Digital Marketing Strategies for Manufacturers with the MEPS

Curt Anderson  01:30

Okay, so everybody keep it you know, we’re we like keep it G rated. So you know, I’m just teasing. So all right. Hey, happy Friday evening, everybody. My name is Curt Anderson, welcome. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule. I know how busy everyone is. And what an honor what a privilege to bring together this. I don’t know how we pulled this off. But we brought together that all stars we’ve got holophane marketers here from the MEP network. So I’m gonna we’re gonna go around the horn. We’re gonna start early in the great state of Alaska. So it’s 801 and Alaska, Megan Militello. Good morning to you my friend. How are you? Happy Friday? How were you give a little wave? Doing great. Thanks

Megan Militello  02:10

for having me. Awesome.

Curt Anderson  02:11

So hey, you know what? For a shame. These guys call me uncle Curt. And so first shameless plug I’m gonna get I’m gonna give a little intro to our friends here. So Megan, you are the new supply chain optimize manager. And so longtime entrepreneur. And how about this, guys? Let’s give a little sheep’s, proud veteran, two tours in Iraq. And God bless her. Let’s give a round of applause for Megan for serving our country. Man, I get choked up every time I do that. So that’s awesome. She has now she was a manufacturer. She was air traffic control guru became an entrepreneur and she joined the Alaska MEP team just last year. So Megan, longtime friend, great to have you here. Thank you for joining us today. Let’s go to the great state of Illinois. I’m gonna say possibly, arguably the best last name in the MEP network. We have Jaclyn Hello, J. Man I love saying that name. Jaclyn. Good morning to you. How are

Jaclyn Kolodziej  03:05

you? Good morning. I’m doing great. Super excited to be here. Well,

Curt Anderson  03:10

honored privilege and Jaclyn. Let’s see You are the growth and marketing specialists of IMEC I have the honor and privilege view and I work together and all sorts of fun things. We’re gonna dive in a bunch of what your what’s going on in the great state of Illinois, to share with our friends in the audience here today. So I greatly appreciate you taking the time to join us. Let’s slide over one state over neighbor. Right. We’re gonna go to Julie Warner, I am still letting people in. Julie, happy Thursday to you you are with the Purdue MEP. And so Happy Thursday. How are you today?

Julie Warner  03:42

Good. Feeling good about this. I’m excited to learn from my other marketers to hear their tips and tricks. Well, I

Curt Anderson  03:48

do I you know, I, I hope I’m not throwing anybody under the bus. But you know, so we were doing webinars at Purdue before you joined like early, early COVID. And we’d get like two or three people to show up. And now you do webinars and there’s like 50 people that show up. So we’ve got a lot to learn from Julie, longtime marketer. So super excited. Thank you for joining us today, Julie. All right. Last but not least, batting cleanup is my dear friend Jeanette Cunningham. So Jeanette and Virginia with GENEDGE. How are you? Happy Thursday, happy Friday to Happy Friday Eve to you.

Jeanette Stevens-Cunningham  04:18

Thank you, thank you. I’m really happy to be here. Just like what everyone else said. I’m really excited to learn from my peers and then up network. This is going to be really, really exciting. Thank you for having me.

Curt Anderson  04:33

So let’s do this. Guys. If we were in person, we’d be high fiving handshaking, maybe even throwing some hugs around. I encourage invite everybody drop a note, Alan. Good morning or good afternoon. Happy Thursday to you struck a greetings from Indianapolis. I encourage you guys grab your LinkedIn profile drop in the chat. It’s a great time to make some new friends here. While we’re doing that, Jeanette, could you please for any of our friends out here that are not familiar with the N EP network Manufacturing Extension Partnership? Could you Please explain quickly, what is the MEP for our manufacturing friends?

Jeanette Stevens-Cunningham  05:04

Yes, absolutely. So I’m gonna go ahead and give everyone a textbook definition of what the MEP is because I think that’s probably the best way to explain it. So the MEP or the Manufacturing Extension Partnership is a public private partnership with centers in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. We’re dedicated to serving small and medium sized manufacturers. And last year, MEP centers interacted with more than 36,000 manufacturers leading to $16.2 billion in sales, $2.9 billion in cost savings, $4.8 billion and new client investments and helped create or retain more than 107,100 jobs. So in a nutshell, that’s kind of who we are and what we do. We’re here for manufacturers.

Curt Anderson  05:58

Man, that was an early drop the mic right there. So what was that? Can you see that sales number? That was a big number i I’ve taken socks off the content. Hey, what was that number? Again, that

Jeanette Steven-Cunninghams  06:08

number is $16.2 billion in sales and $2.9 billion in cost savings. So that’s, that kind of goes hand in hand. Well,

Curt Anderson  06:17

that’s awesome. We have a number of our friends here from the MEP network. I see my friend Joe Roy. Good morning to you, Joe out in Nebraska. We have other MEP folks. So again, if you guys are with the MEP, drop your MEP or with if you want to drop your website or your LinkedIn profile, we have some friends that are still joining if you just joined us, we just introduced our wonderful esteemed panelists of marketing specialists through the MVP network, again, encourage you guys jump your LinkedIn in the chat. So let’s, let’s go up to the great State of Alaska. So now I’ve had the honor privilege, Megan, you and I’ve been together multiple times when you were an entrepreneur, you and I actually got together at your facility, you gave me a wonderful tour, we did a little live stream, you now since have joined the MEP network. Please share with folks what’s going on at the Alaska MEP, you are a fierce marketer, just share a little bit about what you guys are doing on how to market and engage with manufacturers.

