Remarkable Content with Ian Faison

What do you need to do to make your brand famous? 

You know how you could say “Seth Rogen” and people could easily recall that he’s an actor, they know he’s funny and associate him with Freaks and Geeks or Pineapple Express, for example?

Well, with that same amount of ease, you want people to know who you are, what you do and to make positive associations with your brand name. 

How do you do it? That’s one of the things we’re talking about today.

In this episode, we’re learning about aiming for brand fame by looking at Seth Rogen’s brand, Houseplant. 

With the help of our special guest, Director of Brand Marketing at Mailchimp, Greg Shumchenia, we talk about aiming for fame, using feeling, and practicing fluency. 

About our guest, Greg Shumchenia

Greg Shumchenia is Director of Brand Marketing at Mailchimp. He has over 16 years of experience as a brand marketer, strategist, and category planner. He joined Mailchimp in 2021 after a distinguished career at ad agencies like Fitzco and Dentsu Creative, where he helped shape brands like Coca-Cola, Microsoft, New Balance, Hidden Valley Ranch, and Harry’s. He writes professionally about brand strategy, specifically around the idea of using brands as a point of difference by making them unforgettable, and he cares a lot about a well-crafted brief. He’s been named to the AdAge A-List twice, once at Mailchimp as their in-house agency of the year and once at NAIL Communications as their small agency of the year. He has won awards for marketing effectiveness and for advertising creativity. He has B2C, B2B, and DTC experience. He has also worked across a lot of categories including CPG, SaaS, tech, retail, QSR, healthcare, finance, and nonprofit. Greg is based in San Francisco, so when he’s not thinking and writing about brands, he’s usually hiking, surfing, or exploring the inside of a good winery.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Houseplant:

• Chase fame. Aim to be a brand that comes to mind easily and is brought up in conversation. Greg says, “I think fame is one of those words that's kind of synonymous with awareness, but it's more than that. Like, I know Taylor Swift is famous because I know I can bring her up on this call and you know who she is. Fame is trying to achieve that level of talk value, shareability, just call it cultural relevance if you want.” He says, “[Houseplant doesn’t] just speak to the small audience of marijuana smokers. They talk to a wider audience of people who appreciate beautiful design and objects. They're speaking to an entire category, and they do it with really bold and beautiful, distinct marketing. That's one of the best ways to build mental availability. You do it with a big group, and all of that drives growth.”
• Use feeling. Be expressive and get your audience to feel something through your content and branding. Greg says, “You can think of that one as emotion too. Houseplant uses emotion in a lot of different places, from the design of their products, you know Seth is pouring his own self into them. So you can kind of feel that emotion in the products and the design themselves. But also in the stories they tell. People remember feelings more than facts and figures. So if you're trying to build an unforgettable brand, feelings are one of the best ways to do it. You attach a feeling to a memory and people are going to recall that better than a functional message.”
• Practice fluency. Know your brand so well that the words to express what you do and what you stand for come easily. Then communicate that to your audience. Greg says, “[Houseplant] certainly practices fluency in every sense of the word. A distinct yet simple brand, it's easy to understand. It makes them easy to identify and to find. The two biggest things a brand needs to do is be remembered and be easy to buy. And fluency helps you be easy to buy. Fluency in your distinct brand assets and your look and feel is something Houseplant does super tight.” 

Quotes

*”From a purely functional perspective, [Seth Rogen is] trying to make the whole smoking experience a Houseplant experience. You can buy the actual flower, you can buy the rolling papers or the pipe or the device that you smoke out of, the ashtray, the matches, the record that you put on that you listen to while you smoke. I think he even sells a chair you can sit in while you smoke. That’s vertical integration. That’s what Seth is doing with Houseplant. He's like, ‘We are going to sell you everything in the smoking vertical. Absolutely everything from the chair to the flower, like just everything.’ It's kind of cool from a business perspective.”

