Whoa! Core Strengths and Soulmate Customer’s? That’s a Digital Game Plan!
Discover how Digital Game Plan core strengths and soulmate customers can help manufacturers create a more focused marketing strategy. In this episode of Stop Being the Best Kept Secret, Curt Anderson and Damon Pistulka welcome Allison DeFord, Founder of FELT Marketing for Manufacturers, to explore why companies need to understand what they do best and who values those strengths most. Allison shares how manufacturers can uncover core strengths through the eyes of their customers, narrow their ideal buyer persona, and create marketing that connects on a deeper level. The conversation also explores emotional branding, authentic storytelling, AI in marketing, and why successful marketing should become a connected system rather than a series of one-off campaigns. See how the Digital Game Plan can help manufacturers cut through the clutter, identify their Soulmate Customers, and focus on helping the right customers succeed.
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Transcription
Allison DeFord 00:01
The band’s back. Hey,
Curt Anderson 00:02
but the band is back together. Hello there. Welcome to Stop Being the Best Kept Secret. What an amazing, incredible, wonderful guest that we have today. We have the Alec Baldwin, the Steve Martin of the Stop Being the Best Kept Secret show, Allison Afford. How are you?
Allison DeFord 00:21
I’m good. How are you?
Curt Anderson 00:23
Awesome, Damon, dude. You get a good night’s sleep for this one.
Damon Pistulka 00:26
Yep, I’m ready.
Curt Anderson 00:27
You’re ready, rock and roll. All right, we’re gonna go fast and furious. Allison DeFord, for our friends out there, just give a little insight. Who is Allison to Ford? How are you making the world a better place? And then we’re gonna dive into. We have got some really juicy content to dive into today.
Allison DeFord 00:42
Hey, you know what? Helping manufacturers stop wasting money on marketing that doesn’t grow your business. So, communicating more effectively and with heart, and that starts with what we’re going to talk about today, and how I’m making the world a better place is to help manufacturers grow, to strengthen the heart and soul of this industry because it’s, I feel like the backbone of this country, and globally, and the people, the stories fills me with joy, and I want to help spread that.
Curt Anderson 01:22
Oh my goodness, Damian! I’m ready to get the Kleenex out. And so, in the name of the company, how did you come up with the name of the company? By the way,
Allison DeFord 01:31
well, we realized that your brand, a memorable, successful brand, isn’t just seen and heard; it’s felt. It makes an emotional connection with the heart of your ideal customer, and it does it over and over and over again. And we just-it was like light bulb moment standing in the back yard. We actually had this cool industrial building with a backyard, and we’re standing out there, and it was like we have to change our name. We have to rebrand because we want to lead by example. This is what people also want. So we wanted to mirror our ideal customer and what they were looking for, and we wanted to do it starting with our name.
Curt Anderson 02:16
Nice, brilliant. And what I love is that you you’re you’re not talking the talk. You walk the walk, my friend. And so, what I have learned a ton from you. We’ve done multiple, all sorts of things for many, many years together, and I have learned so much on what is like focusing on your core strengths. And what is that noise?
Allison DeFord 02:40
Sorry, that would be my assistant.
Curt Anderson 02:47
Nice. So, all right. So we’re focusing on course ranks. We’re diving into the ideal buyer persona. Let’s dive in. And question for you, my friend. Now you’re also you’re the executive director, I believe, at a nonprofit. Do I have that correct?
Allison DeFord 03:04
I am at the North American Forest Foundation. Yeah.
Curt Anderson 03:07
And all right, tell us a little bit on this. is a great organization. Just share with folks what is the we call it NAF. NAF, right?
Allison DeFord 03:16
Yep. NAF.
Curt Anderson 03:17
What what is the what’s the premise here?
Allison DeFord 03:20
Well, you know, I’d always wanted to be part of something bigger than myself, and so the opportunity arose seven years ago. So I applied, and I’d been around the industry, wood and wood products, for about 30 years in my former married life, and it just seemed like a great fit because I love the people, and I love the truth that you know we all grew up believing that it’s bad to cut trees. You know, if you want to be environmental, don’t cut any trees. Choose an alternative, you know, for your floor that’s laminate, plastic. Plastic so much better than wood, and when I learned the science behind the truth, and saw the research and saw the data, I went, “This is all wrong. And so, this organization is all about spreading the truth about trees to kids through education, getting them excited about the fact that wood is in just about everything we use, from your chewing gum and your shampoo to obviously your furniture, your house, etc. And the fact that wood stores carbon for its lifetime, even after it’s turned into a product, it’s still storing the carbon. So this is the most renewable resource on Earth, and the misnomer is that we all learned is that we’re running out. This is not the rainforest, my friends. In North America, we have more trees today than we had 100 years ago because of responsible forest stewardship, and. And you know we’re not talking about oh chop down all the national forests. No, no, no. Thinning them would be a good idea to prevent wildfires. However, that’s a different topic. Yeah, but utilizing these forests and this product is one of the most renewable things we can do on Earth, and and we’re not running out anytime soon. It’s we we never will based on our responsible practices. So it’s very exciting to be a part of it.
