Remarkable Content with Ian Faison

Morrissey, Taking Back Sunday, Alkaline Trio, Streetlight Manifesto…

For dedicated fans, these are bands that bring back memories of checkered Vans shoes, studded belts, and paper wrist bands from each show.

But some of them haven’t toured in years.

So to see them all on one festival poster 20 years after their heyday made fans think it was too good to be true. It wasn’t, and it lived up to the hype.

So in this episode, we’re talking about all the good - and questionable - marketing that went into the When We Were Young Festival.

With the help of our special guest, Head of Content Marketing at CoreWeave, Brooke Gocklin, we’re talking about painting the picture, building a community of advocates, and delivering on the hype.

About our guest, Brooke Gocklin

Brooke Gocklin is the Head of Content Marketing at CoreWeave. Prior to joining the company in July 2024, she was the Editor-in-Chief at Contently, where she led content strategy and editorial direction for The Content Strategist and The Freelance Creative. Brooke is a recognized expert in content marketing, with a particular focus on the evolving role of AI in business. At Persado, an AI-language generation company, Brooke honed her skills in content creation for AI-driven solutions. Her deep understanding of technical products positioned her as a subject matter expert in the evolving AI space. Her work, featured in Adweek and Content Marketing Institute, reflects her deep understanding of how to craft impactful content strategies and engaging narratives that resonate with target audiences.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From the When We Were Young Festival:

• Paint the picture. Show your audience what doing business with you would look like. When they’re able to visualize the tangible benefits of becoming a customer, it makes it that much easier for them to sign on the dotted line. For the When We Were Young Festival, the organizers made a poster with album covers of all of the bands who would be performing. Ian says, “[It’s] brilliant, right? You have to show people what it would look like. I have found over the years that if you can mock something up, it’s so much easier, right? It's much harder to get an idea of something in a Google doc.” So paint the picture. Mock up an idea of what your product looks like for your audience.
• Build a community of advocates. Bands like Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance and Taking Back Sunday have created communities of fiercely loyal fans. Brooke says, “And so that means that when you see all of these bands coming together, the reaction is, is this even real? But two, it gives you a sense of like, ‘Oh my gosh, I have to be there. And I have to tell my friends about this.’ And so I think that for B2B marketers, you know, really leveraging customer advocates or people who are just really excited about your product or service to amplify your message builds trust in a wider audience. So choose customers who love you, who love your product, who love your service and leverage them to tell others about you.”
• Deliver on the hype. You can tease about a product or service as much as you want, as long as it delivers what it promises. Brooke says, “When We Were Young created a massive buzz with a huge lineup. They also did a lot of teasers, but most importantly, they really backed it up with a well organized incredible event. Credibility is so important. So you can't just hype something up whether that's your product or service. And not have it live up to expectations. So as marketers, I think it's really crucial when you're thinking about B2B, to build trust and credibility from the get go. So whether that means that you're creating content that is factually accurate and all of the products and features, functionalities live up to what you're selling them as. That is important, right? So you need to establish your brand as a go-to resource, but you do that by being credible.”

Quotes

*”As far as how I think about content, it's really like connective tissue. I think it's at the core and at the center of a brand story. So, you need content to be able to bring people into the funnel. You need content as they're exploring, getting to know you. You need content when they're at that purchasing stage, or even after they become a customer, you still need them to engage with you. And you need to be putting out ideas that provoke some sort of thought and that's valuable to them.”

*”Really good content marketing is about creating value for your audience and really helping them solve their problems. So my approach has always been: start with the audience. What do they care about? What are their challenges? And then craft content that speaks directly to those needs. I think that that is a key differentiator when it comes to content strategy.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Brooke Gocklin, Head of Content Marketing at CoreWeave

[3:10] When We Were Young Festival's Unique Marketing Tactics

[8:11] Nostalgia and Community Building

[19:39] Marketing Lessons for B2B

[22:31] The Power of Loyal Fan Bases

[23:14] Leveraging Customer Advocates in B2B Marketing

[24:09] Building Online Communities

[26:54] Activating a Community

[29:43] Delivering on the Hype

[31:40] Content Strategy and Its Importance

[34:11] Successful Content Campaigns

[37:16] Measuring Content ROI

[39:38] Exciting New Projects at CoreWeave

[41:06] Advice for New Heads of Content

Links

Connect with Brooke on LinkedIn

Learn more about CoreWeave

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.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

“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.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What if you created a campaign so good, so coveted, that users looked forward to it every year? 

