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Industrial Marketing Summit 2026 Preview with Morgan Norris

What if your marketing could work as hard as your best salesperson? In this episode of Stop Being the Best Kept Secret, we welcome a true expert in technical content strategy to discuss the Industrial Marketing Summit 2026. Our guest is Morgan Norris, the Sr. Brand and Content Strategist at TREW Marketing.

Morgan doesn’t just write content; she builds connections. With 15+ years of helping engineering and industrial companies attract their ideal buyers, Morgan has mastered the art of content that converts. From brand messaging to technical white papers, she knows how to turn complex info into compelling stories that drive results.

We are previewing the Industrial Marketing Summit 2026, where Morgan will take the stage as one of the featured speakers! She will join Damon and myself to explore the future of industrial marketing, building trust, educating buyers, and growing through strategy-first content.

Don’t miss this exclusive conversation with one of the thought leaders shaping the 2026 Summit!

Morgan’s insights will help you simplify your message, out-teach your competition, and connect with today’s technical buyers.

Key Highlights 

• Industrial Marketing Summit 2026 Preview with Morgan Norris 0:00
• Morgan Norris’ Background and Personal Life 1:31
• True Marketing and Its Services 5:44
• Industrial Marketing Summit Details 13:36
• Morgan Norris’ Workshop at the Summit 16:45
• Keynote Speaker Rand Fishkin 26:31
• AI in Marketing 31:02
• Final Thoughts and Encouragement 40:11

Resources 

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If you found this information valuable, check out some of our other blogs. 

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Helping Manufacturers Identify, Plan and Execute Their Optimal Go-to-Market Path

SEO Strategies for Manufacturers: Out-teach the Competition

How Manufacturers Can Use Subject Matter Interviews to Dominate SEO

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Transcription

Curt Anderson  00:00

Hey, happy Monday, guys. How are you? Damon, welcome to stop being the best kept secret. How was your weekend? It was awesome. Curt and ready to go for the week. My goodness gracious, dude. I didn’t sleep a wink last night. I’m just so excited. Man, this is just always such a gift and such a pleasure to have our dear friend, Morgan Norris on the show. Morgan, how are you I’m good. Thanks for having me. Oh my goodness gracious. Are you kidding me? So alright, we’re going to do a deep dive. We’re talking Industrial Marketing Summit. Doesn’t it sound weird to say 2026 already?

Morgan Norris  00:32

I know it does. Yeah, it feels like, still, I need it to not be 2026 yet.

Curt Anderson  00:37

But now, now, if somebody catches us on replay and it’s 2026 you’re like, What are you guys talking about? So anyway, every time that you catch this, we are here to talk about the Industrial Marketing Summit. 2026 now, Morgan, you and I met Industrial Marketing Summit, believe it or not, you know what?

Morgan Norris  00:52

2022 Yeah. I Some time ago, right, when we were at Content Marketing World, yeah. And, you

Curt Anderson  00:58

know what? And that was the first time that you were on the show because I dragged you on live. We like it. I sat down like, hey, you know what? I was with Jeff Long I’m like, we’re going to go live like it goes one. I’m like, right now, right now. We just started grabbing people and like, you’re one of the first people. So multiple you’ve been on show multiple times. Appreciate that. Yeah. So alright, let’s dive in. So you know what? I don’t know what? I don’t know if I’ve asked you this question or not, though I was going back, I was trying to find, like, how many times you’ve been on the show, and the opening question I always start with and because I know we have a funny Norris thing that I’m going to get into in a minute. But when you’re a little girl growing up, where did you

Morgan Norris  01:35

grow up? I grew up in Houston, and then I spent a good chunk of my time in London. So okay,

Curt Anderson  01:44

all right, we’re gonna dive into that for a minute. But when you were a little girl growing up, I don’t know if I’ve asked you this on the show, who was your hero? Have I ever asked you that before? I don’t I don’t think you have asked me that was your hero who just showered Morgan with unconditional love, girl, who was your hero when you were a little girl growing up?