Damon Pistulka 05:30
Yeah,
Curt Anderson 05:31
that is awesome, Damon. What do you got?
Damon Pistulka 05:33
It’s cool to see. I mean, where I live, I can I if I drive out to the coast, I can go through literally 100 plus miles of forest, where you see this is five years old, this is 20 years old, this is 40 years old, and it is cool as heck because it’s just like you said, you don’t think of growing trees like growing corn or something like that, but that’s what they’re doing all day long every day. And you see where they’ve cut it down and re re planted and more trees back in again, and it’s just going to continue the cycle.
Allison DeFord 06:05
Yeah, and it’s the I just quickly people think it’s deforestation; it’s actually reforestation on steroids. So, yeah, so we want to spread the truth and get kids excited, and also about careers in the industry, because it’s an opportunity where they don’t need a degree and debt necessarily to work in an amazing industry and make a great living. So,
Curt Anderson 06:32
well, this is phenomenal, and kudos to you! What a great organization, and so you do a great job here. And so, all right, we’ve got the digital game plan, and so what I’d love for you to share is your expertise. So, going through the digital game plan, the first point we start with is what are the absolute core strengths of the organization, and as you mentioned, clear elementary school focus, 1 million kids goal signal scale, right? Connects forestry, and so how about what are you seeing here, Allison? And when you go down this list here, does this kind of like what’s going through your mind?
Allison DeFord 07:08
Yeah, well, no. First and foremost, if anybody watching or listening has not used the digital game plan yet, you should because it’s brilliant, and I hate to admit that because I wish I came up with it, but my good buddies here did, so we have to give credit where credit is due.
Curt Anderson 07:30
Well, you’re you’re in the footnotes because there’s a lot of Allison and there there’s touches of Allison all throughout this. So there’s so I will be
Allison DeFord 07:37
receiving a check soon.
Curt Anderson 07:39
You absolutely yes. Now now even though even though our tool even though it’s completely free but yes you will be you’ll be getting residual and I will get warm
Allison DeFord 07:49
fuzzies the previous
Curt Anderson 07:50
might actually retire someday so how’s that
Allison DeFord 07:52
but yeah no it captures the strengths beautifully and this is what is so helpful if you are a manufacturer because that’s who I work with majority of the time, and you want to figure out what are we really good at, and and this is a because a lot of times I think you’re too close to it, so I think that’s what this tool does is it helps you see and recognize some of the things that you are really good at in the eyes of your audience, that’s the caveat.
Curt Anderson 08:25
And do you? I I don’t. I’m putting you on the spot. You had a wonderful epiphany on one of your board meetings. I don’t know if you want to go there or if that was like more private. But I, I was really. Do you want to? Do you want to share that epiphany that you had? Like, and again, this is like leaning into your core strengths, and it ties in here with the digital game plan and those opportunities. Share. Are you comfortable sharing that epiphany that you had earlier this year?
