Remarkable Content with Ian Faison

Your content should haunt your audience.

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

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

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

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

About our guest, Courtney Roe

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

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Ghosts:

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

Time Stamps

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

[4:14] What is Ghosts about?

[7:58] Behind the Scenes: Creating Ghosts

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

[15:41] The Collaborative Writing Process of Ghosts

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

[20:19] Exploring Character Influence in Creative Writing

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

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

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

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

[23:50] Merging Marketing Visions in Business Acquisitions

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

[34:00] Content Strategy at Acquia

Links

Watch Ghosts U.K.

Connect with Courtney on LinkedIn

Learn more about Acquia

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. 

In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

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 magic.

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

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

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

About our guest, Kendra Walters

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

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

About SAP Concur

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

About Harry Potter

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

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Harry Potter:

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

Quotes

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

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

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

Time Stamps

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

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

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

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

[26:17] Diving Deep into Harry Potter Fandom

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

[28:05] The Mystery and Engagement in Storytelling

[29:04] B2B Marketing Insights from Harry Potter

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

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

[36:31] Content Strategy and Audience Engagement

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

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

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

Links

Watch Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Listen to SAP Concur Conversations

Connect with Kendra on LinkedIn

Learn more about SAP Concur

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. 

In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

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

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

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

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

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

About our guest, Joel Horwitz

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

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

About Promo.com

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

About Michael Crichton

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

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Michael Crichton:

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

Quotes

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

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

Time Stamps

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

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

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

[8:27] Who is Michael Crichton?

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

[17:35] What makes Michael Crichton remarkable?

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

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

[53:10] What’s next for Promo.com?

Links

Learn more about Michael Crichton

Connect with Joel on LinkedIn

Learn more about Promo.com

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. 

In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

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

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

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

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

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

About our guest, Yuval Zukerman

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

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

About Domino Data Lab

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

About Traktor

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

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Traktor:

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

Quotes

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

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

Time Stamps

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

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

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

[5:35] Learn more about Traktor

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

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

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

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

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

Links

Check out films by Traktor

Connect with Yuval on LinkedIn

Learn more about Domino Data Lab

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. 

In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

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

Suffering from marketer’s block? Try making a parody.

Take what’s trending, spin it to reflect your brand, and your next campaign will get people sharing. 

That’s one of the things we’re talking about with MoEngage’s Head of Content & Organic Growth, Shana Haynie. Together, we chat about making a parody, capitalizing on industry trends, and following up with your audience after launching a new campaign.

About our guest, Shana Haynie

Shana Haynie is Head of Content and Organic Growth at customer engagement platform MoEngage. She has over 11 years of marketing experience, and five as a people manager. She joined MoEngage in November 2023, and was hired to scale organic growth for MoEngage's North America (US) region through SEO and content marketing best practices. Prior to MoEngage, Shana served as Head of Content for Unit21. She has also led Demand Gen for Hearst Bay Area and Inbound Marketing for Moves The Needle. In 2014, she co-founded a social media marketing agency, Vulpine Interactive. 

About MoEngage

MoEngage is an insights-led customer engagement platform for the customer-obsessed marketers and product owners. We help you delight your customers and retain them for longer. With MoEngage you can analyze customer behavior and engage them with personalized communication across the web, mobile, and email. MoEngage is a full-stack solution consisting of powerful customer analytics, AI-powered customer journey orchestration, and personalization - in one dashboard From Fortune 500 enterprises such as Deutsche Telekom, Samsung, and Ally to mobile-first brands such as Flipkart, OLA, and bigbasket - MoEngage has helped amplify customer engagement for all. Product managers and growth marketers can use MoEngage to provide a personalized experience throughout the customer lifecycle stages – from onboarding to retention to growth. What makes MoEngage different, is a full-stack solution consisting of powerful customer analytics, AI-powered customer journey orchestration and personalization capabilities - in one dashboard.

About Matomo’s Googleheimer Countdown Ad

The ad was created by B2B boutique ad agency Umault for Matomo, which is a competitor to Google Analytics. And their thinking was “If you’re going to compete against Google, you have to go big.”

Umault had created an ad that was a Last of Us parody about Google Analytics 4, and Matomo asked for something similar. What’s interesting is that because Umault was working on the ad before Oppenheimer came out, they were banking on the movie being a blockbuster hit. (Oppenheimer being the movie about J. Robert Oppenheimer and the creation of the atomic bomb.)