Morgan Norris  02:04

No, that’s a great question. I mean, grew up watching my dad do be really successful in work and also just kind of pour into our family. And so I would definitely say that as an inspiration for me in work and stuff.

Curt Anderson  02:22

So awesome. Well, you know what, as Damon and I are proud girl dads, that’s one of our favorite answers. So Right? It should be, you know, I know, Damon. Are we ever going to get that? Who knows? Right? We’ll see. We’ll see time, time will tell. So, Morgan, what’s dad’s name?

Curt Anderson  02:37

Please? His name’s Dan. Dan. All right, so now we’re

Curt Anderson  02:41

going to dive in. You’re with TREW Marketing, incredible, wonderful marketing agency, dear friend. I just massive respect, huge love for all the work that you guys do. So manufacturers out there, you need high level engineering you’re doing. You’re targeting high level engineers. There’s nobody better than Morgan and the team at true marketing. We’re going to dive into that. We’re going to dive into IMS. However. You know what? You’ve moved out around a lot. So you mentioned Houston, London, if you look at your profile, you lived in DC. You’re back in Austin, Texas. What’s your favorite

Morgan Norris  03:13

city? Austin? Man, we I love it here. So I came here for college and went to UT, and then lived here for quite some time, and then we were in DC for five years, and then have recently come back to Austin. And so we it’s, we love it here. I mean, part of talking about IMS, so I get to present and lead a workshop, but I also it’s like, this is home for me. So everybody comes to my home, and I just, it’s such a fun place to be. I mean, IMS being the beginning of March too. It should be like beautiful weather. You get to eat all the food in Austin. I sent people IMS last year, I was like, sending people out for night activities. They come back and report back in the morning about where they ate and what they went to. And so it’s fun to have everybody in your your home city, in your

Curt Anderson  04:07

backyard, of course, is a dynamic, dynamic city. And so friends out there that are interested in like, hey, industrial marketing Summit, I’m thinking about it. Well, hey, guess what? We have a little coupon code for you guys. So did you know that Morgan? So if you have a that, we’ve just to have Morgan on the show. So if you type in when you go to sign up and do it today, just get out of the way. You know, just yeah, you start doing all your holiday shopping and Thanksgiving and all that stuff. Get the Industrial Marketing Summit on, on the books, like right now. Just check that off your list. And when you go to check out at the coupon code, type b2btail, and you get a little savings. So how about that? Perfect? Might as well, right? Why

Morgan Norris  04:44

not? Yep, for sure, I know it’s it’ll be really just a great experience, and I we’re at a little bit different of location this year. But what’s so cool about that is we’re all we have the entire like Hotel and Conference Center. There. Everybody can stay at the spot where the conference is. There’s enough room for everybody. Yeah, the food’s amazing. So just things like that. But I just that community feel that we get at IMS, that people love, they’re like, these are my people. And then it’s like, going to be really, I feel like contained, just to further on, like, exacerbate that community piece, right? So everybody in one spot, like camp, we’re going

Curt Anderson  05:26

to camp Absolutely. So it’s a different venue. I’m glad you told me, because I’ve been hanging out. I’d be like, Hey, where is everybody? I’d be like, the one guy you know, Damon, that’s happened to me. Not that it’s ever happened before, yeah, more than, more than

Morgan Norris  05:39

twice, but not that you’ve shown up at the wrong place.

Curt Anderson  05:42

Yeah? You know, like, hey, oh, these guys are pulling a joke on me. Where is everyone type of thing? Yeah, I’m just kidding, Morgan. Let’s go here true marketing. So for friends out there that aren’t familiar with true share a little bit. Who is true marketing? How are you making the world a better place? Yeah?