Allison DeFord 08:47
I don’t. I don’t know if I remember which one. So
Curt Anderson 08:49
remember, it was the nostalgia. Remember that the old the old commercial. Oh,
Allison DeFord 08:53
yes. Well, this was recent, and we had been putting out this back to school campaign, right, where we want to raise money every year to help recreate our truth about trees kits because they’re very expensive and we send them to teachers for free. So I kept thinking and thinking, you know, every year we come up with this kid-like, elementary-looking school, back to school, looking art, art, design, and I thought, you know what, we need to do something different. And I went back to, who are we trying to connect with? Who is our soulmate, right? As you guys say, and I thought it’s people my age. It’s people our age, right? Gen X. We are. These are the people who are our donors, and and also millennials. And so I thought, well, what was back to school like when we were kids? It was a really fun time. You know, we talked about this. Where like, I grew up in Indiana, so I can poke a little fun at this. But like, going to Sears and getting back to school clothes and some cool Tufkin jeans was like, yeah, I thought I was so cool. You were, yeah, cool, and and like getting new tennis shoes and your trapper keeper folder and and your pens and pencil like it was so cool. You started fresh, right? It was an exciting time, and I just all I was flooded with these memories. And I’m telling you, I have a lot of of creative epiphanies either when I’m in the shower or when I’m sleeping, and it’s right before I wake up. It’s like a dream, and not a bad fever dream, but a really good dream. And I had this vision of my class pictures, right? That I grew up with, and and just how looking back at those, and I thought, that’s it. We’ve got to go back with like a 70s, 80s vibe, and to connect with the good memories that we had as kids, because with that’s what our donors had. That’s when they were kids, and so we did. We came up with. We did a lot of research, and then I always know something has legs in in on the design and marketing side. When I, it’s something that just I can keep building on and adding legs. And so this back to school campaign is going on right now, and anybody can go to NorthAmericanForestFoundation.org and look for back to school in the main nav, and you’ll see the page that has this. Well, in the emails I’ve been sending out, I’m going to show you guys this. I dug this out of the garage.
Damon Pistulka 11:54
All right,
Allison DeFord 11:56
and put this lovely school photo with yours truly. Yeah, I’m embarrassing myself right now. In the emails, and then we’re gonna share board members, our board members’ school photos in yes. That’s
Damon Pistulka 12:18
awesome.
Allison DeFord 12:19
These each each week with these emails to really give it it because personal experience and story that’s what connects with people and so I said in this latest email sometimes you got to embarrass yourself to make a point
Damon Pistulka 12:36
yeah
Allison DeFord 12:37
that’s how I let off the email and I said this is one of those times, I do
Curt Anderson 12:41
it daily, so I do it every day. Well, it it
Damon Pistulka 12:44
really brings us together about understanding your customer very well, because and you know when we start to look at how your strengths and opportunities and the so what ties into okay who who are the kinds of companies that we want to look at when we go through the rounding the bases, and then we develop the soulmate around it, that soulmate you really dove into the soulmate and understood and got into their mind and really understood what will connect with them, and because you know you get one of those as someone that’s 4050, 3040, 50 years old, we all think of going to school, whatever it was. It might be seventh grade, it might be third grade, whoever knows what grade it is. But you think of the back to school experience.
Allison DeFord 13:29
Yeah, and and like I said, I know something has legs when I can then build on it because I’m a fan of a holistic system, right? Not just a one off.
Speaker 1 13:39
Yeah, those
Allison DeFord 13:40
can be great, but each thing that we do as a company, I always encourage this. I’ve preached it for years. Needs to build on the next thing, and the next thing, and the next thing, so that it’s this holistic thing. It’s not just ah, we’ll throw spaghetti at the wall with this campaign and see if it sticks. Not sustainable. So quickly, the thing that I’m excited about is after this campaign, I started thinking about those old PSA ads that we would see as kids, whether it’s on TV, you know, the Indian crying that that were ruining the environment. Those were meaningful and impactful, and I remember those as a kid. And so, what we’re gonna do next with this ’70s, ’80s vibe is we’re gonna create this PSA style poster campaign that we flip those myths on their ear of you know, don’t cut trees, save the environment. It’s like no, no, no, cut trees responsibly, save the environment, and and really flip it. And so that’s something we’re going to be rolling out right afterward, and then have the poster series available that people can. Teachers, businesses, people can download. So again, it’s something relatable that when you were a kid, you were like, “I remember stuff like that that had an impact on me. Yeah,
Damon Pistulka 15:11
and that’s interesting, Curt. Where you got pulled up in the opportunities? Use myth busting as a content engine.
Curt Anderson 15:17
Yeah, that’s that’s the thing is like what exactly what you’re describing, Allison? What’s super cool is like when you lean into like what you’re absolutely best at, you get behind that mission. And again, you might be, hey, wait a minute, I thought we’re talking manufacturers. You know, like so any of our friends out there that are with a manufacturing association or like this this this organization completely supports the wood manufacturing industry. So the thing is, you know, right? Like everything that Allison’s saying, build a stronger parent-facing narrative, explain skills gap to educator terms, you know, create wooden material decision guide literacy through floor, you know, carbon literacy. So there’s all sorts of things, and it doesn’t matter, you know, you’re selling a widget, you’re bending metal, you’re cutting steel, whatever it might be, it’s like how can you uncommoditize? Is that a word, Allison? Did I just make a word now? How do you uncommoditize your business? I know we need to wrap up here. I know we need to wrap up here. Allison, share with us. All right, I’m going to go into the the buyer persona. We call them soulmates. This would be a soulmate for your wonderful, incredible organization. This is Megan. Talk to us a little bit about, and then take us home. Why is understanding that soulmate customer, that buyer persona? Why is that just so critical when you start your marketing process?