Megan Militello  07:09

Thank you. Well, to start off, I think, well, I got roped into by Sammy Joe, because you and Sammy Joe’s started it was the MVP lives. So we do an MVP and live every other Thursday. And it’ll rotate between an expert could be like Curt, for example. And then a manufacturer or so someone that we have worked with, maybe that can give us some type of testimonial in that so that we’re able to cut that video and use that in other places as well. The lives have been great, it’s a consistent thing to keep going back to and now that we’ve included it into the like newsletter that we do things like that, it’s a great way to keep getting that information out there. And then we’re able to refer our clients to those lives of something that bless you, if it’s something that like really was impactful or related to what another manufacturer is working on, we can just be like, Hey, let me send you this link. It’s something that’s already a reference that we can have on our website. And then another thing that we’ve done that’s pretty unique is we just recently started a manufacturing mixer. We in Alaska don’t have like a manufacturing group or something already happening. So I think it’s been about a month already, but did a lot of personal invites to the first one that just rented out nonprofit space that cost about 25 bucks, got people together just to try to support that peer to peer connection between our manufacturers so that they have each other to rely on as well. I’m I’ve just community as a huge value for me. And I’ve learned that having those people around you that are helping lift you up that are going through the same problems. I mean, being an entrepreneur, it’s like, you feel like you’re in a hole, you feel like you’re in a hole by yourself, but really you’re not you’re not in a hole by yourself. All these other entrepreneurs are in holes as well. So I wanted to bring that to these manufacturers so that they’re able to connect and like we can overcome these bigger problems that we have in Alaska, because everyone is pretty much complaining about the same things like the shipping. The shipping is a really big problem here. And we’ve had manufacturers that have worked together like someone that makes tortillas, they get a bunch of flour brought up and then one of our breweries that gets cans like they will take the cans and put them on top of the flour teaming up that shipping opportunity together so that they can reduce the cost. So if we can put people in the room together to try to overcome those things, and like actually gives us a great opportunity as an MEP SC exact really what the problems of all of these different manufacturers are. And maybe we haven’t been able to connect, just like face to face with them. But it’s a great way to get in front of our people. It’s a great thing to have on social media or any type of website, LinkedIn. I’ve gotten a lot of comments on just having it be a thing now. I think people want to be a part of that, you know, so the manufacturers in the state, we see that they, they’re interested, they’re curious. And I think it’s only going to get bigger and better. And then that I think just ties into that live event that we have every other Thursday as well, where now it’s like, we can get that community to go to that place. I also think that covers what we’re doing Kurt in Alaska, that’s pretty unique. Is there anything that I missed? Well,

Curt Anderson  10:49

that was a lot. And if you don’t mind shamelessly, I’m going to share my screen real quick. Just kind of give a little show and tell. So can you guys see my screen right now. And so as Megan mentioned, these are the live streams that they’re doing. And I’ll tell you and so many of you have been on my show, and if you haven’t by I’d love for you guys to check out. We do a live show twice a week. And you know, again, it’s just a great way to produce content. And look what they’re doing here. Check this out. This testimonial right here that they got was just a wonderful testimonial. This is a client here is a tea, you know, like tea that you drink tea manufacturer in Alaska, who would think that and the MEP saved them $58,000 I’m getting chills just even talking about this. She shares how she was a startup she had a dream, and she was sourcing product. And what the Alaskan VP did is they connected with somebody an expert from the New Jersey MEP. This guy found her the same identical piece of equipment that was $58,000 cheaper on this testimonial. She shares how she started her business, debt free. Thanks Alaska AP, and this is a great way a great opportunity to capture those content opportunities, those testimonials. So again, this is what the Alaskan AP is doing. And again, Megan, I’m going to put you I’m gonna embarrass you a little bit if you don’t mind, Uncle Kurt is going to share. If you guys want an inspiring TED talk, I encourage you, I invite you, I beg you check out and if you just joined us, Meghan is a proud she’s a veteran to time Iraq to she served two tours in Iraq. And she has a wonderful inspiring TED talk, you’ll feel like running through a wall, you probably shed a few tears. But man, I encourage you to check out Megan’s TED Talk. So Megan, thank you for joining us today. Thank you for sharing that. And so let’s fly down to the great state of Illinois. Jacqueline, where are you my friend, let’s get you on stage. What’s going on? I met so I met as the Illinois MEP, you are just a fierce longtime marketer share some of the things that you guys have gone on at IMEC.

Jaclyn Kolodziej  12:45

Well, today, I was looking at our events page. Ironically, and just today alone, we have five events occurring. So there are a lot of different types of events. This would be one of those type of engagements. We have a ton of webinars that we offer to the Illinois manufacturers and beyond. We have today is a pretty big event in Chicago. So there’s a big Evie Industry Day. So we’re trying to hit our manufacturers and their needs in a variety of ways. Curt, do you have the bus tour? tab up?

Curt Anderson  13:23

Oh, you know what, I’ll keep going in. And I’ll grab that I’m going to try. I’m dropping Megan’s TED talk in the chat. So again to do man, you guys will love it, check out the chat. Keep going. And I’ll grab the the bus tour that you guys do for manufacturing month.

Jaclyn Kolodziej  13:38

Yep. So I put that in the comment section already. So we do a big bus tour. So it’s called the makers on the move bus. And so we go throughout the entire state of Illinois. We have Gosh, I don’t even know how many stops but it’s a week long event. And so every day we’re on the move, visiting at local manufacturing companies, inviting the media inviting local government officials, the community, other manufacturers to come out, celebrate manufacturing month, connect with each other and kind of track our journey. Last year, we started at the southern end of the state and made our way up north. So there’s so many stops. And then ironically, Curt happens to be virtually on the bus. So he was able to interview um, this is an iMac partnership with another, the Illinois Manufacturing Association. And so Curt was able to interview both of the leaders of those organizations on his show, so I mean super interactive and there’s just a ton of activity to build awareness. We stop at technical schools and colleges trying to engage with our younger audiences to talk about manufacturing.

Curt Anderson  15:07

Yeah, I love it. And if you’re not familiar, so you know, it’s manufacturers, you know, hopefully, if you’re not familiar with it, boy start celebrating manufacturing month it’s it’s an October the first day, the first Friday is the big day. And what IMEC does is, you know, what a great way to get things on the radar for the whole state. They take this coach bus, they drive around the state, they stop at high schools, they get colleges involved, I think you guys go to a tailgate at a college football game, and people are signing the bus. And it’s just really awesome. Have this exposure in PR to get you know, the next generation, young people, old people, whatever everybody in the state to just get really fired up about how awesome manufacturing is. And I want to give a shout out to it. So man, a shameless plug for my live show. I interviewed one of your teammates on Monday, and she white, check that out. And she says, You know, when I we asked a question like, Hey, why why are you so why did you bring your talents into manufacturing? She’s like manufacturing is awesome. We need to shout it from the rooftop rooftops. And she went into this whole diatribe on just how amazing manufacturing is. And just we need to keep spreading that message. So Megan are not many. Jacqueline, thank you appreciate all that you do. I know you’re doing a live workshop tomorrow with a couple of your clients. So you’re actually in what is this applicable for for manufacturers? Think about this. Just getting that message out there. You know, workshops, education, you know, just really being part of the community. Love what you’re doing there. Jacqueline, thank you. I’m going to slide over to your neighbor in Indiana. Let’s pull up Julie from the great state of Indiana. She’s at the Purdue MEP. Julie, let’s talk a little bit your career marketer. You brought your Izmir fact you’re a Purdue grad. And now you’re at the Purdue MEP, just share a little bit of some of the exciting things going on at the Purdue MEP, how you’re marketing to manufacturers.

