not really such a thing as ‘too long.’ Because it's not about length; It's about potency and pace. How much value, insight, and actionable tips are in as few words as possible. And is it kind of a breeze to read or a breeze to watch where you're not checking your watch? Like, ‘Oh crap, there's still an hour left in this movie.’” - Devin Reed

*”That hook and that compelling untold story, that's what I like to hear. It infiltrates my head and then I can start to use that in my marketing. We're like, ‘How can I use suspense? How can I use a hook in 30 seconds? How can I shock people and move their eyebrows every two minutes so they stick with me?’ And then when the show's over, they're like, ‘So when's the next thing Devin's putting out? Cause I need more of this.’” - Devin Reed

*”If you press product on people, they don't want to hear it. They mentally unsubscribe.  You’ve got to create content in some way that does what's happening right now, where we are all excited to tell each other about what we're watching or we consumed and how we feel about it.” - Devin Reed

*”When I'm editing content, video, written, pod, whatever,  I'm like, ‘At what point is the payoff?’ When I click that link, there's an automatic timer that starts in your head, even if subconsciously, of ‘When do I get the payoff? When do I get what was promised to me?’” - Devin Reed

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Devin Reed, Director of Content & Thought Leadership at Clari

[2:04] Learn more about Devin’s role at Clari

[2:57] Tell me about Devin’s newsletter, The Reeder

[5:41] Why are we talking about niche sports documentaries?

[8:03] Why are these documentaries remarkable?

[18:36] What are niche sports documentaries?

[26:24] What are marketing lessons we can take from these documentaries?

[33:08] How does Devin get executive buy-in on his content?

Links

Check out niche sports documentaries like Losers on Netflix

Subscribe to Devin’s newsletter, The Reeder

Connect with Devin on LinkedIn

Learn more about Clari

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 Meredith Gooderham mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Every person on your team has strengths and…non-strengths. 

So position them to make the most out of their top skills.

It’s like how in soccer, you position your top goal-scorer as a forward, not running defense, right? The same is true with marketing. 

In this episode, we’re drawing parallels between soccer and marketing. 

With the help of our special guest, former Director of Brand Strategy, Storytelling & Advocacy at Cisco, Cindy Valladares, we’re taking marketing lessons from the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team. 

Together, we talk about using your talent the right way, taking calculated risks, and putting fear in the heart of your competitors.

About our guest, Cindy Valladares

Cindy Valladares is a marketing executive who recently led brand strategy, storytelling and advocacy for Cisco’s cybersecurity business unit. A product marketer at heart, she lives by the NIHITO (nothing interesting happens in the office) motto. Cindy has been a speaker at various security, risk and privacy conferences in North America, Europe and Latin America, where she focuses on topics that affect the information security industry. She is a regular contributor at the Cisco Secure blog, shares her perspective on Twitter @cindyv, and can also be found on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/cindyvalladares/. She holds an international MBA from the University of Ottawa in Canada, and a BBA in Marketing and International Business.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From the USWNT:

• Take calculated risks. You have to try new things and take some risks. That’s how you keep your content fresh and find the big successes. Cindy says that when Emma Hayes took over coaching the U.S. Women’s National Team, “she made some very unpopular choices, right? Alex Morgan, who everybody thought was going to be called in the roster, she was left out. And so [Emma] had new creative ideas that she wanted to try, and took some calculated risks. And like we say, nothing tried, nothing gained, and you can see the results.” And a few months later, they won the 2024 Paris Olympics.
• Use your talent the right way. Match their strengths and skills to the role. And put them on tasks they’ll perform well on. When everyone is doing work they’re good at and that utilizes their strengths, it benefits the whole team. Ian says, “ Part of the Emma Hayes thing is Trinity Rodman flying down the right side of your team is super valuable because she's like one of the best in the world and she's fast and athletic and all that. Having her spam a cross into nobody even though she's good at that too doesn't help your team. That's not a more valuable action. Whereas her trying to take on the defender one on one, if she does win, and now she's driving at the goal with nobody in between her and the goal, that's way more valuable. And like, I think that that's part of what marketing is about, is figuring out what are the more high leverage things that you can do that make a huge difference.”
• Put fear in the heart of your competitors. Or more like envy. You want your competitors to look at your content and be jealous. Ian says, “ Every team that we played in the Olympics  is absolutely terrified of the front three of our country sprinting after them  with their defenders on their heels. It's like the most terrifying thing in the world is Trinity Rodman sprinting at their backline, right? And I think about this with competitors with your content campaign. Like I talk about the edutainment graph, rated on a scale of one out of 10 educational, one out of 10 entertaining. So rank your content on the graph and before you even plan to make something, is your competitor going to see this and be like, ‘Oh, I'm so jealous, this is great,’ Or is it just something that they're gonna like, ‘All right?’”

Quotes

*”It’s  really important in marketing organizations to lead with a leadership style that creates empathy and allows others to do their best, not a culture of fear.”

*” That's an important element of a leader, understanding who you have on your team, what motivates and drives them, and how can you create an environment where they can perform and outperform?”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Cindy Valladares, former Director of Brand Strategy, Storytelling & Advocacy at Cisco

[3:41] History and Achievements of the US Women's National Soccer Team

[6:38] Equal Pay and Gender Equality Advocacy

[8:09] Emma Hayes' Impact on the US Women's National Soccer Team

[13:36] Marketing Lessons from Soccer

[21:38] Emma Hayes' Coaching Strategies

[24:25] Recognizing and Utilizing Team Strengths

[25:17] Leveraging Senior Executives in Content

[26:49] Maximizing Talent and High-Value Actions

[29:11] Understanding Your Audience in Content Strategy

[32:36] Creating Impactful and Entertaining Content

[35:30] Balancing Brand Awareness and Demand Generation

[39:27] Favorite Content Campaigns and Their Impact

Links

Connect with Cindy on LinkedIn

About 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Marketing is an act of love. 

The marketer puts out content like little thirst traps. We want to dazzle with our beautiful pictures and words. And we definitely didn’t lay awake at night trying to think of the perfect thing to say. 

We marketers are gently wooing our audience from their first glance to becoming a dedicated customer. We are working to build everlasting relationships. And today, we’re learning about doing just that from the hit reality show that explores what it takes to go the distance.

In this episode, we’re talking about Love is Blind with the help of special guest, Senior Director of Brand & Events at Seismic, Katie Brunette. Together, we chat about breaking the ice, wooing your audience, and using cliffhangers.

About our guest, Katie Brunette

Katie Brunette is Senior Director of Brand & Events at Seismic. She joined the company in November 2021 as Senior Director of Global Events. She is an experiential marketing professional specialized in strategic corporate events and large-scale sporting events. Prior to Seismic, Katie previously served as Associate at Revenue Collective, Director of Marketing Strategy & Brand at Lessonly, and Event Marketing Coordinator at Salesforce.

About Seismic

Seismic is the global leader in enablement, helping organizations engage customers, enable teams, and ignite revenue growth. The Seismic Enablement Cloud™️ is the most powerful, unified enablement platform that equips customer-facing teams with the right skills, content, tools, and insights to grow and win. From the world’s largest enterprises to startups and small businesses, more than 2,000 organizations around the globe trust Seismic for their enablement needs. Seismic is headquartered in San Diego with offices across North America, Europe, and Australia.

About Love is Blind

Love is Blind is a reality show in which people who are looking for love get engaged before actually meeting each other in person. So how it goes is 15 men and 15 women who live in the same area come to live in pods. And they can “date” by talking to each other through speakers but never see each other. Participants can propose at any time. If and when a participant says “yes,” then they can meet their fiance in person. The show follows their relationship right up to the altar in some cases. For each season, there’s a reunion episode, and “after the altar” episodes.

Production-wise, the first season filmed for 38 days. And then some couples got married. They started on October 9th in 2018 and weddings were held on November 15th. Participants do get paid $1,000 a week, and the rings, resort stays, wedding, etc. are paid for by the show. However each person is responsible for their own hair, makeup, and clothing.

