The Customer Engagement Lab

In this episode, Travis explores one of the greatest PR comebacks in recent history. Airbnb laid off 25% of its workforce and then, 15 months later, IPO'd. And their numbers are better than ever because of really thoughtful and smart leadership. This is a lesson in how to keep your business resilient during tough times. Later, Jed shares his tips for successful outreach when a prospect experiences...

In this episode, Travis sits down with "Ya Boi Tucker" a ridiculous persona created by Senior Brand Marketing Manager, Todd Clouser , from Refine Labs. Together, Travis and Todd explore how Todd creates video content for Refine Labs to build an audience and brand awareness for the explosive marketing agency. Todd explains how he creates his TikToks, what goes into the overarching strategy, and how...

In this episode, Travis, Carmen, & Jed focus on selling and advertising to unaware buyers that have never heard of you or your solution. How do you make them aware? How should you sell to them? How do you get them to notice you To remember you? For our middle segment, Jed Mahrle distinguishes between emailing aware vs. unaware prospects. We learn why his strategy for the unaware works so we...

Travis sits down with Nick Cisko, Customer Experience Lead at PandaDoc to talk about how he works to create a better buying experience for PandaDoc prospects. They discuss how if businesses want to really see, understand, and fix areas of customer friction -- then they need a dedicated CX person with no biases. Stick around for the end of the episode when Nick and I play a fun game to see where...

Travis, Jed, and Carmen give tips and examples of how to research, sell, and advertise against the big competitors in your industry. Travis shares competitive intelligence best practices and PandaDoc's alternative SEO campaign. Jed covers his framework for how to respond to prospects that bring up competitors, and Carmen opens our eyes to real-world examples of when Davids beat the Goliaths with r...

Travis sits down to interview PandaDoc's (former) CMO, Nate Gilmore . They talk about why this change happened and what it means for the future of PandaDoc's marketing efforts. Nate details his perspective on his mistakes, lessons learned, and what he believes the short and long-term marketing plans are for his team moving forward. Together they watch a clip of Dave Gerhardt talking about marketin...

Travis interviews the CEO & Founder of DRINK KATY'S , a hand-crafted coffee + tea company. Their company motto is "Love is brewing," and Katy is a dynamite entrepreneur who shares the ins and outs of starting her business. She went from a $5k loan to 2 Million in sales in a year and a half. She's the queen of caffeine and teaches us how to overcome challenges faced by E-commerce SMBs.

Travis interviews Veronica Swiatek , the CEO & Founder of Massage Studio . Veronica gives Travis details on how she opened her first hospitality business location during a recession. She discusses the strategies and tactics she used to keep cash flowing during tough times to come out on top. Veronica now has two brick-and-mortar locations that are thriving, along with 10 new stores at Tampa In...

Travis chats with Eckerd College Environmental Studies Professor, Joanna Huxster , about how she makes skeptics into believers. Talking about environmental protection and climate change is tricky, and tone is everything. Learn to fix your storytelling abilities, so you inspire hope (rather than fear).

Travis, Jed, and Carmen are all about finding and unlocking the power of patterns. Travis dives into how PandaDoc uses customer data to improve customer engagement, Jed covers his prospecting pattern identification process, and Carmen explores the best co-marketing tag-team patterns.

Travis interviews his former CEO, William Volmuth of PowerChord, Inc. They recount Travis' last day when he quit his job and what that was like with a fun TikTok reenactment. Bill gives Travis tips and advice for businesses looking to improve their in-store traffic with hyper-local digital marketing. They dive into the importance and prioritization of Google My Business verification, SEO audits, a...

Getting a haircut can be awkward because getting touched and pruned by a stranger while forcing small talk is annoying. But when you meet Nicholas Bellaro -- you'll get why his barbershop is growing so quickly that he can't seem to scale fast enough. In this episode, you'll learn how to turn strangers into lifelong customers through nifty customer experiments, lessons, and tactics that Nick's accu...

For most marketers, planning in-person events is not fun. Unless you're Jacob Browne , Dean of Admission at Eckerd College , he lives and breathes marketing events. From campus tours, college fairs on the road, or open houses -- Jake knows all the tricks for crafting memorable in-person events that convert. In this episode, you'll hear both Jake's mistakes and lessons for meeting face-to-face to m...