Julie Warner  16:56

Sir, I think for Purdue MEP, we do a lot of similar stuff that MEP other centers do as well. But one of our big pushes is we really focus on public workshops. So they’re open enrollment, right, anybody can sign up and take it some are virtual summer, in different locations throughout the state. But um, they work really well for us, especially for someone who might not know the center or what our services are, it’s a great like, no risk, low risk, intro into it, they could take a four hour you know, leadership workshop and kind of see what they like for one or two people and then decide how to proceed with the center and how they want to use this best. I mean, we have some people who only do public workshops. And then we have some who have tried one or two. And then they say this is amazing. Let’s bring it in house, like bring it you know, bring consulting into us. So do we do a lot of that. And of course, that’s how I met you. Right. One of the things that we do we’ve been doing with you is monthly workshops, focused on different marketing topics. And so those happened to be free, not all of them are free of the of our public workshops are free. But it’s great, it’s a great way to kind of open up the eyes of people everywhere throughout the state who don’t know about us to hear about us or different avenues. And then we can offer them these tips and tricks. The marketing Wednesday, of course, personally love, there’s so many great nuggets of info that you guys give to our clients and just our friends really throughout the state doesn’t have to even be a manufacturer, but it helps spread the word about us. Len really kind of established us as a subject matter expert, and a lot of our public works, or some of our public workshops, too. We partner with a local EDC in the area and to help kind of market with us, they market to their clients, it’s another way to kind of add a layer of awareness about it to everyone around us. So that’s kind of why we focus on a lot is like the public workshop arena. So

Curt Anderson  18:45

Oh, that’s fantastic. And what I’m gonna pull up real quick just to guys, and again, if the MEP is new to you, and so you know, many of you are familiar with it. I’ve met a number of us through the MEP, but you know, here’s a little screenshot of the state. And once again, if it’s new to you, there’s an MEP in all 50 states, and I’ll drop the link in the chat for you guys. You know, check if you’re if you haven’t engaged with your local MEP boy, I strongly encourage you to do so. There’s so much opportunity for you, you know, they’re just here. They’re just just so passionately dedicated to helping manufacturers, their enthusiasm is so contagious. Speaking of contagious words, Jeanette, so Jeanette, let’s get you up here. And what I love is you’re you’re getting a taste of the talent, the skill and the passion for manufacturers. You know, Jeanette brings, she’s a really an online marketing pioneer. So Jeanette, you started at Yahoo and hot jobs in the 2000s. Just hear a little bit about what’s going on at Genedge, the Virginia mewp and just, you know, your marketing acumen, what’s going on there. So,

Jeanette Stevens-Cunningham  19:46

there’s a lot going on at Genedge, currently right now and I’m definitely wanting to echo what my other peers have said about some of the you know, new things that We are doing to market to the manufacturing and industrial community. And we do a lot of the same things. I think what Gen Ed’s was focusing on is, you know, currently for us, you know, a lot of things have changed, obviously, within the marketing landscape. And so you know, there is kind of like this tectonic shift, where we’re finding people that are not necessarily getting their information in the more traditional means, but they’re also incorporating a lot of digital into how they acquire and get information, you know, about different things. And so that’s kind of what we’ve been leaning into, you know, just trying to really find where our manufacturers are within their journey. And so we’ve been doing a lot of work on online, so a lot of work on social media, LinkedIn, especially to kind of connect with the manufacturing community, we have been doing trainings, So training is something that we’re finding has been really successful. And, you know, getting manufacturers involved in some of the services that the MEP does offer. So for us, we’ve leaned into a lot of the lean 102 Process Improvement trainings, and also things around workforce development, because we found that, at least, you know, in our region, that is something that is really impactful for the manufacturing community, we were also going to be doing a lot more of the lives. So you will be seeing us do the live streaming, because again, you know, as it relates to digital marketing, and being in front of our audience, where they are, then, you know, getting the information online is pretty impactful. And we’re finding that that is a very important place to get a lot of that information out to them. And then finally, one of the things that’s really unique to us, and something that we’ve been leaning into is we’ve recently started within the last about 18 months, the GENEDGE. Alliance and the GENEDGE Alliance was born because we did some evaluating, and we found that the majority of businesses, small businesses in Virginia, are small. And so we had to be able to find a way to allow them into our ecosystem, you know, where it’s comfortable for them. And so we have developed the GENEDGE. Alliance, which is our small manufacturing arm, and you will be able to find that on our website. And that’s really geared towards manufacturing businesses that operate with between five and 20 employees. And we develop a suite of services for them that is still evolving, but it does include training, online training through tooling U SME, it also includes an emerging business program, which is a phenomenal program for small manufacturers that are, you know, in the startup phase, or in the early operational phase that just needs that additional help. We talked a lot about, you know, how businesses can sometimes work in an island or operate on an island. You know, if you’ve been a business owner, you understand that and so the emerging business program is a great way to be able to get those MEP services that are comfortable for the smaller manufacturer. And in that we also have supply chain support services. So we’ve been able to kind of separate that out and create a package that is really geared towards a small manufacturer, while still also keeping the integrity of what we do as an MEP center and offering the consulting services and the training programs for some of our larger manufacturers as well.