The series was created by Chris Coelen, produced by Kinetic Content and streams on Netflix. It premiered in February of 2020, and got tons of viewership, especially because of the pandemic. 30 million households watched the series within four weeks of its launch, and according to the Netflix 2020 viewing trends summary, it "stayed in the US Top 10 for 47 days straight after its release – the second-longest run of any title that year behind Cocomelon.” (64 days). It got some really funny reviews, the best being from Lucy Mangan of The Guardian, who said, “Love is Blind is, basically, crack. Or meth. It’s crack-meth. You will decide to give it five minutes before bed one night and find yourself still on the sofa as the sun rises on another day. You will be bleary-eyed and shattered from all the shouting you have done, the emotional investment you have made, the WhatsApp messages you have typed to a specially formed group and the heartfelt contributions you have made to various internet forums on the subject. It’s that good, is what I am saying.” But then she goes on to say that it’s not good from a moral sense.

It now has 5 seasons out.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Love is Blind:

• Break the ice. Introductory content meant to build awareness about your company or product is a great place to use humor. It’s attention-grabbing, light, and memorable. Plus, it starts you off with a positive brand association that will help build your relationship with them. Ian says, ”Long-term commitment is scary for most people, and it's very serious. And so you need to start with an icebreaker. So much of our content or our marketing stuff is so serious. We don't have good icebreakers. So much of the stuff that we create has so little levity, when even just showing a little bit of that allows you to break the tension.”
• Woo your audience. Commitment takes time. The content that will resonate with someone who just found out about your company will be different than someone who is ready to buy. Create touchpoints in your content that speaks to them at different phases of your relationship. Katie says, ”I kind of equate getting engaged to taking the demo. So how do you get your audience to the demo? You have to talk about the values. You have to talk about the things that mean the most to them, so that way you can connect on that human to human level, but also connect on their business outcome.” 
• Use cliffhangers. Save the good stuff for the end of your blog post, your video, your podcast. Ian says, “Choose your best stuff and just put it at the bottom of the article. That stuff is so powerful and we don't do it enough.” When relationships hang in the balance on Love is Blind at the end of an episode, you know people are going to tune into the next episode. It’s how you keep people engaged and even improve viewership.

Quotes

*”If you knew that you had 30 hours to try to attract somebody to take a demo with you, what pieces of content would you put all your efforts into? Is it a webinar that you can get some live engagement? Is it an in-person event that you're trying to get them to? Is it a really great designed ebook? Is it a blog post? If you know that you have 30 hours of their attention, what is that high quality content that you're going to produce?” - Katie Brunette

*”It's so important to make that investment in your voice early on, especially when you're trying to set yourself apart from your competitors. Your voice is the easiest way to relate to people, and the easiest way to set yourself apart from competitors who essentially have the same product. Maybe some of the features are different. It might look a little bit different. It might work a little bit different. But you're selling the same thing. So how do you differentiate yourself? It's through your voice.” - Katie Brunette

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Katie Brunette, Senior Director of Brand & Events at Seismic

[2:24] What does Katie’s work at Seismic entail?

[3:07] What is Love is Blind about?

[19:27] Katie on the Impact of Love is Blind on Marketing

[36:44] Reflections on Brand and Content at Seismic

Links

Watch Love is Blind

Connect with Katie on LinkedIn

Learn more about Seismic

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

We don’t have to convince you, a B2B marketer, that S.A.D. (Sales Are Dope). You live, breathe, and dream in analytics, KPI’s, and conversion rates. You count impressions in your dreams instead of sheep. 

But you may actually be taking yourself too seriously. It’s time to have some fun with your work and use satire in your marketing.  

The irony, sarcasm, and parody of satire in your content, hits your target audience hard, and differentiates your content from the sea of corporate handshake stock photos and banality that B2B marketing materials usually consist of. 

On this episode of Remarkable, we’re binge-watching Corporate Bro videos on YouTube. Listen in as we show you why a portion of your marketing budget should be used to make world class edu-tainment content. 

We also cover how you can take a multi-channel, multi-format approach, and partner with a well-known content creator. So you can A.B.C. (Always Be Closing.)

About Corporate Bro

Corporate Bro is a sketch comedy character that satirizes corporate sales life. Ross Pomerantz is the mastermind behind the character. Ross is a content creator, corporate speaker and entrepreneur from Atlanta, Georgia. He writes, produces, and stars in the sketches. He started making 6-second videos on Vine in 2013 when he started his first tech sales job at Oracle. He has now performed for companies like Dropbox, Smartsheet and Salesforce. And his YouTube, which he started in 2016, has 25M subscribers. Ross holds an MBA from Stanford University, and his full-time day job is on the leadership team at Bravado (as of 2022).

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Corporate Bro: 

• Use a percentage of your marketing budget to make funny stuff. Comedy, edutainment, whatever you want to call it. Make something just to connect with your audience, and make them laugh. Because, Colin says, “You probably have some white papers, some webinars, et cetera, and that's fine. You should have all that. But there's also that angle of, ‘All right, let's put out some other content that's a little more entertaining and relatable and fun.’” Let’s face it - not many B2B companies are making their audience laugh. But there are cheeky ways to get your audience to crack a smile! The sales engagement company Sopro made a campaign called “We Love Our Clients.” The video shows a slew of clients making difficult requests, and ends with the phrase, “Sopro makes finding clients easy. You just have to deal with them.” This kind of satire creates impact and makes your brand stand out.
• Use a multi-channel, multi-format approach. Distribute content across multiple social media channels. Go where your audience is — whether that’s Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc. And do both short and long-form videos. A great example of a multi-channel, multi-format approach is how Scratch Pad created a podcast called Beyond Quota that they collaborate on with Corporate Bro, and share episodes both on podcast streaming platforms as well as on YouTube. So, no matter what platform your audience spends time on, they’ll see your content there. 
• Partner with a well-known content creator. No matter what industry you’re in, there’s a content creator for you. Find somebody whose messaging would resonate with your audience and create a campaign with them. Ian says, “There's a million examples of times where people just try to borrow a celebrity's audience and that doesn't work. It's not about that. It's about co-creating something with them that is unique and special.” A great example of content co-creation is when marketing automation company Klaviyo partnered with Eli Weiss, Senior Director of CX and Retention at Jones Road Beauty, on their Less Stalking, More Talking campaign. Weiss is not just a relevant and trusted name in e-commerce, but he also shares the same customer-first philosophy as Klaviyo, making him a perfect fit for the campaign. By working together, they’re leveraging both of their audiences, spreading brand awareness, building trust, and creating memorable content. It’s a win-win-win…win situation.

Quotes

*”What you can control as a marketer is [being] consistent and repeatable. That's what [Corporate Bro] has done for a decade and that is a pathway to winning.” - Ian Faison

*”What makes Corporate Bro so good is it connects with you in a way [that reminds you] not to take yourself too seriously when perhaps your job is on the line if you don't close this deal or if you don't have a good quarter.” - Colin Stamps

Time Stamps

[1:25] Tell me more about Corporate Bro

[3:02] Why are we covering Corporate Bro?

[6:09] What is satire? What's the psychology of satire?

[11:11] How do you run multi-channel, multi-format campaign? 

[13:38] What are examples of companies who have partnered with content creators?

[15:42] Why is it important for companies to make funny content?

Links

Watch Corporate Bro videos

Check out Corporate Bro’s website

Read about Corporate Bro in the press

Follow Ross Pomerantz aka Corporate Bro on Instagram

Connect with Corporate Bro on LinkedIn

Follow Corporate Bro on Twitter

Check out Beyond Quota podcast with Corporate Bro

Tune in to Sales Are Dope (S.A.D.)

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

We’re willing to bet that you’re working on a new B2B campaign and require some new inspiration.

Because all B2B tech ads look and sound the same. They just melt into one shapeless, forgettable jumble of fingers typing and screens scrolling. But we see you plodding along in the B2B marketing marathon of sameness, and we’re throwing you some jet-boosted sneakers.