*”95 percent of buyers in a category are out of market at any given time, meaning you're not ready to buy. And 90 percent of B2B buyers are buying off their day-one shortlist. So when they do go into market, that's that 5 percent of the category. 90 percent already have a list in mind. Like you do that [math,] 10 percent of 5%, you're talking to half a percent of the category. You're competing for half a percent of the category if you're not on that day-one short list. So yeah, that's our content strategy to get on that day-one short list when buyers enter the market. So it's too late when they've been triggered and they start shopping. So we are talking to them beforehand.”

*”It's scary to say, ‘We're going to talk to people who aren't interested in buying our product.’  It's scary to say, ‘We're okay with this taking a long time.’ It's scary to say, like, ‘We're going to talk to people who aren't going to be in the market for the next three to five years, and when they are, it might take them six to nine months for that buying process to work out.’”

*”Reframing a challenge for people gives them a real sense that you can help.”

*”If I had three tennis balls and I threw them to you one at a time, you're very likely to catch every one of them. If I throw all three of them at you at once, you probably won't catch any of them. So just one at a time, one message at a time in one spot, in one ad, whatever you're creating. The more you say, the less people remember. So keep it simple.”

*”When we talk about, ‘People not ready to buy,’ how do you reach those people? This is one of the ways: you entertain them, but also sneak in a little bit of a lesson here or there.”

*”It's a tough battle sometimes, but I think, you know, we also have a great collection because we've been doing it for a while. We've been persevering and like, you know, you're not going to strike gold or the magic's not going to happen after one podcast. It's going to take a while.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Greg Shumchenia, Director of Brand Marketing at Mailchimp

[1:29] The Story Behind Houseplant

[3:25] Houseplant's Unique Products and Philosophy

[5:40] Houseplant's Social Impact and Seth Rogen's Involvement

[10:09] Marketing Takeaways from Houseplant

[22:31] Transition to MailChimp Discussion

[26:16] Marketing Before the Sale: The Challenge

[27:03] The Importance of Building Marketing Channels

[29:09] Understanding Your Audience

[30:17] Reframing Marketing Challenges

[33:09] The Value of Singular Messaging

[34:56] Highlighting Successful Content: The Science of Loyalty

[37:02] Leveraging Intuit's Customer Base

[38:52] Measuring ROI in Marketing

[39:51] Upcoming MailChimp Podcasts

[43:58] The Power of Original Content

[50:47] Final Thoughts on Simplification in Marketing

Links

Connect with Greg on LinkedIn

Learn more about Mailchimp

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.

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.

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

We content marketers all want to put out high quality content all the time. But you might get writer’s block or just feel stuck sometimes. 

And one of the best ways to get unstuck, to feel inspired and motivated to get better and better is to look to content creators who do their job really, really well. 

So in this episode, we encourage you to be influenced by some of the top thought leaders in business, including Gary Vaynerchuck, April Dunford, Chris Walker and Jason Lemkin. 

Together with the help of our special guest, Co-Founder & CMO of Dreamdata, Steffen Hedebrandt, we talk about writing a book, running experiments, keeping your content snowball rolling, sourcing content ideas from your sales team, and much more.

About our guest, Steffen Hedebrandt

Steffen Hedebrandt is CMO and Co-Founder of Dreamdata, a pioneer in the realm of growth engines and marketing optimization. Steffen is a subject matter expert in connecting marketing activities with revenue. He has an exceptional growth mindset, is data-driven by heart and loves all parts of scaling the commercial side of a business. A notorious growth hacker with a successful track record of scaling businesses and building teams at Upwork and Airtame, Steffen knows the pain points of rapidly scaling marketing and growth firsthand.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Business Influencers:

• Write a book. Ian says, “if you can write a book and you have a good idea for it, it does give you credibility. It is a lot of work, but if it succeeds, then you can do really well.” Gary Vee has Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. April Dunford has Obviously Awesome. And the books opened the door for them as thought leaders. Spending the time and thought on writing a book positions you as an expert in your field and validates your thought leadership in your industry. 
• Run experiments. Steffen says, “[Gary Vaynerchuk is] constantly experimenting. Him and his teammates are extremely good at running constant experiments and yeah, sometimes it fails. But if we don't continue the experimentation culture, then we will not find the next big thing that's going to be driving the conversation with the audience.” So keep trying new and different things, see what works, and use it in your marketing.
• Keep rolling the snowball of content. Steffen says, “You need to do work and then you need to tell the world about it. And then in this constant cycle of documenting, “This is what we've done today. Here's an example.’ Move on to the next thing. And little by little, the snowball starts rolling and you grow your audience little by little by continuously putting out stuff.” Try to put out content continuously, even if you only have one point to make. And little by little you’ll grow your audience.
• Define your audience. Ian says, “Who exactly do you want to talk to? And obviously niche down as much as you possibly can to try to figure out who you really feel like you can serve the best and then figure out, ‘Okay, if I want to talk to these people for the next five years, what is the type of stuff that I want to talk about?  You should probably go talk to those people. Hopefully you have a background in that. If you want to go with the very super authentic route, if you don't have a background, then you need to find a way into being authentic, which means you need to talk to people who are having those problems and pull them into your content.” So do your research. Get to know your audience as well as possible so you can speak their language, create messages that resonate with them, and build your community. 
• Source content ideas from your sales team. Steffen says, “When you listen to what the customers are telling your sales team, exhaust those questions through well-written content, and then produce a lot of high quality content that can ensure that you can always stay top of mind with the customers that you're trying to target.” Tune into what your sales team is hearing from customers about questions they have, concerns, and more, and channel that into your content.

Quotes

*”It's about authenticity. You can hear that these are real experiences. It's things that they've tried. Jason [Lemkin] can say these things because he's been in the trenches. That to me is the people I want to listen to. It's people who have done things themselves that you can trust that  it might not be a universal truth, but it's at least something that they've tried themselves and experienced. And now they're sharing this story with you. “That's what really makes it convincing to me.”

*”If you're sitting out there just wanting to get started, just find peace in doing one of those disciplines where you are a good writer or you're good at communicating verbally, or you do well on video. And just dip your toes in whatever of those that you feel that you're strongest in. And if you want to get started, you don't have to do all of those disciplines at once. If you like writing, just start by writing and see where that takes you.”

*”The one thing we can control in marketing is that we can ensure that we have a high output of content and we can ensure that that content is of the highest quality all the time. So whether it's somebody who's making a decision whether to buy or not, whenever they're being exposed by a podcast that we've been part of, we know it's high quality. And that's probably what could be convincing that customer to move on with deciding whether they should be going with us or not. So high quality, high frequency output is something that we as marketers can always control.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Steffen Hedebrandt, Co-Founder & CMO of Dreamdata

[2:18] The Power of Consistent Content Creation

[4:18] Understanding Business Influencers

[9:17] Building Personal Brands and Marketing Strategies

[11:40] The Importance of Authenticity and POV

[20:15] Experimentation and Content Strategy

[24:32] Packaging Ideas for Easy Understanding

[25:33] Getting Started with Content Creation

[26:23] Identifying and Engaging Your Audience

[27:36] Creating a Unique Point of View

[30:00] Content Strategy at DreamData

[31:53] High-Quality Content and Distribution

[37:25] Measuring Marketing Success

[41:36] Innovative Content Approaches

[44:50] Introducing DreamData's Audience Hub

[48:24] Final Advice for Marketers

Links

Connect with Steffen on LinkedIn

Learn more about Dreamdata

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.

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.

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

You may not think of people at work as your community, but they are. 

And when you build strong relationships with your community, you get more done. It’s more creative. It’s more resourceful. The results are just better.

That’s one of the things we’re talking about today with the help of our special guest, Senior Director of Brand & Digital Marketing at Collibra, Victoria Bowman.

Together, we take marketing lessons from Abbott Elementary, including partnering up with your coworkers, showing that you understand your audience, and testing your ideas before investing in them.

About our guest, Victoria Bowman

Victoria Bowman is an accomplished marketing leader with extensive experience building brands and accelerating growth in fast-paced award-winning companies, including Collibra, MITRE and Dell Technologies.