Curt Anderson  23:57

Awesome, Jeanette, thank you, man. How about how about that first round for our whole panel, man, that was that was quite man. I’m just so fired up, Jacqueline. Okay, let’s dive in. I’m gonna give a little Hello. Some of my friend Tori from Buffalo is here. We got to marry from Ohio, Susan Nicole, Michelle. Chris is here. Kelly, thank you guys. I know how busy you are. We never take that for granted. Super excited for you to join us. Now what we’re gonna do, we’re gonna flip the script, we’re just wanting to share a little bit of what goes on at the MEPs for our manufacturers, how you can take advantage of these incredible wonderful opportunities. Second part of that was also how are they marketing to manufacturers, they’re doing the exact same thing that you’re trying to do as a solo marketer or a solo you know, at your manufacturing company trying to engage with new clients. Let’s flip the script now we’re going to be our we’re going to be the marketing gurus that we are Megan Militello. Let’s jump up to you. You are manufacturer for many years you had a wonderful company elevated oats ISIS show off your website to anybody and everybody that that was willing to look at it. It was just fierce and like Tara created specifically to your ideal customer. We call them soulmates. How do you help manufacturers? Let’s throw on our marketing hat. Let’s go there first.

Megan Militello  25:09

Oh, man, I feel like in just a discovery call with someone I can be like, looking through some stuff. And there’s just basic things, I think. And I tried to, I tried to instill in them the thought process, you know, I’m like, if you were a customer, and you came to your website, like, what are the things that you see? I spoke to someone yesterday that does a does a hot sauce, and I went to their about me, and I’m like, There’s no picture of you guys. Like why not? Like, we want to know the story now, like the story is really important in that. I would say that for man, everything that I learned going through that business, I started elevated oats, I didn’t know anything about manufacturing, I came out of being in the military and air traffic, and it had nothing to do with making granola. So I was making this food product. And I learned a lot like from Kurt and from the different webinars, I use the MEP services often. So I feel like I’m just taking all of the things I did and trying to condense it for other manufacturers and being like, Hey, I’ve gone through most of these things, like, just start going to this, go to this, you know, but also understanding that it’s a staircase that everybody has to go up, you know, you can’t take the elevator up here in your business, it’s like you have to learn these different things to go to the next level. So really just trying to hit those, like, who’s your soulmate? The key branding things, I think, because it’s not just about how are you sharing this product? But how are you? How do you look to everybody else? What is the perception that they’re gaining? So trying to kind of get our manufacturers to think about that, and understand like, email marketing, and how important that is because your return and customers are going to give you more money then finding new customers, right. So everything that we’re doing in the MVP, and like this is just what are all businesses, this is what all businesses can be doing to move their needle forward. Yeah,

Curt Anderson  27:15

I love that understanding your customer and just really speaking their language. And it is hard to look at our own assets, whether it’s your LinkedIn, profile your website through an objective set of eyes, get that trusted friend who you know, get to find a friend that’s comfortable telling you that you have food in your face. And like look at your website and give them that tough love. Right, Jacqueline? So let’s slide over to you Jacqueline’s, that friend of mine, she always has my back. She always, you know, if I’ve got something going on, she’ll let me know. So Jacqueline marketing guru lifetime, you know, just you’ve brought your talent, your skill, your passion into manufacturing. You and I work closely on multiple projects, what are some things that you’re seeing that you’re super excited about? Where are some gaps refilled for opportunities of improvement?

Jaclyn Kolodziej  27:56

Yeah, so to kind of piggyback off of what Megan said, oftentimes, when we’re engaging with manufacturers, and they are interested in marketing, they have questions about it. These are small and mid size manufacturers. So sometimes they don’t have a marketing department, they’ve never even invested anything in marketing. So we always make sure to let them know they’re not alone. On top of that, we recommend that they crawl before they walk and walk before they run. So you can’t get to the top by starting at the top, you have to come up with a strategy. And so doing those discovery calls is super important. Because I always ask, who are you? What do you want to accomplish? What are you doing currently for your marketing? And, you know, what are your goals? what’s worked, what hasn’t? And a lot of times, you know, our clients are coming to us, and they’ve only invested in a tactical solution. So gone all in on, I have a new website now. Or they’ve tried to do an email marketing, but they got kind of lost and weren’t sure. So I always bring them back to the center and say, What are your goals? Where do you what are your growth goals? And let’s really map out who you are, who your brand is, who your customers are. And then let’s work to like through the tactical approaches. Let’s start with your website, and audit that and assess it, build that foundation, then let’s move on to SEO. Let’s talk about what SEO is. And let’s invest some time and energy into that. You know, you put a website up and if you build it, they don’t come. You need to engage with you know, SEO best practices in order to get people to find you. So it’s just really kind of building that roadmap for them in a strategic way, so they’re not going all in on one One thing, it doesn’t work, and then they’re back at the beginning and not knowing how to restart. I’m feeling like they don’t, you know, they don’t want to restart because this one thing didn’t work. So just really being, you know, a big advocate for them a big guide, a cheerleader. So that’s kind of that’s my approach to working with our clients and helping them at least get a broader perspective and understanding so that they can be more successful from the beginning as they continue to evolve. Yeah,

Curt Anderson  30:33

I love that being that cheerleader right, who doesn’t want to be the cheerleader be positive that support that crutch that Sherpa that guide? So Julie, let’s start over to you lot career marketer yourself brought your town skills into the Purdue MEP. What do you see? Hot latest greatest with your manufacturers that you engage with? And where do you see some gaps for opportunities for improvement?

Julie Warner  30:55

Well, kind of piggybacking off jack that I mean, it’s a journey, it’s a journey for everyone. It’s a journey for us, no one starts at the top. So for them to just be patient is incredibly important. And I think there’s a lot of value in diversifying where you have your message, right, don’t put it out yet. Use the same messaging everywhere. But get it on socials have the same message on your blogs on your what you know, do the trade shows, go to meet and greets and network and stuff, but have the same message, whether it’s a one line kind of a thing, just keep reusing. That’s how you brand you keep reusing it. So don’t panic, because someone doesn’t remember you three days later, it’s okay. It’s a process, just keep going. It’s okay, we’re all doing it together, you know, whether it’s on behalf of the Center or our manufacturers, it’s a journey. So I think that’s one of the biggest things. And I think it’s important for people to just be themselves too, like, don’t try to be someone you’re not speak if you speak that way, right? That way, people will recognize you, they will see the integrity and the value in that and they will, they will connect with you better as a person too. So there’s a lot of you know, small to medium manufacturers, these aren’t big marketing teams, it’s okay. It might be the CEO, it might be the VP that’s doing some of the stuff, it could be anyone, but just be yourself. Because then many of you try to write in a way that isn’t comfortable for you. Everyone can tell. So just be normal, be you. I think that’s always my biggest kind of point of you know, just just keep going and just be yourself. And it’ll all work out to just keep going.