The ad, called “Googleheimer Countdown,” got over 1 million views in a week. And customers were praising and selling Matomo to viewers in the comments. Matomo then followed the release of the ad with a strong distribution strategy. They responded to comments, reshared and reposted viewer posts. They also paid a media agency to amplify the ad.

Umault says that their Matomo ad is appealing to viewers because they prioritize entertainment first, and marketing second. They said, “This is what happens when you make a hit video people actually want to watch.”

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Matomo’s Googleheimer Countdown Ad:

• Create a parody. Parodying already-popular content provides context to your viewers as well as scaffolding for your story. So it’s a lighter lift for you and more likely to resonate for them. Ian says, “The audience has to do so little lifting because it's a parody. You're using infrastructure that's already there, you're using a story that's already there. None of us have even seen Oppenheimer, but you know the story and you're in on the joke. And that's why parody works so well. It’s such a winning strategy.”
• Capitalize on industry trends. Timing is everything with this kind of campaign. Tune into industry sentiment and create content that reflects that tone. Shana says, “Trend jacking has been proven to work really well. And do it in such a way that is geared towards the favorability of your organization, just like Matomo was able to capitalize on the fact that all of a sudden, all of these people are freaking out about their analytics, and that's what they offer. It's just a genius way to be able to kind of move your marketing in a direction that's going to be successful. And it's already built in.” 
• Implement a followup strategy after campaign launch. Make a plan once a campaign is launched to engage with your audience. Respond to their comments and feedback as they consume the campaign. Shana says, “You have to think about how you're going to follow up on your campaign. Make sure that you have the monetization strategy baked in there. Otherwise all those impressions aren't going to amount to anything for your brand. I like the idea that [Matomo] had people on deck to respond to comments and are really engaging with the people who are engaging back. I think that's a really great way to insert yourself into those conversations so it's not just like, ‘Here's a piece of content. It's great. Okay, next.’”

Quotes

*”Virtually anything can really be translated into meaningful content. When it's considered in the realm of business, this idea is really freeing and you can sense that the limits of what constitutes content are only confined by the creativity and the intentions that you bring. This philosophy empowers people to create more dynamic and explorative content with the significance placed on impact rather than just thinking about what it should be.” - Shana Haynie

*”It's crucial to think about what the practicalities of your content marketing are. So you're still responsible for driving tangible results. But everything needs to be balanced. It's art and science, understanding your audience's needs and the engagement metrics and all the business goals that go behind that. I think when you can distill those two things down, that's the basis for how I like to think about content strategy.” - Shana Haynie

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Shana Haynie, Head of Content & Organic Growth at MoEngage

[1:38] Why are we talking about Matomo’s Googleheimer Countdown ad?

[2:32] What does Shana’s work at MoEngage entail?

[3:24] What is Matomo’s Googleheimer Countdown ad?

[10:06] What makes the ad remarkable?

[17:20] What can we learn about marketing from the ad?

[23:40] What’s Shana’s content strategy?

[27:59] How does Shana prove the ROI of content?

[33:33] Shana shares past successful campaigns

[37:52] What exciting content is Shana creating at MoEngage?

Links

See Matomo’s Googleheimer Countdown ad

Connect with Shana on LinkedIn

Learn more about MoEngage

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. 

In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

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

Your content can go so much further than you even know.

A single video or podcast can turn into blog and Instagram posts, tweets, clips, TikTok videos, newsletters, and more. 

But tackling all of that on a small marketing team can feel enormous. So this is where you divide and conquer across platforms and channels. 

That’s one of the things the Real Housewives do really well. And what we’re chatting about today with the help of special guest, Content Marketing Manager at Quora, Shelagh Dolan. 

Together, we talk about slicing and dicing your content, identifying and catering to untapped audiences, and putting underperforming content “on pause.”

About our guest, Shelagh Dolan

Shelagh Dolan is Content Marketing Manager at Quora. She joined the company in June of 2022 and leads content strategy for its advertising division, Quora for Business. She has over a decade of experience building content strategies for global B2B brands, aligning content with sales objectives, and driving business growth. Prior to Quora, Shelagh served as Director of Content Marketing at eMarketer and Senior Content Marketing Manager at Business Insider.

