The Kula Ring

In this week’s episode, co-hosts and Kula Partners principals, Jeff White and Carman Pirie, talk about niche orientation marketing. They talk about the Niche Navigator, a model and exercise they created to assess and understand where businesses fall ranging from low to high niche market orientation. Listeners can look forward to learning examples of niche market orientation, learn pitfalls that co...

In this week’s episode, we have guest Jeff Norgord, the Marketing and Creative Director at Gardner Business Media. Jeff talks about the value that media solutions can bring to industrial manufacturing—including increasing brand awareness through a multi-channel approach and helping manufacturers tell more impactful, visual stories. Jeff talks about the importance of print and how it connects with...

How is selling into science different than your typical B2B approach? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jarett (Jay) Nickerson, VP of Sales and Marketing at C-Therm Technologies, discusses how they use problem-specific content and product-specific content for marketing and selling into science within different industries. He also describes the impact of the pandemic on how virtual demos are conduc...

Wade Prue, Kula’s Director of Operations, discusses the importance of fostering a culture of quality assurance testing for marketing teams within manufacturers. Learn how to apply QA thinking to any marketing initiative in the manufacturing organization.

Kula’s Director of Strategy, Laura Hawkins explains the benefits of archetypes for manufacturing brands. While the cohesive messaging and marketing models may seem obvious to those familiar with the application of Jungian archetypes, it’s the additional brand power and bottom line impact that truly makes them useful for standing out in a sea of competitors with increasingly consistent brand pillar...

Continuing our showcase of the Kula Partners team, Craig Edis, Creative Director, discusses the central role of design in modern marketing for manufacturers. Drawing on more than 17 years of experience, Craig shares insights about what goes into developing outstanding brands, why user testing and visitor analysis is so valuable, and how to always design with the end-user in mind.

In another showcase of the Kula Partners team, Floyd Blaikie, Senior Strategist, explains how manufacturing marketers can benefit from developing a strategy with multi-year goals before getting started with ABM. Then with this roadmap, they can better align with sales to gain early wins. Floyd also provides tips on avoiding common ABM missteps.

Jeff and Carman have invited members of the Kula Partners team to showcase their capabilities and provide some tips and tricks to The Kula Ring audience.

How can manufacturing marketers apply inbound methodology to the point where multiple departments rely on it? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Yazz Krdzalic, VP of Marketing at Trenton Systems, who is a self-described Hubspot fanatic, talks about how HubSpot has helped align the marketing, sales, and service teams at his organization to grow their customer pipeline, and serve customers better.

How do you inform customers what makes your company special in a way that they will actually care about? In this episode of The Kula Ring, David Gerson, Director of Marketing for TK Elevator, talks about how storytelling in manufacturing can create content that connects with customers, and shows them why your solution personally makes sense for them compared to the competition.

In order to understand the needs of B2B prospects and reach them through marketing, how can you provide a helpful experience? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Tracy Swartzendruber, the Marketing Leader of the Power Generation and Oil & Gas division at GE Digital, talks about how UX, cultural language, and feedback can help align your marketing with the ever-evolving needs of customers.

How can B2B manufacturers scale their account-based marketing (ABM) campaigns? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Gladys Fernandez, the Director of Marketing and Demand Generation at Hitachi ABB Power Grids, talks about how she helped establish ABM at the manufacturer, from initial pilot campaigns to having every marketing campaign designed with an account-based approach. She shares best practices...

Should B2B manufacturers sell on Amazon, or do the challenges of maintaining control over branding and pricing outweigh the benefits? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Melissa Monteith, the former Channel Marketing Leader, Retail Channel Lead for Fluke Corporation, shares how the company successfully sells on Amazon. She talks about leveraging product content and integrating it with the Amazon exp...

Manufacturing marketers are skilled translators, often facilitating conversations between a buyer or engineer for another company. In this episode of The Kula Ring, Joana Rodrigues, Marketing Manager at Times Microwave Systems, talks about how her engineering background has helped her create successful marketing content that bridges the gap between the internal engineering team and the end custome...

For many manufacturers, the drive to build out their organization internally has been strong for the last five or more years in response to a rapidly-changing marketing and sales landscape. In this episode of The Kula Ring, Dan Ricklefs, Vice President of Marketing at Precision Pulley & Idler (PPI), talks about how the organization is expanding its marketing infrastructure after a series of succes...

How can manufacturers participate in podcasting in a valuable way? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Chris Grainger, Engineering and Services Manager at Electrical Equipment Company (EECO) and host of the EECO Asks Why Podcast, reflects on how the success of the podcast has impacted the organization. He talks about how the podcast has helped integrate the organization’s marketing, sales, and servi...

Some manufacturing marketers need to help customers envision how to use their solution while also learning how customers use their products. This week on The Kula Ring, Fin Watterson, Director of Product Marketing at Stratasys, talks about the role of a product marketer in a manufacturing organization, translating product information from the engineers and builders for customers. Additionally, he...

How can manufacturers use customer trends to inform their marketing decisions during critical changes in the marketplace? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Mike Kazmierczak, Vice President of Marketing, Digital Energy & Buildings End Market at Schneider Electric, shares how he’s using data and voice of the customer to optimize new marketing initiatives. Additionally, he discusses how Schneider Ele...

As trade shows and conferences continue in virtual forms for the foreseeable future, manufacturers must identify ways to optimize relationship selling. In this week’s episode of The Kula Ring, Ryan Carley, Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Mason Controls, talks about how relationship selling has changed for his team during the pandemic, how they are adapting the sales process with new remote...

How do you cut through the noise on LinkedIn? Robert Johnson, General Manager and Business Development at MAC Prefab has close to 45,000 contacts on LinkedIn and has discovered how to keep them engaged. Building relationships on the business-focused social media platform has led to several successful business opportunities for Robert and MAC Prefab—especially since he started spreading positivity...

As manufacturers adapt to a digital-first product experience, how can industrial distribution channels evolve to add value to the chain? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Sean Donovan, Digital Channel Manager for the Americas at MSA – The Safety Company, says most manufacturers are interested in investing in distribution channels that want to grow their brand versus commoditize their products. He...

During an ERP rollout, manufacturing marketers in small and medium- sized enterprises often find themselves on the outside looking in. Sam Gupta, Principal Consultant at ElevatIQ, says marketers should be integrated into ERP initiatives because of their unique ability to identify new products and new markets. In this week’s episode of The Kula Ring, Sam talks about what marketers bring to the tabl...

Manufacturers who offer a broad range of solutions rely on face-to-face conversations with prospects in order to find the best fit, but the pandemic has reshaped the sales relationship into a virtual experience. In this week’s episode of The Kula Ring, Brian Wellhouse, Supplier Marketing Manager for Sensor Products at TTI, talks about how virtual prospecting drives the conversation to be more acti...

Video marketing is not new, but many B2B manufacturers are still searching for a strategy. In this episode of The Kula Ring, Allison Wagner, Marketing Communications Manager at Morrison Container Handling Solutions, shares how she helped make video the company’s biggest marketing tool. She talks about the resourcing effort, why video is important for manufacturers to invest in, and how Morrison le...

Like many B2B manufacturers, ARCA sells to a small number of very specific niche markets. Targeting a small list of banks and credit unions who could benefit from ARCA's cash automation and recycling solutions, their marketing team crafted highly personalized one-to-one account-based marketing campaigns and successfully generated awareness and opportunities within key accounts. Learn how ARCA succ...