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 135
Bringing ABM to Every B2B Marketing Campaign
Featuring Gladys Fernandez, Marketing Director, Demand Generation at Hitachi ABB Power Grids.
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 for creating pilot ABM campaigns and scaling efforts to larger accounts.
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Episode 134
How a B2B Manufacturer Successfully Sells on Amazon
Featuring Melissa Monteith, former Channel Marketing Leader, Retail Channel Lead for Fluke Corporation.
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 experience and shares advice for maintaining brand control and meeting other common challenges that arise when hosting a B2B channel on Amazon.
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Episode 133
How Engineers Contribute to a Successful B2B Content Strategy
Featuring Joana Rodrigues, Marketing Manager at Times Microwave Systems.
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 customer. She provides advice for how to create content from engineering expertise and how to approach engineers, who are typically skeptical of marketers, with your strategy.
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Episode 132
Building a Better B2B Marketing Strategy with New Technology
Featuring Dan Ricklefs, Vice President of Marketing at Precision Pulley & Idler (PPI).
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 successful acquisitions. He discusses his playbook for creating marketing strategies, how the company is evolving its marketing tech stack, and the significance of adopting marketing technology as a tool for knowledge transfer to address upcoming retirements.
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Episode 131
How Podcasting Creates Value for an Electrical Distributor
Featuring Chris Grainger, Engineering and Services Manager at Electrical Equipment Company (EECO) and host of the EECO Asks Why Podcast.
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 service teams and how the podcast has led to more content marketing initiatives.
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Episode 130
Understanding Customer Use Cases to Inform Product Marketing
Featuring Fin Watterson, Director of Product Marketing at Stratasys.
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 discusses how Stratasys worked with one customer to develop marketing messaging around their application use case.
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Episode 129
Optimizing Marketing Initiatives to Get Closer to the Customer
Featuring Mike Kazmierczak, Vice President of Marketing, Digital Energy & Buildings End Market at Schneider Electric.
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 Electric is changing roles across the company to cater to customer types and personas and how this structure impacts the marketing content they produce.
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Episode 128
How a Manufacturer Adapted Relationship Selling for Virtual Environments
Featuring Ryan Carley, Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Mason Controls.
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 tactics, and where he thinks relationship selling is going as virtual connections continue to be the norm.
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Episode 127
Using LinkedIn to Build Relationships that Lead to Business
Featuring Robert Johnson, General Manager and Business Development at MAC Prefab.
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 on a daily basis.
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Episode 126
How Distributors Can Support Manufacturers’ Digital Growth
Featuring Sean Donovan, Digital Channel Manager for the Americas at MSA – The Safety Company.
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 shares examples of how distribution channels can help manufacturing brands come to life and provide value beyond the spec sheet.
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