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 199
Overcoming Cold Feet When Developing B2B Video Content
Featuring Jeff Long, Owner of True Focus Media
The stats around video consumption grow exponentially each year. To what extent should manufacturing marketers care about that? Everyone seems to agree that producing video content should happen and is easier than ever, but taking the plunge feels overwhelming to the point where it doesn’t get done. On this week’s episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff Long, Owner of True Focus Media, shares his approach to developing and distributing industrial marketing video content.
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Episode 198
Predictions on How Manufacturing Marketers Will Adapt to the Changing Economy
Featuring Carman Pirie and Jeff White, Principals at Kula Partners
We don’t have a crystal ball to predict the future, but we can foresee a wave of economic changes. From inflationary pressures and workforce shortages to living with COVID and a looming recession, these factors all have an impact on how manufacturing marketers are approaching their strategy. In this week’s episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman predict how marketers in the manufacturing industry will adapt.
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Episode 197
Peter Piper Picked A Pack Of Phucked Up Personas
Featuring Carman Pirie and Jeff White, Principals at Kula Partners
Are personas too popular? In this edition of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman examine the evolution of buyer personas and their usefulness to B2B manufacturers. How helpful are they anyway? How could they be better? What other approaches might manufacturing marketers use instead? All this and more in Episode 197. We think you’re going to love it.
Listen NowEpisode 196
3 Ways to Improve Your B2B Sustainability Messaging
Featuring Carman Pirie and Jeff White, Principals at Kula Partners
Sustainability is a corporate-led initiative, but marketers are often the ones refining the messaging to resonate with customers. In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman discuss the common pitfalls of sustainability messaging that will either get it lost in the competitive shuffle or be ignored by the sales team. We also explore how to overcome those challenges so that internal and external stakeholders understand how your sustainability initiatives impact them.
Listen NowEpisode 195
Don’t Talk to My Customers
Featuring Carman Pirie and Jeff White, Principals at Kula Partners
Almost everyone agrees that talking to customers is a good idea, but sometimes manufacturers find that one particular department seems to stand in the way: sales. Salespeople functioning as customer gatekeepers can be a real problem. In this episode of The Kula Ring, Jeff and Carman explore how manufacturers can move past a culture of gatekeeper salespeople towards a future where serving customers is a team sport.
Listen NowEpisode 194
Influencer Marketing and a Cross-Platform Approach to Organic Engagement
Featuring Eddie Saunders, Marketing Manager of FlexArm, a division of Flex Machine Tools
Thinking outside the box and getting weird is what today’s guest is all about. Eddie Saunders, Marketing Manager for FlexArm, a division of Flex Machine Tools, discusses his cutting-edge marketing strategies to get Flex Machine Tools noticed by the right people. He explains his cross-platform approach and discusses his use of video-based social media platforms including YouTube and TikTok. He dives deep into building relationships with influencers to add value to his products online presence.
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Episode 193
Building a Voice of Customer System to Enhance Customer-Centric Decision Making
Featuring Cynthia Kellam, Global Senior Director, Digital, Data and Customer Experience Center of Excellence at TE Connectivity
In today’s episode, we chatted with Cynthia Kellam, Global Senior Director, Digital, Data and Customer Experience Center of Excellence at TE Connectivity, again to discuss how collecting and using digital data can create better customer experiences. She explains their journey of building a better Voice of Customer system to help all business units in TE Connectivity make customer-focused decisions. Cynthia explains how she avoids survey fatigue, uses automation techniques, and visualizes data for actionable success.
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Episode 192
A Funnel Approach to Refining Innovative Products
Featuring Chris Witt, Vice President and General Manager of Portfolio Solutions at Tektronix
Solving your customers’ problems and creating a product they’ll want to purchase is at the forefront of all research and development departments. In today’s episode, Chris Witt, Vice President and General Manager of Portfolio Solutions at Tektronix, sits down with us to review his funnel approach to innovation and how it drives the process of developing the right products for his market. He explores how they understand their customers’ problems to approach the launch of their refined disruptive products.
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Episode 191
Bridging the Organizational Data Gap to Build Better Decision-Making Tools
Featuring Ryan Knox, Co-founder of Bridge Digital
Digging into data and exploring technology to undercover insights in your organization is vital to operations efficiency. Ryan Knox, Co-founder of Bridge Digital explores the use of digital tools to create efficiency in all areas of an organization from IT, Marketing, Sales, and more. He discusses the benefits of extracting data vs. using specific tools to help organizations get results that helps them do their job better and the importance of creating excitement for internal change when implementing new technologies.
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Episode 190
Identifying Customer Needs for Increased B2B eCommerce Functionality
Featuring Mike Powers, Director of eCommerce and Digital, at Alaska Rubber Group
Customer experience can define how your product is sold online. Mike Powers, Director of eCommerce and Digital at Alaska Rubber Group, explains how organizations can identify platforms for B2B functionality to make the customer research and buying experience a positive one. He explains the importance behind product data in online listings and how it correlates with more revenue in distribution channels. Mike Powers reveals how companies can incorporate strategy in eCommerce for their potential customers to discover product information for themselves.
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