And what’s more, non-users convert just to be a part of it.

We’re referring to the viral marketing campaign, Spotify Wrapped, and how they made their marketing masterpiece.

We’re doing it all with the help of our special guest, Head of Marketing at Postman, Justine Davis.

Together, we talk about making or buying exclusive content, sharing insights about your customers, and much more.

About our guest, Justine Davis

Justine Davis is Head of Marketing at API platform Postman. She previously served as  Head of Marketing for Atlassian’s Agile and DevOps suite of products. With over 9 years experience working with DevOps teams and tools, Justine is passionate about solving needs for customers. Outside of work Justine is a mom, avid reader, and loves to close the move goal rings in sunny Scottsdale, AZ on her Apple Watch.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Spotify Wrapped:

• Make or buy exclusive content. It’s like how you can only get your own Spotify Wrapped if you subscribe to Spotify. The campaign got people to convert from Apple Music and other streaming services just because they wanted to get their own Spotify Wrapped at the end of the year. Having exclusive content will get people to convert to your platform. Justine says, “Their strategy was: ‘Build for audio and not music.’ This was the HBO model a little bit, which is they acquired podcasts that were with them exclusively. So like, if you wanted to listen to them - and love them or hate them, Joe Rogan is one of the biggest in the game and it was exclusive on Spotify for a long time - you had to go sign up for Spotify. So it worked very well for them.”
• Share interesting insights about your customers. You’re gathering tons of data about your customers. Feed it back to them as interesting and informative insights. It can be useful or even entertaining for them. It’s like how Spotify made billboards highlighting unusual playlist names, and even how often someone listened to a particular song. Ian says, “You're finding data about your customers that is really funny and weird and interesting and unique. You're sharing that with other people. You're putting it on a billboard or somewhere, and then you're taking photos of it and then sharing the photos of the billboards all over.” Just those few data points make for a myriad of opportunities to share with customers who then will want to share with the world.

Quotes

*”Spotify Wrapped is the perfect piece of serialized content. You get to come out with it every year. People know what's coming. They know what to expect and they're looking to you, not only to tell them what their Spotify Wrapped is, but also to make funny jokes about all the other people who made ridiculous stuff.” - Ian Faison

*”You have to place your bets in a lot of different areas to grab attention. And understand that the user may hear it on repeat. So have that message be consistent across channels and in different formats.” - Justine Davis

*”We've invested very heavily in community as well as a big piece of brand marketing, because there's no better advocate than your customers.” - Justine Davis

*“The nirvana for someone doing content marketing is to create a little mini franchise, little mini brand of their marketing that people look forward to. I don't care at all about any other content that Spotify makes, but I care about Spotify Wrapped. It’s a perfect encapsulation of how your brand can be, where it's like people can care just about one thing that you make and not anything else. But the fact that you make that one thing is super valuable to them.” - Ian Faison

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Justine Davis, Head of Marketing at Postman

[12:16] Postman and API Marketing

[14:23] The Origin and Evolution of Spotify Wrapped

[22:29] The Power of Billboard Campaigns

[27:04] Spotify Wrapped: A Marketing Masterpiece

[27:53] Using Spotify Wrapped for Team Building

[29:21] Integrated Marketing Campaigns

[34:41] Investing in Podcasts

[38:58] Postman: Content and Brand Strategy

[47:14] Upcoming Postman Features

Links

Connect with Justine on LinkedIn

Learn more about Postman

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.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Before comedians ever get a Netflix special, they have to run the gauntlet. 

Night after night, they’re putting themselves out there in front of judgmental crowds and trying to win them over.

Sometimes they bomb, sometimes they face hecklers, and what may be even worse: silence. 

Kathy Griffin once bombed so badly at a show in Montreal she said, “The audience was talking so much that they didn’t know my set ended.” Ouch.

But even after bombing the worst, comedians 👏 keep 👏 practicing 👏. And all the while they’re gathering data. What works? What doesn’t work? 