On this episode of Remarkable, we’re daring you to do the exact opposite of your competitors, to outsource the authenticity of your brand voice to your customers, and much, much more. And we’re doing that with the help of our special guest, Senior Director of Brand at Axonius, Kaite Rosa. 

Together, we’re exploring the iconic and visionary 2007 Nike ad campaign featuring pro runner Lauren Fleshman. We look at how the ad deviated from the “tasteful nude” status quo of female athletes in ads, dismantled the objectification of women in sports, and promoted inclusivity by leveraging Lauren’s voice. And how you too can subvert expectations, make a statement, and do it authentically. So lace up your new sneaks and get ready to redefine B2B ads on the latest episode of Remarkable.

About Nike’s “Objectify Me” Campaign

Nike’s “Objectify Me” campaign was a 2007 ad featuring pro runner Lauren Fleshman. It’s a 30-second black and white slow mo video of Lauren running toward the camera. And we hear Lauren’s voice. She says, “Look at me, study me, understand me. I’m not a small, pink version of a man. Don’t give me small, pink versions of a man’s running shoe. I’m Lauren Fleshman. I’m a runner, and I’m a woman.” Then it shows her running out of frame, and the Nike logo pops up on screen. It’s a really understated Nike ad that deviated FAR from its predecessors.

Lauren is a decorated distance runner. She won five NCAA championships at Stanford and two national championships as a professional athlete. She’s also a writer, having been featured in The New York Times and Runner’s World. Lauren is now Brand Strategy Advisor for fitness apparel company Oiselle, and Co-Founder of natural food company Picky Bars. Her book Good For a Girl: A Woman Running in a Man’s World came out in January 2023.

About our guest, Kaite Rosa

Kaite Rosa is Senior Director of Brand at Axonius, where she leads the team responsible for creating a $2.6 billion brand in less than five years. Cited as one of the fastest-growing cybersecurity brands in history, Axonius has been named one of the most valuable private cloud companies in the world by the Forbes Cloud 100, along with numerous industry accolades.

A life-long writer, she is passionate about using storytelling and creative concepts to define and build exceptional brand experiences. She has spent the bulk of her career at tech startups, and thrives on rapidly growing, fast-paced teams. Previously, she led brand and content at Payfactors, Virgin Pulse, and VentureFizz.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Nike’s “Objectify Me” Campaign: 

• Do the opposite of what’s expected. Look at what other companies in your space are doing in their campaigns and make a campaign based on the antithesis of that. Be the rebel in your industry. Subvert the expected. Kaite says so many brands feel like they have to join in on what’s popular or trending. She says, “There's a lot of, like, ‘Me too,’ right? Like, they're gonna copy it and try to make it their own, and look very similar. But what inspires me the most is looking at what your competitors are doing and doing the exact opposite.” It’s like how Lauren Fleshman was presented with a briefing inspired by Brandi Chastain’s “tasteful nude” ad, and advocated instead to be in her athletic gear and to write the ad copy herself. She turned the copy on its head, saying that if she was going to be objectified, it would be to design running gear specific to her physiology. And the campaign became iconic.
• Outsource authenticity to your customers. Make your customer’s voice your brand voice. Ian says marketers always want to control the narrative, but sometimes you need to let your customers take the wheel. Because he says that when you ask customers to talk about your brand in their own words, “They come up with something absolutely brilliant that you could never have written.” And how could that not be authentic? Nike was able to outsource the authenticity piece of Lauren’s ad because Lauren wrote the copy herself. For sure, there was a layer of brand approval, but the words are Lauren’s. So outsource the authenticity piece of your ad copy to customers, and it will resonate.

Quotes

*”Whether you're working in a bootstrapped company or publicly funded company. any budget can accommodate your customer voice.” - Kaite Rosa

*”If you're doing a high-level brand campaign, the approach shouldn't be, ‘Let's sell you all the features and benefits.’ It should be, ‘Let's get you in the store. Let's get you remembering who we are so that the next time you need those new sneakers or you need a B2B SaaS solution,  you remember the ad.’” - Kaite Rosa

*”What is memorable and where storytelling really comes alive is when you look at what's out there and say, ‘We're gonna do something that is disruptive, that is different. And I think that you can do that on any budget.” - Kaite Rosa

*“People latch on to the authenticity of brands. That's what drives you emotionally to a brand, is that it feels authentic. It resonates with you. And I think living and breathing your values in everything you do, if you're at a company with a culture that encourages that, that ties your values into everything you do, it comes naturally. Good marketing and good brands tap into those values.” - Kaite Rosa

Time Stamps

[1:37] Get to know Kaite Rosa, Senior Director of Brand at Axonius

[2:14] Tell me more about Nike’s “Objectify Me” campaign

[8:04] About athletic advertising before Lauren Fleshman’s campaign

[12:23] About the timelessness of the “Objectify Me” ad

[14:23] Why challenging the status quo is important

[23:27] How to ground your message in values

[24:53] What does Axonius do?

[25:42] What’s Axonius’ brand strategy?

[26:41] How does Kaite think about the ROI of content marketing?

[27:14] Learn more about Axonius’ “Controlling Complexity” campaign with gymnast Simone Biles

Links

See Nike’s Objectify Me ad with Lauren Fleshman

Connect with Kaite Rosa on LinkedIn

Learn more about Axonius

Check out the Axonius campaign with Simone Biles

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

What does it take for your customers to:

1. Recommend your brand to all their friends, family and coworkers?
2. Take pictures of your product and post it on their personal social media?
3. Wear your logo even if they don’t own the product?

All of these are signs your customers are superfans evangelizing your brand. And transforming customers into devoted superfans is a potent marketing strategy that drives business growth.

This is what we’re talking about today as we chat about the legendary outdoor gear brand, YETI, with the help of special guest, VP of Marketing at Loxo, Sam Kuehnle. Together, we chat about investing in storytelling, working collaboratively with sales, and being realistic about what constitutes a true lead.

About our guest, Sam Kuehnle

Sam Kuehnle is VP of Marketing at talent intelligence platform Loxo. He joined the company in January 2023. Prior to his current role, he served as VP of Demand Gen at Refine Labs, a demand strategy and research firm focused on growth-stage B2B SaaS companies, where he spent over 2 years. He previously worked at Blackbaud for over 7 years, culminating in his role as Digital Marketing Team Lead. He is based in Jupiter, Florida.

About Loxo

Loxo is the #1 Talent Intelligence Platform and global leader in recruiting software. Loxo is a horizontally integrated suite of data-driven and AI-powered products designed to manage the full recruitment life cycle through a single system-of-record software platform. The platform includes a best-in-class Applicant Tracking System, an AI-driven Recruiting CRM, Candidate Engagement (multi-channel outbound recruiting solution), a People Search Engine of over 1.2 billion people, with contact information including verified mobile phone, personal and work emails. The instant AI sourcing, ranking and matching makes identifying, engaging and hiring the very best possible talent easier than ever before. More than 13,000 Executive Search, RPO, professional recruitment and talent acquisition teams across the globe are using Loxo to become hiring machines.

About YETI

YETI is a maker of outdoor gear like premium ice chests, coolers, vacuum-insulated stainless steel drinkware, and more. They’re an American company based in Austin, Texas that was founded by brothers Roy and Ryan Seiders in 2006. The brothers loved to fish and hunt but found that they needed to buy a new cooler every season because parts would break on them. So they decided to make a cooler that was super durable, effective at keeping stuff cold, and all-around practical. Their dad, who was a teacher by trade, had also become an entrepreneur, developing sealant for fishing rods called Flex Coat. So this kind of entrepreneurship runs in the family. And their idea really came from meeting their own needs while also seeing a need in the market.

So when they were developing a prototype, they realized that they would have to sell their coolers for around $300 to cover their costs, far above the $30 coolers you can buy at Walmart. And because of this, they decided to reach out to specialty outdoor retailers and to go to trade shows. (Speaking of knowing your audience). Now if you look on their site, the hard coolers range in price from $250 to $1500. 

And though they initially started with coolers, they expanded to cups and tumblers in 2014. 

