7 Min Marketing With Pam Didner

Welcome to another episode of B2B Marketing & More. My guest today is Kelly Hungerford, a native Californian living in Switzerland. Kelly’s been in Europe for more than twenty years. Her business experience is vast, and she’s been through a lot of different roles. Kelly worked for the enterprise, then she worked for startups, and back at the enterprise as the Director of Digital Transformation, Strategy and Services for a global oral care brand Sunstar. In this episode: What are the most common challenges of Digital Transformation What is the best way to launch a digital initiative in a company? How to set up digital transformation implementation in an enterprise What is the role of education within a company? What are the most important resources and how to use leverage them? How to use a hypothetical exercise to plan for the future, prepare for disruption, and engage management in the process. What are the elements of a digital transformation plan? How to decide on which technology to use and enable th

Welcome to another episode of B2B Marketing & More. Today, I'm excited because my guest and I will talk about something different; it's not what you would call a typical marketing topic. Meet Catalina de León, a product designer from Buenos Aires, and a proud geek with over 15 years experience in the tech industry. Catalina is obsessed with transforming the digital world into a more beautiful and usable place. Catalina is a Product Designer at Feedly, Design Sprint Facilitator, and founder of Purple Bunny specialized in UX and branding workshops. In this episode: What is the Design Sprint methodology How to use the best tools and methodology for our project How to align remote teams and use Design Sprint most effectively What are some ways to keep remote teams efficient and productive despite different time zones. What tools to use to manage virtual workshops How Design Sprints help bring ideas and thoughts directly into virtual collaboration. What is Design Mindset, Design Thinking and how to use it. Q

Welcome to another episode of B2B Marketing & More. A couple of months ago, I talked about The Business Benefit of Taking a Break, and someone left a comment about it on LinkedIn, which I liked very much. This year hasn't been easy for any of us, and since we are getting closer to 2021, I thought we could all learn how to take a break and make the most out it. So I've decided to do a sequel on the same topic, and I want you to hear what my guest has to say. Meet Jen Carroll, a marketing strategist at Data Dames Marketing, a consultancy she owns together with her business partner Annalisa Hilliard. Jen has been in advertising and marketing since 1996, and she has held both in-house and agency positions - all-around content, social media and media relations. Jen also owned a freelance content marketing business for ten years. In this episode:  •  How to keep the momentum in a crisis, and still enjoying the process, while adjusting a business model.  •  Why it's important to step back from the content creati

Welcome to another episode of B2B Marketing & More. I have a very special guest today. Joining us to talk about how to win back customers and regain their trust, Jay Baer. Jay is founder of Convince & Convert, an author and a speaker. In fact, a great, great speaker that was inducted to the Speaker Hall of Fame by National Speakers Association and has published four books. I think. I lost count. And the last one was Talk Triggers. In this episode: What are the new challenges for marketers What is the role of customer experience in shaping sales How to use the unknown to create new connections and customers' habits In what ways 'the new normal' situation shapes customer needs and behavior What can marketers do to adapt their budgets How to rewire customer relationships using data and information how can businesses adjust to an era of never seeing their customer face to face (ever again) Quotes from the episode: "The most important thing that marketers can do is to understand that in a way that we've

Welcome to another episode of B2B Marketing & More. I am interviewing a special guest from Amazon: Darrell Alfonso. Let’s get started! Darrell has been in B2B marketing for almost ten years. He is the Global Marketing Operations Manager at Amazon Web Services, empowering hundreds of marketers to create exceptional digital experiences for Amazon customers. Darrell is a Marketo Champion and advisor to multiple different Fortune 500 companies. In this episode: What is a marketing automation How to start with marketing automation How can businesses use automation to assist customer journey and improve touchpoints? What are the top challenges in either implementing marketing automation or maintaining it? The importance of understanding technology that businesses need to use What should marketing automation managers do to quantify their impact on revenue How can marketing automation help with obtaining high quality leads for sales How to stay on top of new tech and business skills Quotes from the episode: “Cu