Curt Anderson  32:22

Well, I love it. How about what any any particular gaps that you see any challenges that you that you see from manufacturers that they share that from the webinars or anything like that? You know, I

Julie Warner  32:33

think people week for me, personally, we get a lot of value out of just something simple, like our LinkedIn account. And there’s a lot of value to that. And it’s a free service. And I think people kind of skip over that. Because they think, Well, I don’t know what they think they’re too intimidated. Or maybe it takes a little bit of work. But you said to say five minutes every morning, I kind of keep up with stuff and be authentic. I think that’s a gap that some are missing. And it’s not a hard one, it’s a super easy one to overcome. So I think that’s something kind of important for them to, to see as well. Well,

Curt Anderson  33:03

that’s great. You know what, we’re gonna take a deeper dive into LinkedIn, let’s, let’s go to Jeanette and Jeanette, let’s just share, what are some latest greatest, what are you seeing, as far as you know, the marketing acumen that you bring to your clients that you’re seeing? What are some gaps? What do you what’s going on there.

Jeanette Stevens-Cunningham  33:16

So I’m gonna really piggyback off of what everybody else said to start. And it’s, you know, some of the gaps are, you know, understanding the journey, which we’ve already talked about, a lot of it is also branding and being able to tell your own authentic story, a big part of it is kind of being jaded, you know, starting this process in a particular way, and it didn’t work for you, you know, and and saying to yourself, well, this just doesn’t work. You know, the blanketed statement, you know, social media just doesn’t work for me, and missing out on a lot of really big opportunities by saying things like that. And I think, you know, from what I’ve seen, you know, a lot of it is taking all of those elements and Jackie she spoke about you know, the tactical and thinking about the tactical before like with Megan said and you know starting out with thinking about your goals first and you know, just trying to structure the entire journey by you know, understanding being patient with it, but one because a lot of these things don’t happen overnight. And and that’s the biggest takeaway that I’ve learned, even in my own experience, you know, that a lot of these things don’t happen overnight. And depending on the budget that you have for marketing and the time commitment that you can apply to it, you there are levels of patients that you have to employ and that you have to add to that. You know, if for let’s say you have have to do a lot of your marketing organically like the way we do it, then it becomes a marathon and not a sprint. And you have to be able to, you know, along the way, create goals and KPIs or key performance indicators that help you along your, your roadmap, you know, to make sure that you’re hitting all of the correct points. The other thing that I would like to enter into this conversation is data. And I think Jada is really, really important. We all have data, and all manufacturing companies have data, all businesses have data. And a lot of times as we’re thinking about some of the tactical elements, and we’re thinking about the strategy, we’re not necessarily digging hard enough, in a lot of cases into the data that we actually already have. And the reason why, you know, being able to understand data, you don’t have to be a data analyst in order to kind of compile your data and just spend time with it. And just seeing you know, how you’re doing on LinkedIn or on your social media, or, you know, on your email marketing campaigns and your website, you know, just taking a few minutes per day to kind of understand that will help you understand what’s working and what’s not working. Because sometimes, you know, there are things that we would like to happen. And you know, we’re putting all of our time and energy in these things that we want to happen. And they’re not necessarily working for us. And then you look at it behind the curtain, and you’re looking at the data in these different places, and you’re realizing that you might be putting too much energy and time into something that just isn’t working. And that’s okay, because then you can kind of change course, and do something else. And I think the other thing is to allow yourself to be able to test things, you know, if you have a hypothesis that says, I think that if I change this thing, that action will happen, and giving yourself a time limit to allow it to play out, you’ll be able to better understand, again, what works and what doesn’t work, and you pair that with the data. And it doesn’t have to be anything massive, you know, it could be the data that you already have. And we all have data, you know, even if you’re doing LinkedIn, as your own individual, you have analytics, and you can see from your analytics, okay, when I posted this particular thing, or every time I post something about this, I get so many more engagements than when I post about that. And so it’s just kind of looking at those signals. And once you start really looking at those signals and kind of, you know, marking down what’s working, what’s not working, you’re better, you’re better able to kind of see your way forward and to create that strategy, you’re able to employ the right strategy for the right different things. And then you’re, you know, we all have a limited amount of time and energy to devote to devote to things, you’ll be able to then be able to allocate your time better, you know, So case in point, and doing our social media, you know, we’re utilizing the social platforms, you know, I noticed that there are platforms that I need to really lean into and put a lot more of my time and thought and energy into. And then there are platforms that I don’t necessarily do that with, and that’s okay. I don’t need to be everywhere, because everywhere is not where my customers are, you know, my audience may be in a specific place. And that’s where I need to put a lot more of my energy.

Curt Anderson  38:39

Man, how about about a little drop the mic on that one there? So all right, let’s let’s unpack right there. Right. Testing. Right. What was the feet was a giant linebacker, I think in the 1800s by maybe I butchered his name. And you know, he said 50 cents of every marketing dollar is wasted. I just wish I knew which one was which, right. So you know, marketing is not an exact science. I love what you said there Jeanette, how do you test when you see something’s working man, lean into it, double down on it, if something’s not working, so be it, you tried it and move out. And last thing that I want to recap is I go where your customers are. Don’t feel that, you know, we all get that social media fatigue, I need to be on X or whatever. And I need to be right, right? Go where your customers are. So all right. We’re in a b2b industrial space. I’m connected with all you guys and I’m friends with all of you purely thanks to him because of LinkedIn. If it weren’t for LinkedIn, I wouldn’t be friends with you. Megan, Julie, Jacqueline, Jeanette, everybody on the call. So man, what a blessing LinkedIn has completely changed my life personally. Megan, let’s go back to you my friend and a great State of Alaska for our friends. You know, there’s a great line that I heard recently information tells stories sell right does that the minute that well, how did I just find that we’re not Jacqueline but you know, we’ve I’ve been information tells stories sell. So Megan, let’s go there, whether it’s social media, LinkedIn, what are some tactics that have really worked well for you on LinkedIn or social media? Or just telling that story? what’s worked for you as an entrepreneur?