The brand definitely has cachet. People will put a YETI sticker on their truck or wear a YETI t-shirt even if they don’t own a YETI cooler. The brand has been called “aspirational,” no doubt because of the price but also the idea of having time off to go be in the great outdoors, loading up a YETI with fish or elk meat or drinks. But Aaron Vom Eigen, who’s a principal at the Austin-based design firm Pushstart who studied YETI, said,“It’s less about being sexy and more about the function and being durable.”

Ice will last in a YETI cooler for up to 7 days, according to Springhill Outfitters. Though in hot conditions, it will last for a day or two. And they’re virtually indestructible. They’re made using the same process as white water kayaks. And they’re also tested against grizzly bears for bear-proofing (when paired with special YETI master lock padlocks.)

What B2B Companies Can Learn From YETI:

• Invest in storytelling. Create longform blog posts, videos and podcasts telling stories that exemplify your brand. They build brand awareness so you’re top of mind for buyers. Ian says, “Content is so important to [YETI]. If you go to their website, the navigation includes shops, gifts, customized, and stories. And in stories you have a bunch of stories that they've written and brilliant long form video content, which is amazing. They have ambassadors and they have podcasts. You have to have such strong content and advertising in order to be top of mind and to get your brand across.”
• Work in tandem with sales. Supercharge your marketing strategy by keeping communication open with the sales team. Each side will inform the other on what works or what doesn’t, so marketing and sales both work harder for the business. Sam says, “One of the bigger [lessons] is learning how to work with sales. Because they don't care if you get one lead, 10 leads, 100 leads their way, they need to close deals at the end of the day. So if you want a good relationship with them and you really want to grow as a company, you need to be working together.”
• Be realistic about what constitutes a true lead. It’s easy to convince yourself a contact will convert. But Sam says, “Whether leads are falling off, they're not qualified, or they're not closing for some reason, more often than not, it was because the leads weren't really leads. Like, we so conflated the definition of what a lead is. And we just said, ‘Oh, they downloaded an ebook, they're ready to talk to sales.’ It's like, ‘No, they just wanted to learn something or they wanted to watch this webinar. Stop calling them leads. Just give it away for free.”

Quotes

*”How do we create champions? How do we get repeat buyers? How do we keep people from never wanting to leave us? In B2B, it's an experience. You make sure that they get the results they want. But in B2C, you don't have YETI people calling you. How do you like your YETI? Rate it out of 10. Would you buy YETI again? They've just ingrained it. I think part of that is the marketing side of it is just how they've done and accomplished that.” - Sam Kuehnle

*”KPIs are indicators. They are not goals. We need to stop treating them like goals. You can get tens of thousands of visitors if you want to show up for some random phrase. You can go to some content syndication website. You can gamify all that to hit your goals, but then you're doing a disservice because you're refocusing all of your team's energy on hitting these things that don't actually matter for your business because they want to justify their salary or their position within the company.” - Sam Kuehnle

*”How'd you hear about us? Just ask people when they come in and put it on the form. This is usually like the most memorable thing, or sometimes recency effect comes into play where it's like, you know, ‘The last thing I heard was a podcast with the CEO.’ That's another touch point for you to know if your content is working.” - Sam Kuehnle

*“Are we generating more pipeline as a result of the people coming in? Are the deals closing faster? Are we seeing higher win rates as a result? All of those are lagging indicators to doing that initial upfront work of building your content engine, but you can't be so obsessed with having that engine drive results on day one, on day 30, on day 60. It is a long game that you have to play.” - Sam Kuehnle

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Sam Kuehnle, VP of Marketing at Loxo

[0:25] Discussing Yeti's Marketing Strategy

[2:42] Sam’s Role at Loxo and Marketing Objectives

[48:27] The Yeti Effect in B2B Marketing

Links

Check out YETI

Connect with Sam on LinkedIn

Learn more about Loxo

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Marketing is generally a one-way conversation. You tell your audience what to buy, period, end of story. But what if we could change that dynamic and actually give our audience some control over our campaigns?

You might argue that you already listen to the voice of the customer through surveys and testimonials. But have you ever really used their feedback to make a game-changing decision in your business? Well, today's the day we flip the script and let the audience take charge.

On this episode of Remarkable, we’re soaking up marketing lessons from the UK hit series Love Island. Because Love Island is a show that relies on its audience to make those critical decisions, audience members can literally decide whether an islander will stay or go. This might be why the show earned itself a dedicated following. Without that audience participation, it wouldn’t be the Love Island we know and…well, love. 

So tune in as we unpack the marketing gold that is Love Island. We'll show you how to hook your audience on your content by tapping into the power of their input. Get ready to learn how to make your customers an integral part of your decision-making process and create an unbreakable connection with them. It's time to let your audience take control and revolutionize your marketing approach.

About Love Island

Love Island is a reality tv/dating game show where beautiful single people are invited to stay in a tropical villa together in search of love. Drama unfolds when new islanders arrive, they’re given challenges, or contestants fail to match up and get kicked off the island. One couple will win a cash prize. ($100,000) They often also leave with sponsor and branding deals, and lots of new Instagram followers.

It was originally a popular series in the UK created by ITV Studios (2005 and 2006 was Celebrity Love Island, then returned in 2015) The U.S. started its own version in 2019. Now 22 versions of Love Island exist worldwide.

About our guest, Kailey Raymond

Kailey Raymond is Director of Enterprise Marketing at Segment. There, she is building a full-funnel Enterprise Marketing motion including ABM, thought leadership, upsell/cross-sell and outbound programs. Prior to Segment, Kailey started the Customer Marketing team at AlphaSense, built local communities and revenue at Hired in both Sales and Field Marketing roles and grew a global community of career transitioners and partners as the second employee of a STEM bootcamp.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Love Island: 

• Give your audience agency in your brand. Ask for their feedback and incorporate it into your marketing. By showing them you’re listening and taking action based on their feedback, you show that you care about them. It creates a mutually beneficial relationship and forms a connection. Love Island actually has its own app. And people watching can vote for their favorite couples, as well as decide on who stays on the island and who gets kicked off. So every viewer has some power over the fate of each islander, so much so that the show becomes quite addictive. Ian says, “Giving the audience agency is ridiculously powerful.” Get your audience involved in the decision making and they’ll be hooked on your marketing.
• Engage with your audience in real time. The goal is to respond and interact with your audience in as quick of a timeline as possible. So build the muscle of quick response times on your marketing team. And leverage AI to speed up that process. Being able to interact with your audience provides a personalized, human experience. On Love Island, producers are sourcing viewer tweets in real time and showing them on screen to add dimension to the show. So as a viewer, the chance that your tweet could be part of the show makes your participation all the more appealing.

Quotes

*”The show requires engagement, it requires the audience to participate, or it would destroy the fabric of the show. Like, I can make a difference in getting this person voted off. Giving the audience agency is ridiculously powerful.” - Ian Faison

*”The real-time audience interaction that they've embedded within the show allows you to feel like you're a part of their journey. It makes you want to watch. Every episode you have vested interest because you could be helpful getting somebody you don't like watching booted off the island or giving them the chance to win a hundred thousand pounds. So I think that they created this special sauce with being able to bring in multiple different channels with social, going along with video at the exact same time, and getting the audience interaction live.” - Kailey Raymond

*”You absolutely have to have an on-demand component. You have to have a live component to some of your stuff. But if you're not creating on-demand content that's easily streamable, accessible, multi-platform, you are missing out on a massive demographic.” - Ian Faison

Time Stamps

[1:28] Get to know Kailey Raymond, Global Executive Content Marketing Lead at VMware

[5:00] Tell me more about Love Island

[6:44] What’s the story behind how Love Island was made?

[10:27] How did Love Island rise above the noise of other reality dating shows?

[16:29] How can you leverage key storylines to create interest for your audience?

[18:56] What marketing lessons can we glean from Love Island?

[25:21] What does Love Island teach us about responding in real time?

[30:12] What we can learn from viewer statistics

[33:58] How does Love Island use partner marketing?