In this special edition of The Customer Engagement Lab, our host, Travis, assembles a panel of marketing professionals for our first-ever Lessons From the Lab. Cat Lim , Creative Director at Pyper Inc, and Jan Aclan , Marketing Operations Manager at Multiverse.io, join Travis in the studio to discuss recent purchase decisions. For this Lessons from the Lab, we’re going to look at the popular medit...

Reid Anderson, Enterprise Sales at PandaDoc, is back, and this time he’s giving us an inside look at how to successfully sell and work with legal teams. In this episode, we’ll discuss: mistakes companies make when trying to persuade lawyers to ditch their legacy tools for new technology why it’s vital to understand the different types of legal teams to solve their specific pain points the importan...

In this month’s Lessons from the Lab, we try the popular language learning app, Duolingo . We’ll dive into first impressions, brand affinity, microtransactions, and the growing popularity of Kawaii illustrations in tech apps. Cat Lim , Creative Director at Pyper Inc, Jan Aclan , Marketing Operations Manager at Multiverse.io, and Todd Clouser , Lead Brand Marketing Manager at Refine Labs, join Trav...

Are capitalism and creativity in total opposition to each other? Can organizations deliver beautiful, high-quality experiences while rapidly growing? It’s the age-old battle of quality vs. quantity. In this episode of The Customer Engagement Lab, Travis Tyler and Carmen Zita Alayeto-Moore look at both sides of the debate and try to determine how businesses can balance quality and quantity to becom...

Amelia Taylor is (a former) account executive at Carabiner Group with over 10+ years of sales experience. In this episode, Amelia sits down with Travis Tyler to talk about how she remains optimistic, innovative, and creative in cold outreach and follow-up. The seasoned sales vet will evaluate creative outreach approaches like cameo videos and quirky gift-giving and listen in on a few cold calls. B...

Successful nonprofits do something that most tech startups and entrepreneurs try to do but rarely succeed. They tap into genuine human emotion. In this episode, Travis chats with Rachel Barrett , Director of Marketing at Shorecrest Preparatory School , about how she connects the emotional dots of her audience through storytelling, authenticity, and mission-driven messaging. Rachel shares her tips...

Between record-high inflation, supply chain issues, and rapid market changes, to say money is top of mind for consumers and business owners would be an understatement. So, what can businesses do to address their customer’s concerns about pricing without compromising their bottom line? Small business expert Gene Marks joins the show to discuss shrinkflation and other tactics you can use to combat h...

In this episode, Travis is joined in the studio by his former co-host Patrick Downs , Mid-Market Account Executive at Kallidus , and Ryanne Koch (Doumet), Sr. Manager of Customer Success at PandaDoc, for a "healthy" conversation around sales and customer success alignment. We dive into: How to break silos between sales and customer success teams Why you shouldn’t make sales teams responsible for c...

Travis and Patrick kick off the very first episode of The Customer Engagement Lab discussing how LinkedIn is such a cringe-fest. They share two cold emails that recently hit their inbox and what worked well to get a response. The guys also react to KFC's bold marketing campaign from back in December (A Recipe for Seduction). They bring on PandaDoc CEO, Mikita Mikado, to bust open some myths on dig...

Many sales leaders landed their cushy role by being the best rep. So, it makes sense why they are often so resistant to sales frameworks… And why their sales success never scales. Overcoming this impediment is something today’s guest, Scott Leese , CEO & Founder at Scott Leese Consulting , realized was absolutely critical after releasing his own framework Addicted to the Process — along with t...

How do you stand out from the crowd to grab a decision-maker’s attention? Voice memos? Silly voices? Probably not. You stand out with creativity and personalization. And maybe a $50,000 Venmo request... At least, that’ll get Adam Swartz’s attention. Adam is the Director of New Business at Multiply and he joins Travis and Patrick today to discuss the outreach and the channels that can cut through t...

For most of you, one thing is killing your engagement: Your emails are ugly. But they don’t have to be. That’s why today, Patrick and Travis catch up with Will Allred , Co-founder at Lavender , to learn how to stop sending ugly emails that prospects immediately delete.