She is Senior Director of Brand and Digital Marketing at Collibra, the leading data intelligence platform. Her team includes Brand and Creative, Digital & Websites, Social Media, Community and Marketing Operations. Victoria fosters a strong culture of trust and collaboration on her team, empowering impactful cross-functional work on campaigns, events, website optimization, thought leadership programs and evolution of the brand. Collibra was recently recognized with wins in multiple categories from both the MarCom Awards and Communicator Awards.

At MITRE, a nonprofit which performs R&D on behalf of the federal government as well as industry partners, Victoria helped Strategic Communications navigate proper brand marketing in an organization dating back to 1958. Her primary focus was on relaunching mitre.org with a design system refresh and 90 net-new pages of concise content, as well as developing the employer brand and deploying high-impact campaigns to talent acquisition targets.

As Director of Brand Marketing at Dell Boomi, a SaaS company within Dell Technologies, Victoria built and led large cross-functional teams of creatives and developers, relaunched the corporate website twice during her tenure, rebranded the company, and created infrastructure and improved processes that helped Dell Boomi to scale. These strategies enabled growth initiatives and lead-generating campaigns that resulted in direct, measurable business impact.

Prior to working in tech / SaaS, Victoria held leadership roles in consumer packaged goods and online retail organizations. In those positions, she created innovative visual communications and marketing campaign strategies that effectively engaged B2B/B2C channels, planned and executed large events, expanded omnichannel brand awareness, and directly increased sales and customer retention.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Abbott Elementary:

• Partner up. Don’t feel like you have to operate alone. Working collaboratively with others results in a more thoughtful, creative, and unique outcome. Victoria says, “Relationships are crucial to your success. All of the characters on Abbott Elementary really rely on each other. And they've built trust by learning across generations and different backgrounds. And I think that culture of trust really is what fosters great partnership and creativity and innovation. Fostering connections and gaining that shared understanding and having mutual support is important, and the element of discovery that comes from all of those shared experiences.”
• Show that you understand your audience. Appeal to their values, concerns, frustrations and priorities. That’s when content “clicks” for them and you create an emotional bond. Victoria says, “Show that you understand and speak to and meet the needs of your audience. Exemplify that in your marketing, that you understand their problems, you understand their needs, that you are listening, that you're accessible.”
• Test. Try out new marketing strategies before really investing in them. Victoria says, “Be entrepreneurial. Try out new things. Experiment and test and improve the benefit before you sink budget and resources into something. That’s how new activities can turn into successful programs. Never lose that sense of curiosity and that entrepreneurial approach.”

Quotes

*”To be successful at content marketing, you cannot work in silos. It takes a village to do B2B marketing well, and that means keeping the communication flowing and building trust and having that open collaboration.”

*”Bring your whole self to work; your creativity, your resilience and humor. You really, as a leader, should set an example of how to be open and curious and flexible and authentic because it is contagious and it will help you to build an amazing culture on your team.”

*”Experiment often. Learn from what works and what doesn't work and keep iterating. Model for people what it looks like to learn from failures and keep moving forward with optimism and lessons learned. So make sure you celebrate the wins that you recognize the great work and you build on it.  

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Victoria Bowman, Senior Director of Brand & Digital Marketing at Collibra

[5:49] About the creation of Abbott Elementary

[9:49] Marketing Lessons from Abbott Elementary

[23:34] The Power of Different Perspectives

[24:20] Importance of Setting in Storytelling

[24:43] Building Community and Brand Consistency

[25:29] Content Strategy and Customer Engagement

[28:45] Collaborative Marketing Efforts

[35:51] Measuring Content ROI

[42:12] Careers in Data Series

[43:44] Victoria’s Upcoming Projects

Links

Connect with Victoria on LinkedIn

Learn more about Collibra

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.

If you know Quentin Tarantino’s movies, it’s probably not a huge surprise that he’s a fan of Spaghetti Westerns. 

Tarantino’s 2012 movie, Django Unchained, references Sergio Corbucci’s 1966 Spaghetti Western Django. But the tribute doesn’t stop there.

There’s a scene in Django Unchained where a man asks Django how he spells his name. Django says, “The D is silent.” The man responds, “I know.” 