Megan Militello  40:14

Question, good question. Authenticity, I yeah, that is really the thing. I think just being being myself, I will say, in the very beginning of this journey, I had gone through like, a lot of personal stuff, I was leaving our marriage. And so I didn’t have the confidence, I really needed to be that entrepreneur and like, be like, proud of my product and putting it out there. So it was a big struggle for me on putting myself on the internet, I was off of social media for three years. So I it was like, all new. And I was also kind of trying to heal through everything, right. So being authentic, and not just being like, Oh, this is what I’m doing. This is what I’m selling, but also being like, you know, the struggle is real, or these things, you know, we’re learning and this is something that we tried, or maybe this packaging, you know, we got it and says organic and we’re, we’re not using organic oats. So we literally have to cross organic off of every single bag, right, like, showing those struggles also, I think really made us more relatable. And I do that still now in social media, like LinkedIn, personal. I mean, the manufacturing mixer, I posted it, I was like, my goal is to have to need a bigger room, and I hit my goal. And I was like, boom, I needed a bigger room. And just like kind of celebrating with people, too, you know, it’s people become a part of your journey. It’s the marathon. It’s not the race, right. And so I think building up that personal brand, I think that social media is the way that I was recruited to the MEP, because I had been putting out everything that I was doing. And then I was saying, you know, we decided to shut down the business. And I had a friend that’s on the team. And he was like, hey, what do you think about this job, and I was like, I don’t want a job. No more jobs. And he was like, you know, it could be really good. And so I looked over it. And I was like, man, and he wouldn’t have known all of that if I wasn’t putting what was going on in my life on social media, right. So I think that it could be very powerful. I know that before I got off of social media three years ago, I was like, Why does everybody care? Nobody needs to know about my life. Right? So it’s like, the mindset is, what kind of mindset do you have to use that tool? And I think that it’s a great way to connect, right? Like to have those authentic relationships, a lot of my best friends I’ve met through social media, a lot of my best clients I’ve met through social media, right? It’s this opportunity that we have that we didn’t have before. It’s probably a long winded answer. But that

Curt Anderson  42:52

was That was fantastic. And you know, you had a business partner, Lacey, who you guys, you know, both served in Iraq together and you know, had a bunch of challenges started a business and shared your whole story. And I can’t tell you, I don’t know if you guys will agree. And Jacqueline, I’m coming to you next. You know how many manufacturers like nobody wants to hear my story, they absolutely want to hear your story. When you go to the restaurant, you’re like, Hey, grandma, grandpa started this business in the 19, whatever. And you know, people want to hear your story. I would love to like, let’s look, if you’re gonna use the word assume, I don’t know about you guys. I hear the word assume. Well, our customers, they know all the information our customers this, I would assume that they know nothing. And let’s assume that they want to hear everything right. Jacqueline, what are you sharing that story? LinkedIn? What do you seen would be powerful helpful for manufacturers?

Jaclyn Kolodziej  43:41

Well, I love the conversation. I’m super excited. I also have Google, I want to bring it back a little bit. When I meet with manufacturers, a lot of times they say, are you guys on LinkedIn? And they’re like, No, we don’t need to be on LinkedIn. We’re manufacturers. And so I’m, literally have a slide up on my computer right now. 660 million users on the platform. And that number is probably risen since the last time I pulled this data. 94% of b2b marketers use LinkedIn. So if you’re a b2b and in business and you’re not on LinkedIn, I’m like, You got to do this. Why aren’t you doing this? Over 80% of b2b leads from social media come from LinkedIn between connections. So like, those are just some statistics where like, I’m like, Hey, guys, you got to start like, you got to know where your people are, where are your connections, they’re going to lead to other business. So once you kind of make that investment to be like, Okay, I’m gonna go on LinkedIn. Well, now what, what am I supposed to post? Like, we’ll just start posting stuff, you know, talk about your workforce, do employee highlights and engagement. Talk about a cool capability you have have, like walk through the shop and see like a cool product that you can take a picture of or a video of, and just start, if you don’t start, you’re never going to know. Another thing? Well, we hear what’s the ROI on this? What am I gonna get out of this. And I like to I heard this somewhere. And I always like to use it when I can. If you do nothing, you will have zero ROI. So I’m engage, know where your customers are, know what they want. But it’s also not about customers either. It’s about workforce attraction, and retention as well. Like marketing hits multiple buckets. It’s not just about existing customers or new customers, it’s about your people who you are your brand, telling that story, celebrating what you’re doing, and being able to have 660 million, you know, people on on a platform like LinkedIn, see that? And it’s free.

Curt Anderson  46:10

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Jacqueline, I didn’t hear you. How much is it? It’s free. It’s free forever. So yes, I strongly encourage everybody, you know, talk to your friends, your family, your, your, your old prom dates, get get everybody on LinkedIn, if you’re in that b2b space, right. And you know, you and I perfect example, two days ago, we had a client that we’re working on together, and you know, kicking and screaming, got him on on LinkedIn. And while I was on a call with him, he’s like, Man, I see you guys posted some videos on my LinkedIn because it’s blowing up right now. And he was just thrilled. So Julie, let’s come to you LinkedIn storytelling, getting that message out there. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I

Julie Warner  46:47

mean, I echo Megan and Jacqueline it, it’s so important, and it can be so easy. So I think I just want to remind everyone to like give yourself grace to like, it’s okay, if you did something like that wasn’t exactly how I thought it would go. It’s okay. Just keep keep pivoting a little bit, turning a little bit until you get to where you want to be. But just take it easy on ourselves. I mean, just in general, like it’s a hard long road process and, and it’s okay, just be there for the whole thing. So I think of all the other stuff that other amazing ladies have said that’s just kind of my last little piece is like, Just go easy on yourself. It’s okay, you’ll get there. So