Morgan Norris  05:57

So we’re a full service marketing agency really focused specifically around brand development, content development. So how do we take these really technical applications and really long sales cycles and tell stories along the way and make your brand known along the way, while these technical buyers are going through their journey of making a purchase decision. And so we help companies do that through brand marketing and content marketing help people get found and be known throughout that journey. So

Curt Anderson  06:31

yeah, I love that. And you’ve been on the show multiple times. We’ve had one day on the show. If you don’t mind, I’m going to grab your website real quick, yeah, and you guys can see that, of course. And so you do an amazing job. As a matter of fact, I have the privilege of doing Wendy and I always do a webinar at different places when she does her research project. So talk a little bit about like, type of companies that you work with, and then share a little bit about the research project that you guys do

Morgan Norris  06:55

every year. Yeah, for sure. So we work with highly complex companies. So thinking like design engineers, things like that, people, the companies that are making all of the systems that are going into today’s data centers, and, you know, testing the the newest airplanes and radar systems and things like that. So really kind of complicated technologies. Most of the companies we work with are kind of mid to large size, though we will work with, you know, funded startups that have a great idea that’s always something fun to jump into, right? Somebody really developing something new. And so we work on that. One thing that we do you mentioned, is the research. So every year of I think this is the eighth year, maybe the ninth year, we do this research. And so what we do is we partner with global spec to do this, but we put out these surveys specifically targeting these highly technical buyers, ask them a bunch of questions every year and then get these takeaways that help us develop better marketing plans. Right? Because we’re sitting here going like, Okay, do we send out email newsletters? Do we How often do we do it? Do we create videos? How long? Okay, if we’re going to create videos, how long should the videos be? So these this research answers questions like, you know, how long engineers will watch a video, how, what types of content they prefer when they’re going through that buyer’s journey and things like that. So we use this to to educate ourselves, like it started out of a need for just like, you know, you go to, you go to give an engineer a marketing plan, or propose a marketing plan, and they’re like, Well, how are you going to prove to me that this works, right? Yeah. And so this started out of, like a need that we had because you’ve got these skeptical, really smart, you know, technical people. And so we started doing this research, research saying, here’s what your people want, right? Here’s what your target audiences are looking for. They will read newsletters, but they have to include this type of information. You know, they are interested in filling out a form, but only for this type of information and only these types of fields. So we get that detailed in the research, and it just becomes a really good tool. So it was something that we just decided to share with the the industry as a whole. And I know it’s really helpful, just across the board. So that’s the research.

Curt Anderson  09:30

Absolutely love it, and I tell you, it’s mind blowing. So I think I’ve been doing webinars with Wendy for like, the past three, four years. Yep, after the research comes out, and every time it’s just mind blowing. It’s just so valuable, so helpful. Instead of us sitting around guessing, well, I think people are searching here all on LinkedIn, and then you found out, like, you know, while LinkedIn is maybe not as high up as some other strategies, or maybe like email, you’re like, is email, Dad? You’re like, no, like, email is like one of the top, you know? So it’s really eye opening instead of guessing. It just. Tells you exactly what people are looking

Morgan Norris  10:02

for, for sure. Yeah. So this is at IMS at the Industrial Marketing Summit in March. Everybody who’s there will get, I believe, like, a preview of the research before it’s actually live, you know, a few weeks later, and kind of publicly announced. So that’s that’s been cool, too.

Curt Anderson  10:19

Yeah, absolutely. So one of the great, great Damon, what do you I mean, you’ve had a privilege of checking

Damon Pistulka  10:25

this out. What are your Yeah, yeah. It’s such a valuable piece of information, because you go in depth, and you really talk about the, like you said, the details, what people really are looking for in these technical these technical buyers, the engineers that want to understand more about what they’re doing. You know what they’re looking at, how it solves problems all. It’s just such great information for industrial marketers, because you really understand that that technical buyer is out there researching needs information about what you do, and if you if you address those needs the right way, it can be very effective. Yeah.