Links

Watch Love Island

Connect with Kailey on LinkedIn

Learn more about Segment

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

You can learn a lot by looking at the past. Especially at an era that shaped how we think of marketing today. Today, we’re traveling back in time. And we’re doing it in style.

Come with us to Madison Avenue in the 1960s, a formative time for advertising and marketing. It was the “Mad Men” that walked so the 21st Century marketers could run. And even though we’re equipped with technology, AI and all sorts of new digital tools, many of the cares and struggles feel familiar. But we’re not just turning to the past today to commiserate. We’re looking at case studies and learning from the classic masters of marketing…through the lens of Hollywood, of course.

In this episode, we’re turning to the series that brought marketing into pop culture and earned Lionsgate $26 million a year: Mad Men. Joining us is VP & Head of Marketing at G2, Palmer Houchins. Palmer and the Remarkable team are discussing how to balance delivering on your brand promise with connecting emotionally with your audience, being persistent with marketing ideas, and paying attention to all the little details. So put on your sharkskin suit and wingtip oxfords for this episode of Remarkable.

About our guest, Palmer Houchins

Palmer Houchins is the VP, Head of Marketing at G2. He previously served as a senior marketing leader and G2 customer at Mailchimp (acquired by Intuit) and CallRail ($125M+ in funding).

He is a veteran marketer with 15+ years of experience growing businesses, scaling teams and building brands.

About G2

G2 is the largest and most trusted software marketplace, helping 80 million people every year make smarter software decisions based on authentic peer reviews.

About Mad Men

Mad Men is a drama series about a prestigious New York ad agency called Sterling Cooper in the 1960s focusing on debauched ad executive Don Draper, who’s played by Jon Hamm. It also stars Elisabeth Moss, Christina Hendricks, January Jones, John Slattery and Vincent Kartheizer. The series was created by Matthew Weiner and produced by Lionsgate Television. It aired from 2007 to 2015. According to the pilot episode, the name “Mad Men” is short for Madison Men, or the men that worked on Madison Avenue in New York City. It won 16 Emmys, five Golden Globes, a Peabody award, averaged 2 million viewers over its run, and made Lionsgate about $26 million a year.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Mad Men:

• Be persistent. If you have a cool idea for a marketing campaign, don’t let it drop. It’s only a matter of time before that idea becomes your next success. Writer Matthew Weiner wrote the script for Mad Men in 2001, but it didn’t get picked up until four years later. Palmer says, “Matthew Weiner was writing this script on his off time at The Sopranos where he was a writer and just had it in his back pocket. And he just kept trying to get it made, get it made, no one was interested. And then boom, this happens and it becomes one of the most successful shows of all time.” So hold onto those good ideas and advocate for them. If you believe they’re good ideas and worthy of being created, act with conviction.
• Pay attention to the details. Make sure every part of your design and marketing aligns with your brand. The logos, font, pictures, the messaging, are all a part of your image. Just like how every detail of the set and costuming in Mad Men are meticulously styled to make the viewer feel like they’re in New York City in the 1960s. According to an article by Zooey Norman on ScreenRant.com, “Every single secretary's desk included a small Rolodex in which each and every card was filled out with addresses and contact information. Their desks also contained documents formatted and filled out to appear like real notices, letters, and memos in order to create the illusion of a truly functional office.” That’s the level of detail you want to get into in your marketing. Every element matters.
• Deliver on your brand promise first, connect emotionally with your audience second. There’s a scene in Mad Men when they’re trying to win the Burger Chef business, and Peggy goes to the restaurant to do a focus group. Her goal is to hone in on the emotions of customers and what resonates with them. Palmer says, “you want that emotional connection, but your products also have to deliver on that basic thing. And so in a B2B context, we want to have that aspirational element. But we've also got to be able to just simply deliver on kind of a functional ROI level as well.” So focus on your brand promise first before tying it to emotional connection as well.

Quotes

*”Too often we fall into that trap, and the same thinking of, ‘Well, this is popular, so we're just going to keep doing more of that,’ and not going against the grain, or zagging when everyone else is zigging. And I think that [Mad Men] is a testament to that thinking, especially as it relates to creativity.” - Palmer Houchins

“You can spend weeks and months and years crafting the perfect copy, but in our world, it's going to get A/B tested, it's going to get split tested, and the distribution of getting that out in front of people [isn’t] linear. You have to know that that piece of copy that you spend so much time writing, that might not be the first thing they see about your brand. That might be the 500th. That might be after they've already talked to a salesperson. It might be before. There's so much more complexity to marketing now.” - Ian Faison

*”There's a lot of nostalgia in this show. They're using real products, like Coke, Heinz beans, Burger Chef, Hilton, Lucky Strike and Jaguar. Because they're real, it's cool to see an ad campaign for super common household brands. Giving the listener or the viewer some signposts that they're familiar with will go a long way.” - Ian Faison

“I think nostalgia is a part of it, but as someone who wasn't alive during the 60s, for me, it was almost like this exploration of history; a time to kind of live in that. And I think using real products, real elections and real world events is how they earmark it. It helps you tether to a different era.” - Palmer Houchins

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Palmer Houchins, VP & Head of Marketing at G2

[1:32] Why are we covering Mad Men?

[4:30] What does Palmer do at G2?

[6:09] What is Mad Men about?

[7:16] How was Mad Men made?

[13:47] What makes Mad Men remarkable?

[25:16] What are marketing lessons we can take away from Mad Men?

Links

Watch Mad Men

Connect with Palmer on LinkedIn

Learn more about G2

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Data is going to help you up your marketing game. We’re showing you how.

Right off the bat, “data analysis” probably doesn’t stir the soul. But it’s how you tune into your target audience so you can tailor your campaigns to them. Your messages will be more relevant, you’ll boost engagement, and not only convert leads but create lasting customer relationships. In other words, it’s by leveraging data that you graduate from bush league to pro. And what better way to show the benefits of leveraging data than talking about how sabermetrics shaped the world of baseball.

So In this episode, we’re talking about the Academy Award-winning movie, Moneyball, with the help of special guest, Founder & CMO of Entry Point 1, Tim Hillison. Together, we chat about tuning into your marketing data, doing market research to understand your ICP, and tying statistics to human stories. So batter up for this episode of Remarkable.

About our guest, Tim Hillison

Tim Hillison is the Founder & CMO of Entry Point 1, a growth advisory consultancy for B2B SaaS & Technology startups and scaleups.  He has 25 years of global marketing experience, has led marketing three times on two continents, and has worked for some of the world’s most recognized brands, including Visa, Microsoft, and PayPal. Tim’s expertise spans Fortune 500 enterprises and fast-moving venture-funded technology startups from series A - E. 

About Entry Point 1

Entry Point 1 connects marketing strategy to business outcomes across the customer journey. Helping it’s customers build launch, and run efficient marketing programs that transform their organizations and financial results.  

About Moneyball

Moneyball is based on a true story about the general manager of the Oakland Athletics trying to assemble a competitive baseball team on a tight budget. This comes after the A’s loss to the Yankees the previous year, in 2001, and as they’re losing their star players. So the GM, Billy Beane, teams up with player analyst and Yale economics grad, Peter Brand, and together they use sabermetrics to evaluate and sign undervalued players.

Sabermetrics are statistics of in-game activity, including batting, pitching and fielding. The term comes from the acronym SABR, for the Society for American Baseball Research. It’s a way to look objectively at player performance. In other words, Peter Brand says it’s a way to “find value in players that nobody else can see. People are overlooked for a variety of biased reasons and perceived flaws. Age, appearance, and personality.”

So the movie is about challenging a traditional value system, where big city teams that have money can afford better players whereas small market teams have to be more strategic about who they sign.