Curt Anderson  47:24

give yourself some great man a lot of my traps here. So give yourself some grace. You know what in like, Jeanette was saying, just test it just experiment, you know, and think about, you know, so Jack, and we have another client that I’m thinking of that, you know, very reluctant to LinkedIn and you know, without you know, if you were at a an event, trade show, you happen to be at a restaurant and your ideal buyer we call them or soulmates just happened to be there. And not that we’re on a vulture trying to sell them. What if we just want to educate that? And so, you know, like what we do at Julie was at Purdue, you know, the webinars, the live streams, everything that these guys are talking about, you know, tagline we love to use, how do you teach the competition? How do you I’ll teach if you just use LinkedIn and just put that above your computer, I’m going to out teach the competition. Every day, you’re going to think of something that I could teach or educate my customer on. And now you’re not being salesy. Ellison didn’t think for joining us today. She says, I completely agree, started doing a lot of work on LinkedIn. And it’s really helped get drop your questions, comments, we’re going to be winding down. But I’d love for any questions that you guys have for our panelists drop in the chat or when we wrap up, love to take you off mute, and let’s engage, please connect with everybody on our panel here on LinkedIn. You’ll You’ll thank me later, Jeanette, let’s come back to you, my friend telling that story getting on LinkedIn, what would you like to share here?

Jeanette Stevens-Cunningham  48:44

So what I would like to share is, Well, for one, we just recently had a staff associates meeting, our team GENEDGE team, and I actually did a LinkedIn training with the team. You know, because it’s something Yeah, it’s something that, you know, everybody definitely needs to understand, just, you know, piggybacking off of what everyone has already said, and I actually recently did do the statistics. And it is up to 740 million users and over 200 companies, and 57 million company pages are currently on LinkedIn. So it’s definitely a place to be, you know, to put that time and that energy into, you know, being able to build your professional network, and also to build your personal brand. And for a lot of users, what I like to tell people is you know, if you’re kind of nervous about you know, talking about yourself, because everybody is, you know, isn’t necessarily comfortable talking about themselves and you know, kind of what they’re doing, but it’s a great way to get your feet wet. LinkedIn has a plethora of media and news, you know, articles and things that they already have built and baked into the cloud. form that you can literally copy and reshare that information, you want to engage as much as possible. If you if you’re not, you know, you’re nervous about putting yourself out there, then look at what’s happening on the feed. And comment, thought leadership is a huge part of what LinkedIn is all about, you know, it’s being able to share that expertise and knowledge that you already have. So if you’re not, you know, interested right now and posting about yourself, and what you can do is you can repost a piece of content that someone else has put out and say something about it, you know, or if you see something on the feed, you know, and you want to comment, jump in and put your comments in there, because everything that you do people see that, you know, and one of the things that I found is really important is look for the thought leaders in your specific market, you know, look for who gets a lot of engagement, engagement is really big look who gets a lot of engagement, and put your two cents in there, you know, jump in the conversation, because if they’re already getting that engagement, then you’re naturally going to get that engagement too. And you’ll be able to go back and you know, you get a bunch of invitations, and you’ll be able to make some of those connections on the back end. So that’s really important. If you see something that’s posted, and there’s a lot of likes on it, but not that many comments, you know, be brave jump in there, put your comment on that, because what’s going to happen is, people are going to flock to that posting, because they’re already doing so and they’re engaging with it. And they’re gonna see your comment. And your comment may be, you know, one or two in the list of comments on that particular post. So that will also help to build your brand and get people to kind of see what you’re doing. So just, you know, getting out there customizing your feed, you know, look at some of the similar pages that are similar to the people that are within your network, follow those pages. You know, if you see one other tidbit where there is a lot of likes on a particular topic, in, you know, an industry that you’re looking to, you know, be a part of, or a part of your entire ecosystem. What I would suggest is to click on all of those likes, and look at the list of people that have liked and potentially commented on that post and send them some invites, you know, and you can start the conversation by saying, I see that you are also interested in this particular topic, I am too I would love to add you to my network and continue to network with you. So a lot of the work that you can do on LinkedIn doesn’t necessarily have to be stuff that you’re doing yourself if you’re a little nervous about doing that. But a great way to acclimate yourself with the platform is just to get in there and engage.

Curt Anderson  53:09

Drop the mic that was that I’m going to be sending out the replay. If not tomorrow, Monday. And if if you don’t do anything else just hit the replay on what you what Jeanette just laid out there. And that little invite that was perfect. You know, somebody’s engaging if there’s a hot topic and you see a lot of those soulmates, ideal customers or just that community that you want to be in. What a great place to be. Alright guys, we want to be respectful of everybody’s time, we’re gonna start winding down again, encourage you invite you welcome you connect with these amazing, wonderful marketers on LinkedIn. As you can tell just tons of brilliance, a lot of expertise here to help spread to your company. Let’s Megan How about we’ll do a we’ll do a flash round here. Just words of wisdom, parting thoughts for our friends, our family out there on sending them off on this wonderful Thursday and Friday eve if you will, what are your parting thoughts for today?

Megan Militello  54:05

Let’s put it up there. Just put it out there.

Curt Anderson  54:07

Just Just put it just just be bold and just put it out there. Again guys connect with Meghan, check out her YouTube, her TED Talk. It is very it’s powerful. Wonderful. It’s give a round of applause for Megan for joining us on this wonderful panel today. Bright and early in Alaska. I know you’ve got a class you’ve got to get to here soon. She rumble boxing, right your rumble boxing is that you man? She’s like she’s up. She’s fierce. Alright, Jacqueline, we’re coming to you in a great state of Illinois. Any parting thoughts, words of wisdom for our friends out there today?

Jaclyn Kolodziej  54:42

Yeah, I’m probably very similar to start somewhere. Once you start somewhere, it’s going to take you further. So you’re gonna do something and then something is going to happen. A light bulb is gonna go off you’re going to have a connection made or you’re feeling and learning and doing so you’re gonna continue to evolve. But you won’t evolve if you don’t start somewhere. No,

Curt Anderson  55:08

they’re dropped migrate there. You know, I always tell my daughter you know, you never know your next favorite food until you try it, you know, just be very daring. And now you know, you can roll it out. I don’t like that on LinkedIn. You never know your next great connection, your next best friend, your next biggest customer until you get out there and just put yourself out there and try it, Julie. Hey, wait round of applause for our dear friend Jacqueline with a best last name and manufacturing. Hello, Jay. Jacqueline. Thank you, my friend. I appreciate you, Julie Warner at Purdue parting thoughts, words of wisdom that you want to share with everybody as we close out.