Allison DeFord 16:37
Well, think about it. In years past, right, we would walk into a business and work with them, and we’d say, “Who is your ideal customer, right? Who would be your soulmate? And they look at you and they say, “Like I’ll give an example, architects. And I and I I knew where this was going. They didn’t yet. Wink, wink. So I said, I would say architects, great. All architects, yes, all architects are our ideal soulmate. And I’d say okay. So architects that do, and I would start expanding. Do they do residential? Oh well, no, they mostly do commercial. Oh, okay. So so not going to go through this whole thing. So we narrow it down, and then it would we would come to find out that they only work on eco friendly or green buildings, and they only are in this region. And so by the time you really dial it in. Who, how many architects will we need to speak to?
Damon Pistulka 17:46
Yeah,
Allison DeFord 17:46
it’s not a million. It’s not 500,000. It’s maybe 500 specialty architects that are in these areas. Then you can dive into well, what do these people care about what’s important to them? What’s a day in their life like, and why do we want to know this? Because if you’re communicating, excuse me, with someone, and you’re trying to speak their language, this is a lot. This is why I love the fact that you guys call this a soulmate because it mirrors dating, which I got to do recently digitally. Such a lovely experience, but it’s true, right? If you are looking for just anybody out there, sky’s the limit, and that algorithm is going to feed you some crap. For example, in the dating world, and you’re just going to have to sift through, sift through. Nope, not him. Nope, not him either. Looking for that diamond in the rough, right? Swipe right, swipe rights, swipe right. So, what the digital game plan does in helping you find your ideal soulmate is it cuts through all the clutter, so you can really find the ideal person or people that would be the best fit for to work with you, who would be desirous of what you do, but how you do it. See, so now we’re connecting on a deeper, more emotional level, and it makes it so much easier to then build your strategy and your content and communicate two-way, two-way communication with your ideal customer, and then turn them into a customer, and then continue supporting and nurturing them for years, hopefully. So it’s this ongoing cycle. It’s not a one-off. We’re not trying to shout at people. We’re marketing on behalf of and for them. So I’m sorry, I threw a whole lot of stuff in there.
Damon Pistulka 20:03
That was good. That was
Curt Anderson 20:04
a drop of mic right there on behalf for them.
Damon Pistulka 20:09
Yeah, that is such a
Curt Anderson 20:10
different, you know. And that’s and we’ll close out on this, Allison. And that’s why you know we love and you know I’ve learned so much for you. You have so many. First off, before we wrap up, connect with Allison on LinkedIn. Hey, why you’re at it? Connect with Damon. Connect with myself. We’d love to hear what you have going on. And you know, we we have instead of the buying journey, always hear like, “Hey, what’s the buyer’s journey? What’s the buyer’s journey? Nobody wants to buy, but people love to be successful, right? So instead of that buyer journey, we like to use that phrase that soulmate success path. And how can we take them? How can we get our soulmate successful? So, Allison, we’re going to wrap up on that. I know you are a busy woman. You’ve got a million things going on. Your personal life and your business life will wind down. Damon, your party. What words of wisdom? What do you got, Damon? As we close out,
Damon Pistulka 20:55
no, it’s great to be able to have Allison. Thanks for sharing this today and and and giving real world application and and thoughts behind it.
Curt Anderson 21:04
It’s always a masterclass. Elsie, board parting thoughts, words of wisdom. What do you have for us, our friend?
Allison DeFord 21:11
Gosh, you know me. Have a lot of words. I would just say, tell people that in this world of AI, which is a helpful tool, by the way. It’s just a tool, and I want people to remember that the best relationships are built on truth and trust and authenticity. And don’t forget to have actual real world conversations with people, and and connect on an emotional level, and you will be far more successful.
Curt Anderson 21:46
Trapped the mic. So, all right, hey Damon, I’m about a big round of applause for our dear friend Allison to Ford. Always crushing it. It’s always a masterclass. Yes, Allison, thank you. I’m going to have to go back and tell you how many times you’ve been on with us. It’s I.
Allison DeFord 21:59
It’s too many to catch.
Curt Anderson 22:00
It’s a it’s a lot. But hey, and we’re gonna do this a lot more. So, guys, having a great, amazing rest your day, and we will catch you soon. See.