Joe Sullivan has been making his mark on B2B marketing for well over a decade. He’s the Founder of Gorilla76, an industrial marketing agency that helps mid-sized B2B manufacturers identify, attract, engage, and drive sales opportunities with ideal-fit customers. Most recently, he launched The Manufacturing Executive Podcast, a show focused on conversations with passionate manufacturing leaders who have compelling stories to share about their successes and struggles.
In this episode, Joe gives us a thorough crash course in marketing for industrial clients. We debunk some common misconceptions around marketing before Joe shares Gorilla76’s Industrial Marketing Roadmap strategy. The best content comes from the minds of your experts, and we’ll cover how to extract knowledge to create material that solves your customers’ problems and draws in new clients. From budgeting to pillar content to social media, we’ll cover plenty of strategies that will turn your marketing from an expense into a sales-generating machine.
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3 Quick Things from this Episode
- Marketing should not be about “Me, Me, Me!” It should be a platform that highlights the challenges and needs of the market and how your company can solve those problems.
- When developing an Industrial Marketing Roadmap, focus on the big picture before focusing on individual marketing tactics.
- Content creation should be seen as “knowledge extraction.” Take the experiences of your experts and turn it into blog posts, videos, and other mediums that drive engagement.
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Tweetable Quotes
- “The best content is going to come from the brains of your experts.” –Joe Sullivan
- “Facilitating knowledge extraction and producing content is the role of the marketer.” –Joe Sullivan
Please Scroll Down for Full Show Notes and Recommended Resources from this Episode
Do you want to connect with other leaders that are moving the needle in manufacturing everyday? Then make sure to join us in the Manufacturing Happy Hour Industry Community on LinkedIn.
Concept Systems Inc. is an independent systems integrator and your automation solution partner for anything from antiquated control system retrofits to greenfield controls coordination and project management. Learn more about them on Episode 7 of Manufacturing Happy Hour.
Interested in generating leads through videos, podcasts, or other digital content? Then make sure to check out our 6 Strategies for Growing Your Manufacturing Business Using Social Media.
What We Discuss with Joe
- We open the interview with a quick conversation about Midwestern craft beers.
- Joe debunks some common misconceptions around marketing. It should not be viewed as an expense for maintaining brand equity, but rather a driver of sales. Use it to get your areas of unique expertise in front of your total addressable market.
- An Industrial Marketing Roadmap is the tool Joe uses with his clients to develop a content plan. Win at what you’re best at; pick a few focus areas of expertise, identify buying process influencers, and build a marketing plan and content strategy around the challenges they’re facing and how you can solve them.
- Joe discusses marketing budgets and when to leverage internal resources or work with an agency.
- For content, create a bank of assets (written content, podcasts, videos, etc.) and build inbound and outbound campaigns around them.
- What metrics should you pay attention to? Joe discusses the different between lead generation and brand marketing and why you need both. Look at hard metrics like revenue as well as leading indicators like increases in web traffic to measure the short- and long-term effectiveness of your marketing.
- We dive deeper into content creation in the second half of the interview. Specifically, Joe defines content creation as “knowledge extraction,” where the best content comes from the brains of your experts.
- Joe shares an example of creating strong pillar content that ranks well for a relevant keyword, comparing it to “owned” vs. “rented” land (i.e. paid advertising).
- In our conversation about social media, Joe focuses on LinkedIn and the power of amplifying content through the people that work for your company.
- We discuss Joe’s new podcast – The Manufacturing Executive – how the show is going, and why you shouldn’t wait for perfection when it comes to creating and releasing content.
Recommended Resources
- Gorilla76, an industrial marketing agency that helps mid-sized B2B manufacturers identify, attract, engage, and drive sales opportunities with ideal-fit customers
- The Manufacturing Executive Podcast, Joe Sullivan’s new show focused on conversations with passionate manufacturing leaders who have compelling stories to share about their successes and struggles
- Lakefront Brewery, a long-standing craft brewery in Milwaukee, WI
- 4 Hands Brewing, the best craft brewery in St. Louis, MO and possibly the world
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