Today I have a special, special, guest. It’s a very good friend, Michael Brenner. And he's a CMO influencer, motivational speaker. He is the owner of the Marketing Insider Group. There's a lot of useful contents regarding content marketing, search marketing. So anything digital marketing related. Michael is also a speaker and author, former marketing leader (SAP, Nielsen, Startups), helping companies attract and win new customers with strategic content.   In this episode: How is the B2B marketing landscape doing as a whole in the changing environment How can marketers use the context to win new customers What are the benefits of sales and marketing alignment and using ABM What should marketers and brands focus on when reaching out to customers How to shift the focus on customer retention When making changes what should marketers do first What questions should marketers ask what should they be doing at a tactical level for 2021 Quotes from the episode: "The best way to get profit is to focus on customers, an

Today I have a very special guest: Jeff Coyle. I’m not going to tell you what he does. I’m going to have him tell his story, and we will be talking about AI and content marketing and AI-based content management tool. Jeff is the co-founder and Chief Product Officer for Market Muse. He’s been in the content strategy, content marketing lead gen and search engine optimization game for about 21 years. Jeff is also one of the first people who were selling leads to B2B technology companies before people even had content, convincing large multinational B2B companies to write white papers and syndicate them. So welcome, Jeff! In this episode: Learn more about Market Muse technology How can you use artificial intelligence to create better content What are the benefits of content marketing created by using AI technology The importance of having content marketing not only written but to tell a story How to use technology to produce content that is connecting with business goals Is there a way to predict how content wil

Hello, everyone! A listener, Ron, sent me a question. He asked me, “Hey, my company doesn't have sales enablement group. Do we need one?” Well, Ron, that's a great question. The need of sales enablement really depends on your sales team and who is doing what to support sales. Chances are, I would say that you already have sales enablement type of functions in your company, but it's really not called sales enablement. Does that make sense? Probably it's part of sales, operations, it's part of marketing or it's part of the product marketing team. They are jobs being done, but it's just not necessarily calling it sales enablement. For example, most of the sales enablement is about training sales how to sell and to know the products or even onboard them when they start. Someone or a group of people are probably already doing that. Right? In some cases, marketers are working very closely with inside sales to supply them messaging, sales collateral, a sales deck, or email templates to enable the sales team. Maybe y

I have a special treat for you today. So rather than listen to me talking, I invited a special guest to join us. Priscilla McKinney, founder of Little Bird Marketing, join us from Galena, Kansas. Priscilla has a degree in Cultural Anthropology, and her work is at the intersection of marketing, business and market research. She is curious about life, people, places, culture and the interconnectivity of it all. Intrigued by human behavior, she asks the hard questions while seeking to understand what makes people engage, why we buy what we buy and how we justify buying it. In this episode: What is social selling and why it's important Why it's essential to focus on your humanity during social selling and how to do that Who is responsible for social selling within the company How to create the right content, in the proper format, and make it available for the audience. In what ways good company culture and talent management affects social selling What is the connection between brand advocacy and social selling.

A big hello from Portland, Oregon. I interviewed Neal Schaffer on my past week’s podcast. What do you think? Like I said, I am planning to juxtapose the episodes of me talking for 7 minutes at a time with guest interviews. Just want to try something new.   If there are guests that you want to hear from, please send me a quick email at hello@pamdidner.com and add the questions you want to ask them. This way, I get a chance to meet new people and you get your questions answered. #winwin I am more than happy to do all the logistics to reach out.   For today, I want to talk about a topic that is not getting much of the spotlight in the marketing landscape: processes and automation workflows. You are like: “Ugh, Pam, can you talk about something that is more sexy and fun? Like how to select creative that will pop? Or what are the tips and tricks to writing catchy headlines? How to run Facebook pay ads that will convert?” Well, if you Google those topics, you’ll find many, many outstanding blogs and videos out ther

