Jonathan Bradshaw of Lowe's® Kobalt Tools line explains how to leverage customer stories with video to generate leads and build relationships.

Danny:

Alright, so for today's episode, I've got a really awesome story I'm going to share with you. I was on Facebook a couple weeks ago and came across this really cool video series called Artisan Series by Kobalt Tools. This is an amazing marketing tactic that they're using to reach their customers by sharing their stories. And guess what? They're not saying, "Hey, you need to buy from us because we're the best and the most amazing thing." They're engaging their community, and they're getting a lot of benefits out of it… So let's go ahead and jump into today's episode. We've got Jonathan Bradshaw who is the product manager at Kobalt Tools. Jonathan, thank you so much for joining us remotely from Charlotte today.

Jonathan:

Yeah, yeah, it's beautiful here in Charlotte. I appreciate you having us.

Danny:

Excellent. So for those who are not familiar with you in the audience, can you please introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about you and Kobalt Tools.

Jonathan:

Sure, so I am the product manager for Kobalt Tools, so I'm responsible for a lot of the details that go into the products, designing stuff for our end-user, but also how to go to market with those products and making sure the messaging is what we need it to be to communicate that. Kobalt is a 20-year-old brand, but it's also a private brand which belongs to Lowe's, part of the store portfolio. We're about to celebrate 20 years here in about two months. And we're very much focused on user experience, so what makes Kobalt unique in the market is we're building really tough tools, serious tools for serious jobs to get the job done. And we're designing it in a valuable way, something that is very intentional for the customer, very comfortable to use, but at the same time a tremendous value. So Kobalt Tools really focused on the user experience from ergonomics to durability. Everything that it goes into the customer using the tool is what we're focused on, that end-user to have a serious tool for doing serious work.

Danny:

And that's awesome. I just wanted to share with the audience a little bit about how we found you. You guys are dialed in on that user experience. I was very impressed; I came across the Artisan Series that you have. It's a video series you guys have posted on Facebook. I came across it. I'm a newly-minted private pilot; I'm super excited about that. And so I'm in all these different Facebook groups like Private Pilots of America or whatever. And so somebody had posted one of the videos that you guys had done in the Artisan Series, and it was actually on a guy who was building a kit plane. And so, naturally, I was, oh, I've got to watch this; this is awesome. And then, I realized later, who's doing this? This is brought on by Kobalt Tools, and I thought this is awesome. These guys are doing it right. And what was awesome to me was that you guys are talking all about your customer. And it was sharing their story, and there was nothing like, hey, get Kobalt tools today from Lowe's or whatever. It was all about that customer, and it was telling a story. And I said, this is awesome, and so then I reached out to you guys on Facebook. It was like, we totally need to bring these guys on. I just want to hear about all of this, so for the audience,