The movie came out in 2011 and is based on a book by author Michael Lewis called Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. It stars Brad Pitt as Billy Beane and Jonah Hill as Peter Brand. It was directed by Bennett Miller and the screenplay is by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin. It was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Moneyball:

• Tune into your marketing data. It will tell you objectively what strategies are most effective. Use that information to dial in your content. You’ll uncover new and overlooked ways of marketing that you wouldn’t have used otherwise. Ian says that It’s like in Moneyball, when “Billy Bean realizes that you can get a player who can't run, can't catch and can't steal bases; They can only hit home runs, but that’s super valuable. And while everyone else sees them as a bad player, you see them as a gem. So what are your marketing versions of that? Is it a channel? Is it a budget item? Is it a way to create something that is consistent and repeatable that won’t be perfect, but it will be consistent?”
• Do market research to understand your ICP. That is, your Ideal Customer Profile. This is how you know your product is meeting an actual need, not a perceived one. Tim says, “You have to do market research for this, to understand where your customers are and where to meet them and what different channels work better for those companies. If you don't spend the time aligning your revenue team to understand that at the beginning, and you just rush right into the tactics, that's where you miss the mark.”  
• Tie statistics to human stories. Along with the stats you use to prove value to your audience, tell customer success stories. Because it's those human stories that will seal the deal with your audience. Ian says, “Stats are pretty boring, but stats give you a story that is extremely compelling in which there are human beings at the end of the statistic.” It’s another way to humanize your brand, by sharing stories instead of just numbers.

Quotes

*”[The A’s] lose like 14 games before winning 20 games in a row, which beats the record. This is what B2B marketing is about because there are lead and lag times in marketing. Marketing is not something where you do it and instantly it happens. ” - Tim Hillison

*”In your marketing, you need to find those customer stories where it went above and beyond, where they tell their family and friends about it, where it changed someone's career.” - Ian Faison

*”People buy from others like them. And also we know that B2B buyers are not passive. They're out there scouring the internet to research your brand before sales even calls you. And so those that are authentic and have a strategy, meaning that they're talking with a consistent brand voice using the same story and relevant messaging, and they understand their ICP's frustrations and pain points, that is where you build future relationships.” - Tim Hillison

*”Helping people get to the next level. That's what they want. How is your software or how is your product going to help people achieve their goals? It's that level of authenticity people want to help them get there.” - Tim Hillison

*”Sometimes you try something new and it doesn't work out at first. Then you have to tweak it before it starts getting better and better and better, and then you're on a roll as a team. That energy is electric, and all it does is bring you together as a team. It’s an amazing wave of emotion that’s created in the film, too.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Tim Hillison, Founder & CMO of Entry Point 1

[2:01] Why are we talking about Moneyball?

[3:26] What does Tim’s work at Entry Point 1 entail?

[3:48] What is Moneyball about?

[11:39] What makes Moneyball remarkable?

[17:53] What marketing lessons can we take from Moneyball?

[42:43] What’s Tim’s content strategy?

[46:58] How does Tim prove the ROI of content?

[49:22] What are some of Tim’s favorite pieces of content or campaigns?

[51:16] What advice would Tim give to marketers today?

Links

Watch Moneyball

Connect with Tim on LinkedIn

Learn more about Entry Point 1

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

It’s tempting to add some sauce to your content to give it flavor. But if the meat isn’t there, what’s the point? 

You have to make sure there’s substance to your work before adding style. That’s one of the things we talk about with Caroline Van Dyke.

In this episode, we’re taking marketing lessons from Hot Ones with Caroline’s help. She’s the Head of Content at Skilljar. 

And together, we talk about making customers the star, focusing on the meat of the content, and much more.

About our guest, Caroline Van Dyke

Caroline Van Dyke is Head of Content at customer education software company Skilljar. She is a content and creative strategist with more than 10 years experience leading B2B start-up content strategies. Her panache? Puns & a little personality can take brands up a notch. She joined Skilljar in October 2023, and previously worked in various leadership roles at RollWorks and Zugata (acquired by Culture Amp).

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Hot Ones:

• Make customers the star. Highlight how your product is helping them. Use their voice in your content. Caroline says, “As a content creator in B2B spaces, when's the right time to make it like, ‘Hey, look at us and some personality on our team or thought leader.’ Is it actually helpful to other people in the audience? Or do you help them make their customers the stars and help give them that material?” It’s like how Sean Evans rarely talks about himself, because his focus is on elevating the guest and highlighting their work. 
• Focus on the actual meat of the content. Educate, entertain, and drive value through the content first. Then you can think about making things visually appealing. But when you put style over substance, your content suffers. Caroline says, “Put that effort into what the actual meat of the content is. That's research, getting to know people, and then we're a little bit more forgiving of how things look. Yes, we want them to still be visually appealing and do your best, but gone are the days of pretending that spending all that money or time just on a facade of something is going to also equal great outcomes.” In Hot Ones, this means that the value is on the quality of the questions and research behind them, versus focusing on having a shiny, sparkly set. 

Quotes

*”We're all just kind of raising this bar together of sameness. And so where can you go to get something a little bit different? And that's not to say that you don't also need that sea of sameness and stability and  important stuff. But what on top of it can you add?”

*”You can't rip and replace a lot of this conversation around taking B2C and making it B2B. It's not one for one. And you'll see people do it poorly, unfortunately, of thinking, ‘Hey, a consumer likes this. So I'm just going to copy it exactly and somehow make the pun relate to my industry.’ If it doesn't land for your audience, respect that other program and don't duplicate it.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Caroline Van Dyke, Head of Content at Skilljar

[2:44] Caroline Van Dyke's Role at SkillJar

[3:41] The Origin Story of Hot Ones

[5:41] The Unique Format and Success of Hot Ones

[14:16] Analyzing the Interview Style of Hot Ones

[23:38] The Trust Factor in Interviews

[24:35] The Simplicity and Success of Hot Ones

[26:17] Marketing Insights and Trends

[27:11] Imitation and Innovation in Content

[28:04] The Importance of Authenticity

[32:03] Balancing Creativity and Strategy

[35:18] Content Strategy at SkillJar

[41:18] The Future of B2B Content

Links

Watch Hot Ones

Connect with Caroline on LinkedIn

Learn more about Skilljar

About 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.

What is puffery? How can you use it in your B2B content?

In the mid-2000s there was a King of Puffery. 

He soared into our lives as the SHAM-WOW guy. 

But his tour-de-force was the SLAP-CHOP. 

His name was Vince Offer, and he changed infomercials (and quite literally our lives) forever. 

In the first episode of REMARKABLE, we examine his use of puffery in the SLAP-CHOP commercials and how you can use it in your B2B marketing. 

Stop having a boring tuna, stop having a boring life! 

Let's slap those marketing troubles away and chop up some B2B marketing and content morsels for all to enjoy.

Key Quote

"There’s an opportunity to do this (for B2B companies). It’d be super interesting if I went on LinkedIn and there was a video from a technology company I follow and it was a fun, infomercial style video instead of a boring product demo…Just to engage with the audience in a different way. I think there’s an opportunity for that.” - Colin Stamps

Time Stamps

*[1:38] What’s the Slap Chop?

*[3:33] Who is Vince Offer?

*[3:50] The magic of infomercials

*[4:55] Why Vince Offer’s marketing technique works

*[6:23] The use of exaggeration or “puffery” in marketing

*[7:07] Remarkable Technique of the Week: Puffery. Why does puffery in marketing work?

*[8:37] How to frame the Before / After in your marketing 

*[10:08] Other marketing examples of puffery in B2B and B2C

Links

Watch the Slap Chop Infomercial

Read the Fair Trade Commission Act

About the Show

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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), Dane Eckerle (Head of Development), Colin Stamps (Podcast Launch Manager), Anagha Das (B2B Content Marketing Manager), and Meredith O’Neil (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Not all remakes are created equal. 

The Dune of 2021 is not the Dune of 1984. Maybe we should say not all “retellings” are created equal. 

Because both movies are based on the 1965 book. But film critic Roger Ebert scathingly called the first one "an incomprehensible, ugly, unstructured, pointless excursion." Ouch.

The second one - the one we’re talking about today - is a different story. It’s been called “aesthetically perfect,” and the “faithful retelling of a complicated story.” And it won a handful of Academy Awards.