I interviewed Neal Schaffer, who is a social media and influencer marketing expert. Neal teaches digital media to executives at Rutgers Business School, the Irish Management Institute (Ireland), and the University of Jyvaskyla (Finland). He is fluent in Japanese and Mandarin Chinese, and he is also the author of 3 books on social media. Neal recently published his fourth book, The Age of Influence, and is already thinking about his fifth book! #Amazing In this episode: Definition of influencer marketing Differences between employee advocacy and influencer marketing. How is influencer marketing different from usual social media and social selling How to encourage the employees to be the brand ambassador, and also being the influencer of their own. Learn more about different levels and spheres of influences What are some specific criteria that can help companies source influencers What should companies do to leverage influencer marketing? Listen to the podcast, get some fresh influencer marketing tips, check

Hello from Portland, Oregon! During the pandemic, many people turn to podcasting or video recording as a creative outlet. I, on the other hand, moved inward and started to focus on my mind and my emotions. I haven't completely shut down or gone off grid. I still work on my client projects. I continued to get on Zoom for business and the personal gatherings. I still create content, but only limited to my monthly webinars and the pre-committed speaking engagements. To manage my emotion and my stress, I made an intentional effort not to worry too much, even though the business has been down. But following that premise willing too much, I took very proactive look of the overall financial health of my business and created a plan for the worst case scenario, such as what if I didn't meet my revenue goal for second half 2020. What should I do? Right. Once I have a plan in place and I know what to do and what I can control, I stopped worrying. Now, if it happens, I have a plan. I know exactly what I need to do. Then

Hello, everyone. Back in October 2019, I recorded a podcast episode. Episode 107: How to Cultivate and Expand Your Strategic Thinking. What I want to do today is to share with you an example of what I did with a client to help her explore more ideas to expand her team’s charter and scope which is one way to help her think differently and drive strategic conversation with VP of her group.   So let’s do a quick review in terms of what I shared with you in EP 107 on how to cultivate strategic thinking. There are a couple thing I mentioned--3 points, if you will.   Think from the perspective of “why and what,” not “how.” Explain that to your management well before you go into details.   Communicate in a way that senior managers can understand. So obviously senior managers care about costs and efficiencies. Or they care about success metrics. So whatever you discuss you need to tie with that so that they can understand how you make an impact to their metrics.   Help senior management connect the dots. Especia

A big hello from Portland, Oregon. I want to talk about something totally different this week. I’ve been going through a lot of changes lately on both the business and the personal levels. Well, all of us are going through a lot of changes. Heck, our country is going through massive change to try to co-exist with COVID-19 safely, and even on how to reform our policing structure after recent protests.   All of us are stressed in our own way. If you have a job and your company is doing well, your managers are asking you to take on more. If you have a job and your company is not doing well, your managers are asking you to do more with less. If you don’t have a job, you are working hard online and offline to find a job. If you are working for yourself like me, you are hustling even more to get additional businesses, because we just don’t know what else is going to happen next and how that will impact our cash flow.   And I am only talking about the professional front that we all have to deal with, I haven’t even

I received an interesting question the other day: “Hey Pam, what is your approach of creating a sales enablement plan?”   Great question. I actually have a workshop on how to create a scalable global content marketing plan. So there are some similarities between creating a marketing plan and a sales enablement plan. The bottom line is certain kind of element, or what I call “the skeleton” of the plans stays the same. So let’s talk about this a little but more.   The first thing I want to get clear is the purpose and the audience of the plan. This is something you should always know. Who are you creating the plan for? And also what is the purpose of the plan? Any plan tends to be for internal communication and usage. We create a plan to get buy-in from management so that we can get budget and headcount and/or we create a plan to rally the internal and external teams so we can move toward the same direction to achieve the same goals.   And most of us create the plan to let management know what we are going to d