About Quora

Quora is a Q&A platform with over 400 million monthly unique visitors that empowers people to share and grow the world’s knowledge. The vast majority of human knowledge is still not on the internet. Most of it is trapped in the form of experience in people’s heads, or buried in books and papers that only experts can access. Founded in 2009, Quora is working to democratize access to knowledge of all kinds—so if someone out there knows something, anyone else can learn it. In February of 2023, Quora launched its second product, Poe, a platform that lets people ask questions, get instant answers, and have back-and-forth conversations with a wide variety of AI-powered bots.

About the Real Housewives

The Real Housewives is a reality TV show franchise about the lives of affluent women, and it usually centers around a specific city or area. The first show was The Real Housewives of Orange County, which aired in 2006. It was originally called Behind the Gates, but Bravo decided to change the name based on the popularity of the Desperate Housewives and The OC at the time to The Real Housewives of Orange County. There are now 11 U.S.-based versions including The Real Housewives of New York City, Atlanta, New Jersey, D.C., etc. And 21 international versions, as well as a bunch of spinoffs, including Vanderpump Rules.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Real Housewives:

• Slice and dice your content. Create shareable pieces that project members will want to share on their own channels. It’s how you divide and conquer across platforms, and make promotion a lighter lift for everyone involved. And you get more juice out of the ‘parent’ content. In the Real Housewives, Shelagh says, ‘You have the show itself. Then Andy Cohen is doing Watch What Happens Live, where he's discussing the episode that just happened. Then on top of that, each cast member is their own brand ambassador. They do a social media post about it, reminding people to watch. They're also often live posting during the show. You combine that with the multitude of podcasts, blogs, meme accounts dedicated to recapping these episodes. It's really just like a content machine and it just keeps on giving.”
• Identify and cater to untapped audiences. Appeal to a wider range of people by identifying a new target audience and catering to them. The Real Housewives did this by creating a show that starred women in the age range of their target demographic. Meredith said, “There are about five to seven women in [the Real Housewives] and they're usually in their 30s to 60s. An executive with NBC Universal said that often, women in that age group are overlooked, and so they really wanted to appeal to that demographic, and it would be a new audience for them. So they were drawing in people that they weren't already attracting to their content.”
• Put underperforming content “on pause”. Be unflinchingly honest about the content that’s getting poor engagement. Use that data to inform your next move and make adjustments as needed. Shelagh says, “[Bravo will] have the hard conversations if viewership is falling off. They definitely monitor qualitatively the social media discussions happening around individuals as well as seasons overall. And they will call someone and fire them if it's not working out and bring someone new on. There's been a few people that - they call it ‘putting on pause.’ They put them on pause, which is a nice way of saying, ‘please don't come back,’ and maybe there'll be something in the future.”

Quotes

*”Sometimes you have to make the tough call. Like, ‘This person isn't good in the content and we need to bring somebody else in who might be more junior. Or maybe we have to platform this person because they are important strategically to our company.” - Ian Faison

*”[I realized that] I'm doing random acts of marketing. So let's see how we can get this to be more structured. So really bringing order to processes and following kind of like how the housewives have a recurring schedule. Like, let's get these cornerstone pieces of content,  identify what they are and put them to a timeline.” - Shelagh Dolan

*”What has helped me be successful in different roles is building relationships with cross functional team members and really aligning myself with subject matter experts in the company. This was my first role in ad tech. So really getting up to speed on the market and what matters most and building good relationships with our customer success reps who talk to our clients every day is important.” - Shelagh Dolan

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Shelagh Dolan, Content Marketing Manager at Quora

[1:45] Why are we talking about the Real Housewives?

[3:36] What does Shelagh’s work at Quora entail?

[5:16] Learn more about Quora

[7:28] What is the Real Housewives about?

[14:42] What makes the Real Housewives remarkable?

[25:04] What are marketing lessons we can take from the Real Housewives?

[39:41] What’s Shelagh’s content strategy?

[46:53] How does Shelagh prove the ROI of content?

Links

Watch the Real Housewives

Connect with Shelagh on LinkedIn

Learn more about Quora

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. 

In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

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

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

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

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

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

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

About our guest, Leah Westfall

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

About Celigo

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

About Stanley

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

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

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

What B2B Companies Can Learn From the Stanley Quencher:

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

Quotes

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

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

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

Time Stamps

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Links

Get a Stanley Quencher

Connect with Leah on LinkedIn

Learn more about Celigo

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. 