Because that data helps them get better and better. And that grit and resilience is one of the things we as marketers need to have too. 

So in this episode, we’re taking marketing lessons from comedian Mike Bigbiglia.

With the help of our special guest, Host of How Stories Happen, Jay Acunzo, we’re talking about developing your premise, aiming for resonance over reach, and practicing your material in front of your audience.

About our guest, Jay Acunzo

Jay Acunzo is consultant, author and speaker at Unthinkable Media. He helps his clients learn to differentiate easier and resonate deeper on the impact of their ideas, not the volume of their content. He helps them develop their premise, their storytelling, and their pillar projects in order to own an idea in their minds and influence the market.

After starting his career in media and marketing roles at Google and HubSpot, a tiny startup and a VC firm, he authored the book about questioning best practices, Break the Wheel, toured as a professional speaker (giving keynotes in 25 states and 3 countries), launched two celebrated business shows (the podcast Unthinkable and the docuseries Against the Grain), and co-founded the mastermind for business storytellers, the Creator Kitchen.

As an advisor, he has worked with more than 200 individuals and teams to help them differentiate through substance and stories, not stunts. Past brand clients include Salesforce, GoDaddy, Wistia, Drift, Podia, InVision, Zillow, Blackbaud, Dometic, James Hardie, and Help Scout, as well as hundreds of individual thought leaders and experts, including the author behind Google’s employee training program and the performance coach who helped develop Kobe Bryant’s Black Mamba persona.

He is a New England resident, a Knicks fan, and an obsessive grilled pizza chef. His grandest aspiration (though genuinely, it’s my biggest delusion) is to be the Anthony Bourdain of business storytelling.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Mike Birbiglia:

• Develop your premise. Define your overarching theme or premise. If you were to give your campaign a title, what would it be? What message do you want your audience to get? Jay says, “The premise is an assertion you're making from which everything else follows. And that's true in comedy. It's also true in how you position a brand and every project that you or your brand might create. You know, a podcast has a premise, a video series, a book, a speech. We all need to better develop our premises the way a comedian does.” Mike Birbiglia has a premise to each show and a story arc. Like how The Old Man & The Pool is about getting older and swimming as a means of getting healthier. It gives the show shape and it also gives his audience an idea of what his show will be about. 
• Resonance>reach. Aim to make content that resonates with your target persona instead of aiming to reach a lot of people. This sometimes means decreasing your reach to be true to your brand values. But hitting home with your niche is better than falling flat with a bunch of people. Jay says, “You should care more about resonance than reach to grow your business. It's because from resonance comes action. It's better for business because that's why we start to care. If it doesn't resonate, we don't care. If we don't care, we don't act. Like Birbiglia is so good at making you care, not just about him, not just about the joke, but about whatever premise he’s there to explore through the arc of the show.”
• Practice your material in front of your audience. Keep dialing it in by seeing what works with your audience - and what doesn’t. Jay says, “This is what a pro does in Mike Birgiglia’s world. Being a professional, viable comedian [means] you are constantly working on material in front of the audience. Like, it is democratized to the degree that the audience decides. You're trying to put things in front of them. You're like, ‘I am convinced this idea or story matters,’ then you're trying to articulate the right way into that or the right construction and flow of the setup and the punchline and the tags, or how you explain things or the timing of it all, or your callbacks. All these hidden elements that go into, yes, a comedy special, but really standing up in front of anybody to speak to them. And the goal is to put enough reps in that you work the material out.”

Quotes

*”We need to reclaim creativity from what we have lost it to in the business world, which is the sum total of lots of hidden choices and lots of aerating and iterating and working on the material. Like, you might have conviction around your ideas. You're not going to drop that conviction and go, ‘I'll say anything that'll work on a social network,’ which is what people in business are too prone to do. You have an internal conviction about how the world should be, how you see something, your perspective, even one specific idea for a project. And the hard work now is, ‘I have to figure out the language and the storytelling and the frameworks and the construction of my words to get people to see what I already see and go with me on the journey.’”

*”We are trying to grab attention all the time as marketers. That's not what good marketing is. Good marketing is not about who arrives. It's about who stays. So get them to the end. That's your golden rule all the time. They hit play. Be paranoid now they're going to hit stop.”