Hello, welcome to another episode of B2B Marketing and More. Last week, I said that I had one marketing takeaway from the pandemic. Well, I actually have two.   Let’s talk about what I said last week. I shared that it’s important to update your marketing plan when the economy is opening up. This time around, it’s important to re-evaluate your customer’s behavior changes, understand what behavior changes are permanent, and how they affect customers’ buying decisions and the usage of your products and services. Use that insight to update your buyer personas.   Another element which goes side-by-side with buyer personas is your messaging frameworks. Since the customers’ behaviors have changed, you need to review your messaging frameworks and determine if the value propositions, talking points, positioning need to be changed accordingly.   In the previous podcast, my key marketing takeaway was that you need to refresh and update your buyer personas and messaging frameworks before revising your marketing plan.   S

Welcome to another episode of B2B Marketing and More. I talked to many marketers in the past 6-8 weeks. All of us are looking forward to the re-opening of the economy. Yay! #can’twait   Update the buyer personas and messaging frameworks In the previous episode, I talked about the need to update your marketing plan to align with the reopening. I called out that don’t revise your marketing plan for the sake of revising; you need to understand the behavior changes of your customers which leads to the need to update your buyer personas. B2B customers don’t usually change our behaviors that often so we don’t usually update our buyer personas.   However, I think it’s important to evaluate your customers especially after the pandemic. Understand if there are any behavioral changes you have to take into account. And by the way, the behavioral changes may or may not have an impact on how they use your products. And if there’s a change in how they use your project, another factor you need to look into is your messaging

Hello, welcome to another pandemic episode of B2B Marketing and More. We are finally seeing the light at the end of tunnel as many states are reopening. Yay! So, are you out and about yet? If you are, have a great time and shop until you drop dead. It’s our official responsibility to stimulate the US economy. I am just having fun with you. But definitely shop, but follow the social distancing rules and stay safe. OK?   So, from this whole drama, there is one giant, giant marketing takeaway out of this unfortunate event. It has to do how I help my clients approach marketing planning.   Many of my clients asked me if they should update their marketing plans, Well, now the states are opening, the economy is probably going back to normal and they just went through a round of marketing plan headcount and budget adjustments during the pandemic.   Now people will start spending again, plus, our company’s business objectives and goals have not changed. Can we keep the marketing plan as it is?   Well, the answer is NO

Hi, everyone. Just want to mention that I recorded this episode before the Coronavirus pandemic. This episode is about working with sales on account-based marketing. In the current situation, it’s even more important than ever to align with sales to demonstrate marketing’s value-add.   Yes, it’s been more than a month of shelter-in-place for all of us. I didn’t know that staying-at-home could be so exhausting… I am not going to say that we are in this together. Let’s tough it out together. Enjoy the episode. Be safe and stay healthy, my friends.   Good morning from Portland. I had a coffee with a friend yesterday and she asked me what I’ve been working on. I said that I’ve working with a client on the collaboration between sales and marketing, especially on the account-based marketing (ABM). She asked me how to get that started. Her marketing organization doesn’t work closely with sales and it makes sense that she posed the question.   First of all, ABM is a lot of work. There are plenty of things that market

Ok, what have we not seen in the past six weeks? Well, we’ve seen the stock market collapse and bounce back slightly; we have seen virtual proms. Sorry class of 2020, I know this is a horrible time at this point, probably no graduation and no prom. Hang in there. You guys are fantastic.   We have seen Zoom-style virtual happy hours. Even though we’re stay at home it hasn’t stopped us from drinking. Fantastic! And no, we have to line up to get into Costco or Trader Joe’s. I would never have seen that coming.   And I’d not have guessed that the no.1 most sought-out item during the pandemic would be tp. (Really?! Toilet Paper?!).  I guess it makes sense. It’s kind of like a safety blankie. It kind of makes us feel safe if we pile it up, we feel like we have a control on the environment. It’s a psychological thing.   So, while working from home, are you continuing to make adjustments or starting to look ahead to the adjustments you need to make as marketers post COVID-19? Have you begun to wonder about what behav