The Kula Ring podcast is essential listening for manufacturing marketers who want to grow their digital presence and compete online.
Sponsored by Kula Partners—an agency committed to helping leading B2B manufacturers craft digital experiences that transform how they engage buyers, serve customers, and outpace their competition—The Kula Ring podcast features conversations about marketing, sales, and technology with top manufacturing executives from across North America.
The Kula Ring podcast is co-hosted by Kula Partners principals, Carman Pirie and Jeff W. White, both of whom are frequently sought after for their digitally-focused B2B expertise. They regularly share their insights with audiences including conferences like B2B Online and HubSpot’s INBOUND, the Gardner Manufacturing Marketer blog, and other podcasts focused on B2B marketing and technology.
Episode 66
Engineering a Manufacturing Marketing Skill Set
Featuring Jason Cappiello, Market Intelligence Analyst at Kanthal
In this episode of The Kula Ring, Market Intelligence Analyst Jason Cappiello describes how Kanthal (and its parent company, Sandvik) approaches hiring and developing skilled talent—including marketers with technical backgrounds—for a complex B2B business. He discusses his own journey, which took him from an engineering degree to a sales role to his current manufacturing marketing position.
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Episode 65
How Manufacturers Can Translate “Engineer Speak” Into Benefit-Focused Content
Featuring Lisa Hargrove, Director of Sales and Marketing at LS Industries
Lisa Hargrove, Director of Sales and Marketing at LS Industries, shares with The Kula Ring her approach to taking highly technical content and reframing it in a way that’s accessible and appealing to customers. She also explains why you should never underestimate the effort it takes to write good content as part of a website redesign.
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Episode 64
The Ultimate Five-Factor Model for User-Centric Design
Featuring Yazin Akkawi, founder and principal product designer at MSTQ
MSTQ founder and principal product designer Yazin Akkawi discusses why he has moved away from demographics and toward a five-factor OCEAN model to build more accurate and useful buyer personas, and how user-centric design can enhance the entire customer journey.
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Episode 63
Transform Your Business With Account-Based Marketing
Featuring Sangram Vajre, Co-Founder & Chief Evangelist at Terminus
Sangram Vajre—co-founder of Terminus, the SaaS platform for account-based marketing—discusses how ABM can transform your business on The Kula Ring. Sangram is a leading mind in B2B marketing as host of the FlipMyFunnel Podcast and author of ‘Account-Based Marketing for Dummies’ and ‘B2B is ABM’. He talks with Jeff and Carman about ABM’s strategic nature and how it aligns the goals and metrics of sales and marketing.
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Episode 62
A B2B Manufacturer’s 100% Win Rate With ABM
Featuring Daniel Englebretson, Director, Growth Marketing and Demand Generation at Phononic
Daniel Englebretson—Director, Growth Marketing and Demand Generation at B2B manufacturer, Phononic—shares his account-based marketing process which helped him achieve a 100% win rate in a tier one campaign over 10 months.
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Episode 61
A Manufacturing Brand Integration Playbook
Featuring John Eklund, Vice President, Marketing at ProMach
John Eklund, Vice President of Marketing at ProMach, joins Jeff and Carman on The Kula Ring to discuss his playbook for integrating multiple companies into their house of brands after they are acquired. From collateral updates and cross-selling to websites and a centralized tech stack, learn how ProMach brings their acquired companies into the fold.
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Episode 60
How Journalism Shapes a B2B Marketer’s Approach
Featuring Tracey Rettig, Marketing Specialist at Kistler Instrument Corporation
Tracey Rettig, Marketing Specialist at Kistler Instrument Corporation, joins Jeff and Carman on The Kula Ring to share how her journalism background has helped shape her approach to marketing and communications. She also explains why, as a B2B manufacturing marketer, it’s important to distill technical information into messaging that fits each audience and where they’re at in the buying cycle.
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Episode 59
Meeting Your Customers Where They Are
Featuring Michael Blake, Director of Marketing at KM International
Michael Blake, Director of Marketing for KM International, joins Jeff and Carman to discuss his company’s ecommerce launch, the evolution of their trade show strategy, and how he thinks video will be the differentiator between manufacturers that get ahead and ones that fall behind. In discussing these different marketing and sales tactics, Michael gets at the heart of KM International’s forward-thinking strategy: meeting their customers where they already are.
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Episode 58
How a German-Owned Manufacturer Markets Regionally Within the US
Featuring Jon LaPorta, Vice President, Marketing, Pfannenberg USA
Jon LaPorta, Vice President, Marketing, describes to Carman and Jeff how he has helped transform the marketing at Pfannenberg USA—the American arm of a German-owned manufacturer. Jon’s team works locally in order to appeal to the US market. Although they continue to align with headquarters on content and branding, this has allowed them to implement marketing automation, create their own website, and simplify their messaging.
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Episode 57
Using Video To Build and Strengthen Customer Relationships
Featuring James Stanaway, Director of Marketing, Epilog Laser
James Stanaway, Director of Marketing at Epilog Laser, talks with Carman and Jeff about how video content plays a major role in their marketing strategy. From creating how-to videos that support their customers post-purchase, to co-creating video with customers and showcasing user-generated content, James shares how Epilog has grown its YouTube channel to over four and a half million views—along with how they track each video’s contribution to sales.
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