*”Athletes watch the film of the game to get better. Marketers need to consume their own content to get better. Go for a walk, open it up in the morning, do what you have to do to consume your own work. You will notice very quickly what went wrong and what went well. It's like reading your writing out loud is the best, most foolproof way to improve your writing. You need to consume your work like the recipient.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Jay Acunzo, Host of How Stories Happen

[2:07] Mike Birbiglia's Creative Process

[6:35] Lessons from Mike Birbiglia for Marketers

[10:03] The Art of Storytelling in Comedy and Marketing

[18:03] The Importance of Iteration and Audience Feedback

[24:16] Nailing the Post-Story Moment

[25:30] The Golden Rule of Storytelling

[27:15] The Importance of Consuming Your Own Content

[28:04] Going the Extra Mile in Content Creation

[29:06] How to Create Engaging and Original Content

[36:12] The Messy Process of Creation

[39:15] Introducing Creator Kitchen

Links

Connect with Jay on LinkedIn

Learn more about How Stories Happen

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.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What do marketers and competitive bakers have in common? Quite a lot, actually.

Both work amid time constraints, follow recipes for success, and have to express creativity under pressure.  

And there’s a lot marketers can learn from these competitive bakers, so that’s what we’re talking about this week.

In this episode, we’re taking B2B marketing lessons from Food Network’s seasonal baking series, Summer Baking Championship.

Together with the help of our special guest, the Director of Content Marketing at Splunk, Ann Smith, we talk about putting your own spin on a recipe, tasting what you bake, and not trying to do too much at once. 

About our guest, Ann Smith

Ann Smith joined Splunk a year ago as the Director of Content Marketing, leading a team of content strategists and writers to produce award-winning, pipeline-generating, headline-grabbing content. Prior to Splunk, she led content marketing for Oracle and held senior marketing roles at technology start-ups and small companies. She has a master of arts degree in Speech Communication from San Jose State University.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Summer Baking Championship:

• Put your own spin on a recipe. In other words, it’s okay to use a recipe you know works, but don’t just check the box with your content. Strive to also make an emotional connection with your audience. Ann says, “People that buy software are people too. And it's the storytelling and the ability to connect emotionally with readers that really makes it. Storytelling is that extra layer of icing on the cake.” 
• Taste what you baked. Review your content to gauge its effectiveness. Looking back on past work is a great way to not only see your growth, but to take a candid look at what worked and what didn’t. Ian says, “How many times have you made a meal and you didn't even taste it? My food is always criminally under-salted when I take it out because I just didn't taste it. So much marketing is like that. Go back and read that thing a year from now. Was that a good post? It's like, ‘No, it was not good.’ Did you read it and like it? Did someone else on your team read it and like it?”
• Don’t try to do too much. That’s when you lose clarity on your message. It becomes instantly forgettable by your audience. Ian says, “The biggest thing is just writing way shorter and just telling one story at a time that has a single message that you're trying to leave people with. So many times we write an article and we want to pack 15 things into it. Dont. Just tell them one thing. I just want them to leave reading this thing with one singular lesson. And that's the thing that's going to stick.”

Quotes

 *”People that buy software are people. Chief technology officers are people too. And it's the storytelling and the ability to connect emotionally with readers that really makes it. More than just, ‘I'm just following a recipe,’ right? I'm just checking the box. Storytelling is that extra layer of icing on the cake.”

*”Just be helpful, help educate [your audience] without expecting anything in return. If you can help your customer do something better, learn something new, without expecting anything back from them,  really genuinely wanting to help them succeed, you'll have customers for life.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Ann Smith, Director of Content Marketing at Splunk

[1:36] Exploring Summer Baking Championship

[2:39] Content Marketing at Splunk

[5:13] The Success of Summer Baking Championship

[9:17] Parallels Between Baking and Content Marketing

[15:18] The Art of Storytelling in Marketing

[19:29] The Art of Concise Writing

[20:26] The Challenge of Simplifying Complex Messages

[21:47] Avoiding Over-Salted Content

[22:53] Relating to Your Audience

[25:44] Embracing Authenticity in Writing

[31:51] Effective Content Strategies

[37:39] Final Thoughts and Best Advice for Marketing Professionals

Links

Connect with Ann on LinkedIn

Learn more about Splunk

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.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.