That man is Franco Nero, the actor who plays Django in the original 1966 movie. The two Djangos, 46 years apart, sitting side by side. This is what’s called intertextuality.

It’s referencing, quoting or alluding to other content. And it helps increase views and engagement with your content.

That’s one of the things we’re talking about today with Max Bard, VP of Content at Pray.com. 

Together, we’re taking lessons from Oscar-winning director Quentin Tarantino, like exploring outside of what is considered “brand safe,” incorporating intertextuality and getting nostalgic in your content.

About our guest, Max Bard

Max Bard is an Executive Producer and the head of PRAY Studios, PRAY.COM’s content production arm. As the head of PRAY Studios, Max has produced over 5,500 original podcast episodes, audio books, and daily devotionals. Max has worked with Superbowl Champions like Drew Brees, Emmy Award winners like Dr Phil, and Grammy Award winners like Lecrae to create world-class content for the Christian audience.

Prior to PRAY.COM, Max was the President of VideoFort, Hollywood’s largest supplier of aerial and nature stock footage to companies like Getty Images, Adobe, and Shutterstock. VideoFort content has been used in Academy Award winning films, Cannes Lion award winning commercials, and Emmy award winning TV shows.

Max is from Los Angeles and graduated from the University of Southern California in 2014. After graduation Max pursued his dream of writing, directing, and editing film & video content in genres ranging from Drama to Advertising to Music Videos.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Quentin Tarantino:

• Explore outside of what is “brand safe”. Sure, you can play it safe and continue to make slow but steady growth. But the big growth happens when you take risks. Max says, “If you want to hit the home runs, you have to take the big risks. And if you don't, then you can take the easy route and you'll probably keep that steady baseline. But if you want to get that massive spike, I think you got to try something every once in a while. Take that big risk.”
• Incorporate intertextuality. That is, use references to other popular content. You’ll get more eyes on your content because you’re piggybacking on what is already in the public consciousness. Max says, “Some people say that Quentin Tarantino copies other films.. But he is inspired by films of the past and TV shows and music and culture. Brands could do that too, and it's like an Easter egg. It's really cool if you can incorporate that into your campaigns. It could be massive, especially when it comes to memorability.”
• Get nostalgic. Pull from fondly remembered content. Tugging on those heartstrings, or the content people see with rose-colored glasses, creates that positive association with your brand. Max says, “You can see this a lot in Tarantino's films.  I think a prime example is in Pulp Fiction when they enter Jack Rabbit Slims and they're walking around the restaurant and you see Marilyn Monroe in there and you see James Dean. The waitresses and the waiters are all people from the fifties.”

Quotes

*”He has this distinctive style that stands out. If you're going to a [Quentin] Tarantino film, you don't have to go in saying, ‘Hey, we're going to watch this Quentin Tarantino film.’ The moment that it starts, you're going to tell just from the visuals, from the cuts, from the camera work, that it is his. He has that immediate brand identity. That's a big part of your marketing, is having that memorable piece within your brand. This highlights the importance of developing a unique brand voice that can really help you stick out amongst this crowd of hundreds of other brands,”

*”When you see these things that bring back positive memories, I think if you can do that with your branding, then whatever it is you're doing, whether it be a campaign or or a commercial spot, a Facebook ad, people will remember it better. And if they remember it better, ideally they'll purchase your product or want to work with you, or they'll have that positive brand association with you.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Max Bard, VP of Content at Pray.com

[1:56] Discussing Quentin Tarantino's Films and Influence

[6:21] Max's Role at Pray.com

[16:30] About Quentin Tarantino's Unique Film Style

[23:24] Marketing Takeaways from Tarantino

[28:54] The Power of Over-the-Top Branding

[30:27] Intertextuality: Borrowing from the Best

[38:31] Nostalgia: Emotional Connection in Marketing

[45:19] Familiar Voices: Leveraging Celebrity Power

[50:34] Max’s Advice for other Marketing Professionals

Links

Connect with Max on LinkedIn

Learn more about Pray.com

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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