In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

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

It doesn’t take magic to make content that resonates. You just have to be real. 

Show your audience that you “get” them by catering to their cares, frustrations, and the reality of their day-to-day lives.

But to do this, you really have to know your audience and their lived experience. 

Just like how Jeff Kinney wrote a runaway hit inspired by his lived experience as a boy. The key is that though the main character, Greg, wasn’t a hero, he was believable…and maybe a bit wimpy at times.

That’s right, we’re talking about Diary of a Wimpy Kid today with Founder of Furmanov Marketing Consulting, Anna Furmanov. Together, we talk about making a comic, entertaining before educating, and writing in your audience’s language.

About our guest, Anna Furmanov

Anna Furmanov is Founder of Furmanov Marketing Consulting, aka the Marie Kondo of startup marketing, helping clean up early stage startups. She has more than 12 years of marketing experience at big name brands like Groupon, Blistex, Del Monte Foods, and startups. She has also led marketing at two venture-backed Series A/B tech startups. She is the host of the Modern Startup Marketing podcast.

About Furmanov Marketing Consulting

At Furmanov Marketing Consulting, Anna acts as a Fractional Head of Marketing, helping VC-backed early stage startup founders and marketing leaders implement marketing programs that drive revenue. She helps startups in industries like  e-commerce, ed tech, higher ed tech, food tech, security tech, sales tech, martech, innovation tech, developer tech and more.

About Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a children’s book series about a boy named Greg Heffley. It’s his journal about navigating middle school and his relationships with his friends and family. It was created by Jeff Kinney based on his own experience growing up. 

Jeff Kinney started working on Diary of a Wimpy Kid in 1998 as a nostalgic book for adults. And it wasn’t until 2006 when he brought a sample manuscript to New York ComicCon when it was picked up by the publishing company Abrams. He signed a multi-book deal with them for a series and the first one was published in 2007. 

Now there are 17 books in 84 editions and it’s been translated into 69 languages. More than 275 million copies have been sold globally. There are three spin-off books within the Awesome Friendly Kid series, four live action films, two animated films on Disney+, and a musical as well as tons of licensed products. There are even emojis and a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Balloon of Greg.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Diary of a Wimpy Kid:

• Make a comic. Literally just turn your next blog post or ad into a comic. The style says anything BUT boring B2B marketing. Anna says, “This could really flip blog posts on their heads, right? Or case studies. If we would mimic something like Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and how they lay things out with words and pictures to tell a story, that's essentially what Diary of a Wimpy Kid is. You could mimic that and create something that looks so different from a typical blog post or case study or any long form content. Because that's the beauty of marketing, right? It's about trying out new ideas and seeing what sticks.”
• Entertain, then educate. Prioritize sharing content tailored to your audience’s interests, attitudes, and values. It shows that you “get” them. And your audience is more likely to re-share it.  Anna says, “A lot of content strategies are focused on educating and not as many are focused on entertaining. Kids want to get entertained. Adults want to get entertained, too. So don't forget about the entertaining side when you think about the purpose of your content. Like the absurdity of sales, the absurdity of marketing, the absurdity of your target buyer’s workday experience. That could be entertaining, too. It could be funny. It hooks you in. It keeps you coming back.”
• Write like your audience talks. Use “wanna” and “gonna” instead of “want to” and “going to.” Show that there’s a human behind the content by writing like you talk. At least in the formats that allow for a casual tone, like on LinkedIn or on your blog. Anna says, “You're not here to just be fake. You're here to be real. Creating a space for other people to be real with you. Which creates connection, which creates likability. So I use “wanna,” and “gonna,” and I think people connect to me much easier because of that. They like the posts I put out on LinkedIn, and I use those words when I post on LinkedIn. Sometimes I use it in my monthly newsletter. I never use that in my client contracts because I think that's going too far. But in my content, I'm going to use words like “wanna,” and “gonna,” because I think there's a place and a space to do that, and I pick that as my vibe. And Ian adds, “the message is not necessarily that you should use conversational language all the time. It's that you should use the conversational language of who you're selling to.”