So we’re talking about what makes a great retelling and how to use those lessons in your marketing content. 

With the help of our special guest, VP of Corporate Marketing at Cribl, Ryan Mattison, we also talk about delivering a singular experience, doing partnership-driven marketing, and much more.

About our guest, Ryan Mattison

Ryan Mattison is VP of Corporate Marketing at Cribl, where he leads the corporate marketing team, and looks after brand, creative, communications, and events. Prior to joining Cribl in July 2024, Ryan served as VP of Brand & Communications at ThoughtSpot. There, he led brand, creative and design, communications, PR and analyst relations, customer marketing, employee advocacy, investor relations and content marketing functions. Since joining as an individual contributor in 2017, he built the team from the ground up to deliver world class campaigns that cut through a highly competitive landscape, improve ThoughtSpot’s reputation and awareness among key audiences, and generated pipeline that led to revenue.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Dune:

• Deliver a singular experience. And deliver it in the format that optimizes the experience. Like how Dune was presented on iMax. The large format made the experience of the sounds and the vast landscape of the film a more immersive and real experience. Ryan says, ”Deliver an authentic experience, and people will pay for it. That idea of being intentional and connecting it with a really authentic value prop, that for Dune was super real. That large screen format with the premium sound is going to really, really differentiate your experience with the movie.”
• Partner up.  Find other companies to cross promote content with. Dune did this with the video game Fortnite, allowing players to buy a “skin” so their avatar looks like a Dune character. Ryan says, “Dune also did probably one of the best jobs in recent years of doing partnership-driven marketing. Theater going is skewing older and older, but something like Fortnite,  has a much younger skewed audience. They were like, ‘We need to target a younger demographic because if we can get kids or young folks to ask their parents to go see Dune and their parents were already kind of thinking about going, now it's a family thing. And you're not selling one ticket or two tickets. You're selling four, five, six tickets at one time.” Ryan adds, “ How do you find the right partner that's not just the easy partner, but the partner where you're able to find or open up new channels, new demographics, new audiences in a way that feels like there's intentional value being delivered?”
• Create a remake. Or as Ian says, “Try it again for the first time.” Because the movie Dune that came out in 2021 was a remake of the 1984 movie. Or really it was a retelling of the same story with little regard for the first version. And because of the generational difference between viewers, Ian says, “This [2021 version] was the first interaction with Dune for, I would bet, a massive percentage of the audience that saw this. They never read the books. They didn't watch the first movie.  But for people like your mom, it's like, ‘Hey, try it again for the first time.’ Like, ‘Yeah, I know you saw the old movie. This is nothing like that. Just try it again.” It reframes everyone’s idea of the original story, and gives a totally new experience of it. So make a remake but keep it fresh.
• Throw the party. Ian says, “ If you make something worth talking about,  throw the party so that the people can talk about it.” That’s what this podcast is all about, getting people to talk about Remarkable content and spreading knowledge of it through word of mouth. He adds, “ If you make content also make the event, make a premiere, make a big deal out of it.” Also because you deserve to celebrate good content and the hard work that went into it.

Quotes

*” There is no time when somebody is engaging with any facet of your brand or your business in which you shouldn't be representing the perception that you want to drive.  Every one of those is an opportunity to tell your story in a potentially different channel, different way.”

*”Deliver an authentic experience, and people will pay for it. That idea of like, being intentional, and connecting it with a really authentic value prop, that for Dune, was super real. That large screen format with the premium sound is going to really, really differentiate your experience with the movie.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Ryan Mattison, VP of Corporate Marketing at Cribl

[0:56] B2B Marketing Lessons from Dune

[4:11] Marketing at Cribl

[7:16] The Storytelling Power of Corporate Marketing

[9:18] Dune: From Book to Blockbuster

[12:09] Denis Villeneuve's Vision for Dune

[15:28] Marketing Strategies Behind Dune's Success

[22:56] Partnership-Driven Marketing Insights

[27:24] The Challenge of Marketing B2B Products

[27:46] Lessons from the Dune Movie Marketing

[28:57] The Role of Mega Stars in Movie Success

[31:23] The Importance of Authentic Marketing

[35:32] Building Anticipation and Word of Mouth

[44:20] The Power of the CEO's Voice

[48:52] Upcoming Events and Final Thoughts

Links

Connect with Ryan on LinkedIn

Learn more about Cribl

About 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 Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

In the B2B world, we think about growing our customer base. But one thing B2B marketers often overlook is how to transform your customer base into a community. 

You may be wondering, isn’t a customer base and a community the same thing? Not exactly. A community is your customer base taken to the next level, with a lot more engagement. It’s a network of relationships based on passion, instead of transactions. And it’s this passion that brings like-minded people together to form a dedicated community that outlasts and outperforms any regular customer base. 

In 2017, the U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team failed to qualify for the World Cup for the first time since 1986. It was this devastating low point that birthed a community that was so determined to see the underdog make a big comeback. Enter the Scuffed podcast.

Scuffed was started by Adam Belz and Greg Velasquez out of pure love for American soccer. And in the last five years, they’ve created, grown, and nutured a robust community of listeners who are engaged across a variety of platforms.

In this episode of REMARKABLE, we explore the nuances of community-building, and how you can use it in your B2B marketing.

Why the Scuffed Podcast?

You’re probably wondering why we picked the Scuffed podcast for this episode. Welp, for one, our CEO, Ian Faison, is a member of the community himself. He doesn’t just listen to their podcast; he also subscribes to their Patreon and hangs out on their Discord!. Ian was drawn to The Scuffed podcast team’s genuine love for American soccer. These guys are INTO IT. And that authentic passion is like a community-building magnet.

Scuffed brings together a community of American soccer lovers and lets them choose their own adventure when it comes to accessing content.. They have their weekly podcast episodes, with over 300 episodes that are currently publicly available. Then, they have an additional layer of content for those who want to support the show by paying a little every month. Patrons gain access to exclusive episodes along with Scuffed’s exclusive Discord channels where subscribers chat about recent games, favorite players, stats, share memes, etc. 

The members of the Scuffed podcast team (Adam, Greg, Vince, Jordan, and Watke) are all actively engaged on Scuffed’s Patreon and Twitter accounts. They frequently interact with followers, chat with them about the show, and even arrange in-person meetups. 

That right there is a hat trick when it comes to building a powerful community.

About Scuffed

The Scuffed Podcast is a weekly show about American soccer with a focus on the U.S. Men’s National Team. On the podcast, hosts Adam Belz and Greg Velasquez recap games, talk strategy, chat about their favorite soccer personalities, and do occasional interviews with players and coaches. Adam and Greg founded Scuffed in 2017 after the USMNT failed to qualify for the World Cup. Since then, they added a Monday Review with Chris Russell and Vince Irvin, a Discord, and a newsletter.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From the Scuffed Podcast: 

• Be authentic. We know it sounds cliche, but it’s a cliche for a reason. If you center your business around a product or service you truly believe in, chances are, other people will believe in it too. And a community will be born naturally! The Scuffed guys just love soccer, and they want to see the U.S. Men’s National Team qualify for (and win!) the World Cup. They’ve followed the team for years, analyzing their every move, and can give expert insights about their progress because of it. B2B companies can learn from this by building a brand/product/service that emanates passion and has a common goal audiences can rally behind. 
• Release consistent, timely content. How has Scuffed stayed so relevant for so long? It’s not just that they’re passionate about soccer – it’s also that they’re consistent. By creating a regular and consistent content schedule, they’ve built trust amongst their community. People know when the next episode will drop, when in-person events will happen, and when Adam and team will be responding to replies on Twitter. The Scuffed team also goes the extra mile for their audience and creates reaction episodes for special events, like the release of the World Cup roster. The Scuffed team knows their fans (do you want to bet they’re called Scuffers?) will want to hear about it. So, bottom line: be sure to release relevant, relatable content on a regular cadence, and your audience will steadily grow (and the real fans will be stoked for any bonus content). 
• Interact with your audience. Guess what? Community is a two-way street! So as long as your audience is responding to your social posts, posting in your Slack or Discord channels, or even sending you emails — leaders should be engaging with their clients just as much. It’s this two-way interaction that sets the tone for a community. More times than not, community members (think mega fans of your business) end up creating their own content. User-generated content validates both the work of the contributor, and adds more material to your usual content roster. Scuffed community members often make their own videos and highlight reels that the Scuffed team re-posts on the Scuffed channels, giving credit to their community members. This helps build trust and a stronger relationship with community members. Engaging with your audience across multiple platforms will only help you as you grow your B2B community. 
• Meet your community where they are.  A lot of Scuffed’s success can be attributed to the numerous platforms and channels they offer content to for their community. Whether it’s the weekly podcast, email, newsletter, social media, Discord, videos, and more, Scuffed fans enjoy having options for how to tune in to content. So, give your audience the power to choose how plugged into your B2B community they can be. For example, some people may love interacting with your business every day, via Twitter and Slack channels. Others may prefer to check into the community once or twice every few weeks by reading your newsletter or watching video content. Giving your community the choice on how they plug in allows them to consume your content the way they want.