Julie Warner  55:41

I’d say just be authentic, be yourself. It’s a long journey. So you won’t be able to fake it the whole way. Be yourself. Won’t be able to fake it the

Curt Anderson  55:51

whole way. I love that. So hey, Julie. Thank you. I know you have a lot going on. I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule. Big round of applause for Julie Warner from Purdue MEP, just crushing it helping Indiana manufacturers Jeanette Cunningham, my friend at Gen edge in Virginia parting thoughts, words of wisdom that you would like to share as we close out, test,

Jeanette Stevens-Cunningham  56:13

test, test test test give yourself grace, like Julie said, put yourself out there like Megan said, you know, find your goals and your strategies like Jacqueline said be be allow yourself you know, the opportunity to fail. You know, sometimes you have to fall in order to get back up and to run just like she said, so, you know, take all of those tidbits use them and you know, allow yourself to test give yourself time to test the patient and it will it’ll happen.

Curt Anderson  56:45

Absolutely love it. So I’m gonna put Hey, I missed I saw Bill Pierce’s here today. Bill’s here I saw Kara’s here so a couple more hellos. And good morning. Good afternoon is Jesse and getting our friends in Nebraska MEP. So guys, we have a bunch of MEP folks here. If you are not connected, engaged Tory I know our friend in Buffalo she’s engaged with insight out of out of Buffalo. Any any questions that you guys have, please drop in the chat box or if you want to You’re welcome. Take yourself off mute. We’ve got a couple minutes left, but I know everybody’s busy prior to getting on to our next zoom call whatever. Meghan What do you have? I

Megan Militello  57:21

just want to mention I put it in the chat. But veterans can get a year of LinkedIn premium for free. Nice, yes. Something you can share with any veteran folks that you know,

Curt Anderson  57:33

that is absolutely awesome. And Kelly says thank you guys. Again. Any other questions? Or hey, how about a big round of applause one more time for our entire panel, taking time out of their busy schedule for helping us making us all better people. Sending you guys tons of man, you guys are just so awesome. I just I’m at a loss of words, guys. Okay. Thanks for the info. Thank you, Tori. Thank you, Kelly. Thank you guys. Thank you, everybody, for joining us today. And I know we’re going to be winding down. I’ve got the recording will I’ll be sending the replay out connect with these guys on LinkedIn. And you know what, maybe I don’t know AI. Is it who’s using AI? Is anybody going crazy? Megan, Jeanette, Jacqueline. Right. I’m just man I’ve got so Jacqueline. We were at the industrial marketing Summit. I snagged two speakers from the industrial marketing Summit. Ai gurus. I have one on our live show on Monday. And I have a gentleman coming back. Remember Dale remember dale like the AI guru that spoke? I don’t know if you caught his session. He’s speaking next Friday. So I’ve got two AI experts speaking on our LinkedIn live show on Monday and Friday. Jeannette, what are you doing? What are you doing with AI? Just before we wrap up? What are you doing with AI?

Jeanette Stevens-Cunningham  58:48

Well, actually, I’m winding down a prompt engineering course. So I’m actually almost done with that. And I I love technology. So I’m using everything, you know, testing it. And you know, just using its capabilities for one thing that I can definitely say I use it for is HootSuite. So if anyone is using Hootsuite, Hootsuite does have the capability now to assist with creating like posts and things like that. I just saw that loop live for studio and Google actually just embedded generative AI with Gemini into their analytics tool. So now you can do like conversational interpretations of your data. So I just read that this morning. And I am going to start getting in there and testing that so yeah, anywhere. I can test it and use it.

Curt Anderson  59:45

It’s it’s getting crazy. Megan, what do you do with AI?

Megan Militello  59:51

I mostly do like well, I like to use AI as a thought partner so I can use it for a lot of social media stuff, but then I’ll be like, Hey, is That’s a good business idea, like, dig into my holes a little bit more something, just whatever kind of thoughts I have going off, you know? Yeah.

Curt Anderson  1:00:10

Last Last question half a half a minute left, Jacqueline, what do you use an AI for?

Jaclyn Kolodziej  1:00:16

Okay, so I will share this embarrassing AI I was testing it. So I asked it to create an image of cat hugging a dog. But the image it created was of a dog hugging a cat.

Curt Anderson  1:00:31

What’s wrong with that AI? So that’s No, I

Jaclyn Kolodziej  1:00:34

use it a lot. For kind of ideas or, you know, I’ll plug in some content and say, Hey, can you help fix this up for me make it sound? Or I’ll talk to it like I’m speaking to an engineer who is looking for like in the aerospace industry, like, what do I need to talk to them about? So I get training? I’m learning Janette, I probably have to call you and get some some prompt training,

Jeanette Stevens-Cunningham  1:01:00

anytime, anytime. But just digging

Jaclyn Kolodziej  1:01:03

in with it, figuring it out data. I use it a lot is like my Google My search engine. To ask it questions. It gives me better answers than Google does. I mean, anyway, yeah.

Curt Anderson  1:01:17

Awesome. All right, guys. We’re at time. Megan,

Megan Militello  1:01:20

I have one quick questions for you that do use that are you using are using a paid version?

Jaclyn Kolodziej  1:01:26

I use the chat GPT for same

Jeanette Stevens-Cunningham  1:01:30

thing with Gemini is also good. I would definitely say lean into Gemini, you said something Jacqueline about it being better than search chat. GPT. I’m assuming that’s what you’re talking about. I would lose Gemini as it relates to Google stuff, because you’re gonna get it directly from the source. Nice. Thank you. Well, welcome. Times

Curt Anderson  1:01:53

are changing fast. So I will come back for our next jam session, we might have to dive into AI. So guys, we’ll wrap up connect with everybody here. Again, thank you all our esteemed panel. Send lots of love appreciation to all of you guys. Have a great rest of your day. Have an awesome rest of your week, and we will catch you guys next time.

Jeanette Stevens-Cunningham  1:02:10

Thank you so much. Enjoy. Thank you. Take

Curt Anderson  1:02:13

care. Thank you. Bye. See ya.