Quotes

*”I've seen a lot of case studies that just look the same. They're boring. How can you weave more emotion into case studies? I know it's possible. Because one of the questions I like to ask in my Voice of Customer research work is, ‘How has this tool, platform, whatever, changed your life?’ And that's a big deal. That's emotional. When you hear the answers, maybe it's something that you can blow up a little bit more, make people laugh, make people cry. Overall, how can you make people feel more connected over the emotional stuff?” - Anna Furmanov

*”What is your personality? What's your vibe? A security startup might not want to use “wanna” or “gonna”. That's fine, but at least figure it out so that you have a direction and a roadmap for what you want your content to look like, sound like, feel like, because it's a package. You put it together, and the way that you show up online is a package of who you are and whether people will want to connect with that or not.” - Anna Furmanov

*”When you live with children, you're in those moments and I think it's easier to write about. But tying back to B2B though, you don't live with your target buyer, right? But somehow you have to mimic that knowledge of what they're feeling, what they're frustrated about. So that's why it's so important to check in with them and to have these Voice of Customer research conversations. I can't emphasize enough how important it is to do that. You can't write a book about something from that perspective if you're not in it. You can't write content if you're not in some way in it, right? And super in the community, talking to people, understanding their goals and challenges and emotions and frustrations and what they're worried about and what they're excited about. You just can't. So since you don't live with them, you have to kind of artificially create that.” - Anna Furmanov

*”Start with the foundational stuff like voice of customer research. Having these conversations with five to ten of your customers or prospects, understanding them, understanding how they relate to you, why they picked you, what's your differentiated value, all that is really important. And then tie that back into your content strategy.” - Anna Furmanov

*”What's my wedge? What is my point of view? What point of view will I own? What's that unique insight that only I have, or very few people have, very few people are talking about? What are the stories that are not being told yet that should be told?” - Anna Furmanov

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Anna Furmanov, Founder of Furmanov Marketing Consulting

[2:16] Why are we talking about Diary of a Wimpy Kid?

[5:29] What does Anna’s work at Furmanov Marketing Consulting entail?

[8:16] What is Diary of a Wimpy Kid about?

[12:09] What’s remarkable about Diary of a Wimpy Kid?

[22:36] What marketing lessons can we take from Diary of a Wimpy Kid?

[38:02] What advice would Anna give other marketing professionals?

Links

Read Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Subscribe to the Modern Startup Marketing podcast

Connect with Anna on LinkedIn

Learn more about Furmanov Marketing Consulting

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. 

In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith Gooderham mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

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

Don’t try to sell your product. Sell your story.

Your audience mentally unsubscribes from you if you try too hard to just sell your product. Instead, tell a compelling story around the product that people will want to share with their friends.

That’s what we’re talking about in this episode with the help of special guest, Director of Content & Thought Leadership at Clari, Devin Reed. Together, we talk about creating a piece of fiction, painting a “before” and “after” picture, and including a moment that resonates emotionally with your audience in every piece of content.

About our guest, Devin Reed

Devin is a sales pro turned marketing leader. He built and scaled Gong's content strategy, one of the most successful B2B SaaS brands, and now he's Head of Content at Clari. He's also an advisor, newsletter author, and writer for his consulting firm, TheReeder.co.

About Clari

Clari’s Revenue Platform improves efficiency, predictability, and growth across the entire revenue process. Clari gives revenue teams total visibility into their business, to drive process rigor, spot risk and opportunity in the pipeline, increase forecast accuracy, and drive overall efficiency. Thousands of sales, marketing, and customer success teams at leading companies, including Okta, Adobe, Workday, Zoom, and Finastra, use Clari’s execution insights to make their revenue process more connected, efficient, and predictable.

About niche sports documentaries

Niche sports documentaries are by definition about a small, specialized segment of the sports world. And “niche” can be considered as a relative term. So for instance, instead of being about football, baseball, basketball, or soccer, it’s about golf, tennis, boxing or even more niche like rock climbing, fencing, Formula 1 racing, skydiving, etc. 