Key Quotes

*”When I think of community outside of the context of making a podcast, I think of old kinds of communities. Like rural farming communities or urban communities where people are living together and suffering together, and sacrificing for each other. And so I don't know how to relate that to a Discord server. Like, I don't know what the connection is between those two things, because they're both technically a community. But when you're living online with people, how do you suffer with them or sacrifice for them? Do we even know how to do that yet as humans?” - Adam Belz

*“Repeatability is so crucial because you can have a good idea and maybe even execute it once. But if it's not something you can just go back to and be able to do over and over again, it's not something you can offer as a promise to the listener.” - Adam Belz

*”We're not very calculated when it comes to building a community or maximizing our reach. We're just kind of doing our thing. We're just some guys making a podcast because they love soccer and they love the national team. And I think the chillness of it was appealing to people.” - Adam Belz

Time Stamps

[0:55] How to build a community

[2:00] Introducing Adam Belz of Scuffed

[3:47] What are our takeaways?

[8:00] How did Adam start the Scuffed podcast?

[13:40] What’s the difference between building a virtual vs. in-person community?

[16:48] What assets does the Scuffed podcast have?

[19:48] How did Adam grow the Scuffed community?

[24:58] How is Scuffed offering different levels of engagement for listeners?

[30:20] How do you differentiate yourself from competitors?

[33:49] How do you manage negative interactions within the community?

[43:37] Why does being authentic attract community engagement?

[48:54] What does Scuffed do with user-generated content?

Links

Listen to the Scuffed Podcast

Check out the Scuffed website

Connect with Adam on LinkedIn

Follow Adam on Twitter

Follow the U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team

About the Show

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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 Adam Belz (Co-Founder and Host of Scuffed). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith O’Neil, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Every B2B brand voice sounds the same. Let’s mix in some drama, a bit of comedy, maybe even suspense. 

We’re here to convince you to blend genres and create something new, unique and attention grabbing.

We’re taking notes from author Dan Simmons and his book The Terror with the help of our guest, JumpCloud CMO Micha Hershman.

Together, we talk about mixing genres, using persuasion, and basing your narrative on a true story.

About our guest, Micha Hershman

Micha Hershman is CMO at JumpCloud, where he scales JumpCloud’s go to market (GTM) strategy and creates programs to deeply engage JumpCloud prospects, partners, and customers. He is a marketing leader with over 20 years of experience in steering marketing initiatives for category leaders such as Eventbrite, Envoy, and Heap Analytics. He has played a pivotal role in scaling organizations, notably contributing to the global demand engine that facilitated Eventbrite’s successful IPO in 2018. His strategic prowess extends to category creation efforts, resulting in Envoy’s unicorn valuation, and platform positioning strategies that culminated in Heap’s acquisition by Contentsquare. 

What B2B Companies Can Learn From The Terror:

• Mix genres. Borrow from action and sci fi and fantasy and romance and bring it all together to create unique content. Don’t feel like your content has to fit into a box or a category. And your content doesn’t have to be fact-based (as long as you tell your audience it’s fiction.) Give yourself room to play. Micha says, “[Dan Simmons has] a reputation of writing on the margins in general. Like, yes, he's written science fiction and horror books, but they all bleed into each other. This book, Ilium and the Companion, Olympus, is Greek mythology and Shakespeare and Star Trek all smashed up together into this bizarre duology.  And I really love the way that he writes on the fringes and smashes all the stuff up together that he's interested in.”
• Persuasion is key. It’s a top must-have skill for any marketer. Otherwise no one is gonna click on your content, read your blog, or subscribe to your newsletter. Micha says it best: “You can have great ideas, you can make big pitches, but if you're terrible at presenting it, your great idea for how you're going to save 126 people and get your ship out of the ice and get back to civilization is going to get washed away by some loudmouth who's a really brilliant orator.” Practice writing authoritatively, quote clients, speak to your audience’s deepest cares, concerns and values. And get them hooked.
• “Based on a true story.” These are magic words that give you a foundation to build a Remarkable story from. Meredith says, “It gives you the bones of the story, but then it gives you freedom to imagine the rest and make it what you want.”

Quotes

*”You can have great ideas, you can make big pitches, but if you're terrible at presenting it, your great idea for how you're going to save 126 people and get your ship out of the ice and get back to civilization is going to get washed away by some loudmouth who's a really  brilliant orator.” - Micha Hershman

*”I can't tell you how much effort I spend trying to talk my team down from doing more work. Like we don't have to go this big. We don't have to spend this much time, money, effort… It's not going to require it. And actually like, well, how little do we have to invest in this feature launch or this acquisition or whatever? Because marketers will add 10 billion bells and whistles. Nobody cares. Nobody wants them. My aim would be to work 35 hours a week because we're so good at the 80 20 rule. We know what 20 percent drives the business.” - Micha Hershman

*I think on the procurement technology side, buying is relatively straightforward. You've got a couple suppliers, you've got cash in your hand, they've got a cost, you're negotiating. It's a pretty straightforward process that it comes down to math in many cases. On the creative side, a totally different animal. There's no procurement team in the world that can help you. Your CFO is going to shrug their shoulder and say, ‘I don't know, you're the marketer.’ So much like Dan Simmons, you're going to have to have some kind of vision. You have to trust your gut. You're going to have to get bold and go places that maybe other people aren't really ready for you to try.” - Micha Hershman

*”On the classic B2B SaaS side, the parallel I often draw is about the vision. The founder has this idea for what [the product] can be and how it will disrupt and change the world, even though there's no appetite for it at all. There's no comparable products out there. And then there's the super prosaic, ‘Our customers ask for this feature. We have to build this feature,’ right? Which is a hundred percent data driven and to find that right balance between like vision and satisfying your customer data driven needs is that pressure that’s always on. Finding that right balance, there's some kind of art in it.” - Micha Hershman

*”As B2B marketers, we're dry, just so dry. It's just like, ‘This is the facts, and this is the information. And there's not a lot of packaging or storytelling or creativity or visual design. But we're not companies who buy, we're people who buy. And so, you know, storytelling is intrinsic to our nature. We all like beautiful things and we're all interested in creative expressions. So I do think that there is more room to explore there.” - Micha Hershman

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Micha Hershman, CMO at JumpCloud

[12:10] Exploring JumpCloud: A Glimpse into the CMO's Role and Company Vision

[13:54] The Creative Journey of The Terror: From Rejection to Success

[25:41] Breaking Down the Story of The Terror: A Blend of History and Fiction

[28:27] Exploring Dan Simmons' Unique Literary Style

[29:38] Leadership and Creative Problem Solving Insights

[31:28] Balancing Fiction with Reality: A Deep Dive

[36:03] The Power of Storytelling in B2B Marketing

[49:58] Leadership, Hubris, and Survival: Key Themes Explored

[53:08] Advice for CMOs

Links

Read The Terror

Connect with Micha on LinkedIn

Learn more about JumpCloud

About 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 remarkable. Rise above the noise.