These documentaries attract and retain viewership because they focus on the drama behind the sports to appeal to more viewers. There’s an emphasis on high stakes, and the character-driven drama helps viewers connect more deeply with the competitors. The documentaries also take the time to teach you about the sport, including the rules, jargon, major competitors and their relationships.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Niche Sports Documentaries:

• Create a piece of fiction. The storytelling in your campaign doesn’t have to be true. Ian says, “You control the narrative, you control the characters, you control everything, and you can tell the exact story that you want, rather than finding the story.” It gives you control to craft a great narrative around your product. Devin says - though it’s not about a sport - The Queen’s Gambit was a piece of fiction and it sold a ton of chess sets. He says, “The best way to promote chess boards is not to tell me about chess boards.” It’s to share the human stories that viewers will relate to and draw them to the product.
• Paint the “before” and “after” picture. Show your prospects the benefits of your product by showing them the struggles and frustrations the product will solve. Make the case for doing business with you by juxtaposing their life before the purchase, and the improvements after. Devin says, “Typically, the execs are so obsessed with their product that they want the case study just to say all the good things that the customer got once they started using the tool, but that's only half of the story. What people really want is conflict, tension, and controversy, because that's what makes a good story. Most case studies don't have the ‘before.’ Who was the customer before? What were the struggles before? What were the feelings that they had before? And then what was the catalyst or the climax of like why decided something had to change? All of that needs to be in your customer stories.”
• Is there an “Oh, sh*t” moment? Devin says when he’s editing content, there needs to be a moment of revelation or relatability or surprise. In other words, you need to make your audience think and engage more deeply about the topic. To feel something. Devin says, “where their eyebrows move because there's something emotional, whether it's confusing - and when I say confusing, I'm thinking like, ‘Oh, I'm not sure I understand that all the way. Let me think through that,’ or it excites them. It has to have some sort of moment like that, because that’s what makes it shareable. That's what makes people want to talk about it. And that's what gets people in the pocket that you want to sell to.”

Quotes

*”There's not really such a thing as ‘too long.’ Because it's not about length; It's about potency and pace. How much value, insight, and actionable tips are in as few words as possible. And is it kind of a breeze to read or a breeze to watch where you're not checking your watch? Like, ‘Oh crap, there's still an hour left in this movie.’” - Devin Reed

*”That hook and that compelling untold story, that's what I like to hear. It infiltrates my head and then I can start to use that in my marketing. We're like, ‘How can I use suspense? How can I use a hook in 30 seconds? How can I shock people and move their eyebrows every two minutes so they stick with me?’ And then when the show's over, they're like, ‘So when's the next thing Devin's putting out? Cause I need more of this.’” - Devin Reed

*”If you press product on people, they don't want to hear it. They mentally unsubscribe.  You’ve got to create content in some way that does what's happening right now, where we are all excited to tell each other about what we're watching or we consumed and how we feel about it.” - Devin Reed

*”When I'm editing content, video, written, pod, whatever,  I'm like, ‘At what point is the payoff?’ When I click that link, there's an automatic timer that starts in your head, even if subconsciously, of ‘When do I get the payoff? When do I get what was promised to me?’” - Devin Reed

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Devin Reed, Director of Content & Thought Leadership at Clari

[2:04] Learn more about Devin’s role at Clari

[2:57] Tell me about Devin’s newsletter, The Reeder

[5:41] Why are we talking about niche sports documentaries?

[8:03] Why are these documentaries remarkable?

[18:36] What are niche sports documentaries?

[26:24] What are marketing lessons we can take from these documentaries?

[33:08] How does Devin get executive buy-in on his content?

Links

Check out niche sports documentaries like Losers on Netflix

Subscribe to Devin’s newsletter, The Reeder

Connect with Devin on LinkedIn

Learn more about Clari

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. 

In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith Gooderham mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

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

Your next campaign is going to go viral. That is, if you use the marketing lessons we’re sharing in this episode of Remarkable.

There’s a recipe basically guaranteed to get you eyeballs, likes, comments…pure and fevered engagement from your audience. 

And we’re taking that recipe from Solo Stove’s viral ad featuring Snoop Dogg. That’s what we’re talking about in this episode of Remarkable with the help of special guest, Chief Evangelist at purple cork, Corrina Owens. Together, we talk about collaborating with an A-list celebrity, creating buzz, and timing your campaign just right.

About our guest, Corrina Owens

Corrina Owens is Chief Evangelist at purple cork. She has over a decade of experience driving revenue for high-growth B2B SaaS organizations and B2C organizations with integrated and multi-channel marketing strategies, building and scaling demand generation and account-based marketing departments, programs, and campaigns from the ground up. She also co-hosts Direct, a podcast that features unsung GTM heroes who make magic happen for their organizations. Corrina is also a GTM Advisor at Navattic, GTM Partners, and Postal.io. Prior to purple cork, Corrina was Senior Manager of ABM and Enterprise as well as podcast host at Gong.

About purple cork

Purple cork was started by former CMOs and go-to-market specialists offering end-to-end event management. They create fun, fresh and professional virtual tastings designed for business value. They’re helping hundreds of leading SaaS and other companies create unique and memorable experiences no matter where they are. They’ve driven over $3 million in closed won revenue from accounts who’ve attended their Taste of Qualified events.

About the Solo Stove

Solo Stove makes a suite of portable, smokeless fire pits and camp stoves, along with a pizza oven and grill, and all the accessories. The unique thing about the Solo Stove is that it’s smokeless. The company explains that it works more efficiently than a traditional fire pit by funneling air through the pit twice for a second burn. So not only is there no smoke, but it also burns hotter. Solo Stove was started by brothers Jeff and Spencer Jan in 2011 as a Kickstarter campaign that raised $15,000. It now has an enterprise value of nearly $500 million after going public in 2021 as Solo Brands. It has also since acquired the brands Chubbies, Oru Kayak and Isle.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From the Solo Stove:

• Aim for the stars. Solo Stove took a big swing when they asked Snoop Dogg to partner with them. And it paid off big. Corrina says, “What we see with B2B brands is that the ones that take big swings and make big bets - those are the ones that are going to stand out from the noise. So what's the risk here when the upside is just so massive? If nothing else, at least Snoop Dogg knows about solo stoves, right?” She adds that “leveraging celebrities that have that kind of vast appeal, but don't have so many endorsements quite yet, I think is the way in for marketers.”
• Spark buzz. On November 16th, 2023, Snoop Dogg posted to his Instagram account that he was “giving up smoke,” and to “respect his privacy at this time.” The post sent his fanbase into pure pandemonium. That is, until four days later when Solo Stove launched their collab with Snoop Dogg. One Snoop fan then responded to his Instagram post, “Got me one and I love it!!! 🔥❤️.” So drop hints and build anticipation for new campaigns, products, features, and services to drive engagement and make your content so remarkable it goes viral.
• Time your campaign right. Solo Stove’s Snoop Dogg campaign launched just days before Thanksgiving 2023 when, Ian says, “everyone is going to be talking around the dinner table and your weird uncle is going to bring up something weird. And you can be like, ‘Hey, did you know that Snoop's giving up smoking? That's crazy!’ Time your campaign launch so that it drops right when people will be together and in the perfect situation to talk about it, whether It be around a holiday or an event.

Quotes

*”Until Solo Stove has some comparable competitors for price point and offering, they really have a unique moment in time to make these big investments and take these really big swings to corner the market even further before potential new competition can catch up.” - Corrina Owens

*”Early into the pandemic, Conan was starting to get more creative with ads where you would hear him do ads, but it sounded like he was just doing a bit. They actually made a summer campfire series with him, his assistant, and his producer. They do it just for Solo Stove, Solo Stove is the only brand that sponsors it. And it's a unique part of their podcast. It's a video series, where it's after dark, they're not in their studio, they're all around the Solo Stove campfire, using it to make marshmallows, using it to keep themselves warm, like actually utilizing and showcasing the product in use, which is very cool.” - Corrina Owens

*”People love events. Going in person and meeting people is always important. But what we learned is that virtual events democratize information and access if you can't be there in person or you can't afford it. Like, if budgets are tight, then you can't go. That's not great. We see this with these massive events and conferences. Budgets are freaking wild for these events. They’re really expensive. And so virtual is one way to solve that.” - Ian Faison

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Corrina Owens, Chief Evangelist at purple cork

[1:21] Why are we talking about Solo Stove?

[1:54] Learn more about Corrina’s role at purple cork

[2:20] What is the Solo Stove?

[10:51] About Snoop Dogg’s ad for Solo Stove

[14:10] How did the Snoop Dogg ad come about?

[16:17] Marketing lessons from the Snoop Dogg x Solo Stove ad

[25:20] Engagement results from Snoop Dogg x Solo Stove ad

[36:38] About how purple cork hosts virtual events

[37:44] What is Corrina’s marketing strategy at purple cork?

[44:22] How does Corrina think about the ROI of content?

Links

Check out the Solo Stove

See Snoop Dogg’s Instagram post about “giving up smoke”

Watch Solo Stove’s ad with Snoop Dogg

Connect with Corrina on LinkedIn

Learn more about purple cork

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. 

In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

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