Morgan Norris  11:02

Well, and for us, like the the generic b2b type of information that’s out there doesn’t usually quite hit the nail on the head, because our sales cycles are so long for these complex purchases, and so we, we’ve got to ask the people that are actually doing the buying, because you’re kind of generic B2B research, you’re like. It doesn’t it doesn’t hit home with engineers.

Damon Pistulka  11:26

You’re right. Because with a long sales cycle, you could be doing the right thing forever and not see if you didn’t know what to look for. You could be missing the movement that’s telling you that it’s right and that’s not going to come to fruition. It could be a year or even more later,

Morgan Norris  11:42

right? And then you’re stuck, you know? You’ve got to make a new plan based on what you have gathered and learned over the last couple years. So this helps just kind of accelerate what to do, what to focus on as a marketer, yeah.

Curt Anderson  11:57

So once again, great. I anytime I do, I have somebody from shoe marketing? I always say, like, you know, a lot of times marketers will say like, Hey, we’re the cobblers kids with no shoes. We’re focusing for our clients, but we do, don’t necessarily take care of our own. And you guys consistently just knock the ball out of the park. Do a phenomenal job with your content, with your information. And you know, you guys don’t talk to talk. You walk the walk with this research project so powerful, and the agency that you hook up with is the IEE, I say three, yeah,

Morgan Norris  12:29

right. I triple E, global spec, yeah.

Curt Anderson  12:30

And it just brings so much credibility, because it’s not like you’re No, I asked my cousin my uncle, like you’re asking over 1000 engineers, like, what their opinion is, well,

Morgan Norris  12:42

and the thing is that I was actually in a meeting this week and learned something new that, like, we put this survey out and they’ll get like, I’m not going to say a number, because I’ll mess it up, but the number of responses was is massive, and then they they call it so down to the actual qualified responses based on how people identify themselves, as their job title, the company they work for. And so the What’s crazy is it’s not just like, oh, we sent this out, like, whoever responded. I didn’t realize how, how many responses we cut, because they’re not they don’t fit this technical buyer, yeah, profile, so specifically. And I was like, oh, man, that’s Yeah. It just lends a lot of credibility to what you’re getting. So right

Curt Anderson  13:31

now, you know, what? Can I digress? I have to digress. Look at this wonderful doesn’t a smile, just warm up the room like wonderful human being. And I’m telling you, is wonderful as she is virtually. It is 10 times better in person. So Morgan, I Oh, I’m always thrilled when I bump into you at industrial marketing Summit. But you know what? You piqued my curiosity here. I absolutely love this on your bio. You have that you and your kids, you have three wonderful children, and you guys would the motor kit when you lived in DC, the motorcade. Tell us a little bit, and we’ll come right back to promise, but tell everybody what this is about the motorcades. Yeah.

Morgan Norris  14:04

So we lived in, like, downtown DC, like on my morning run, I would could run past the White House. We were downtown, downtown, and so it’s always like, guess who’s in the motorcade, based on my kids learned, you know, like, what flags are on the vehicles and how many there are, and stuff like that. So this is, you know, fun keeping things alive.

Curt Anderson  14:27

Yeah, did you guys? Did you ever figure it out? Or were you, oh yeah, yeah, oh

Morgan Norris  14:31

yeah, yeah, you can. You gotta learn the system. You also learn the patterns, because the same people like travel throughout the city at the same times during the day, yeah, and so, you know, you’re like, Oh, I know that’s the vice president. You wave,

Curt Anderson  14:48

nice, awesome. What a great experience you provided for your kids. Because, you know, like most families around the country, you have to travel, hey, we’re going to go to DC. We’re going to get, like, a big dose of history. We’re going to drag the kids. Around the city. It’s like 90 degrees, you know, in the middle of summer, and you’re dragging them from museum to Museum, and like, you’re right there, like, just eating up all that history. So what I kudos to you. I remember you sharing me like, oh, we moved to the city we wanted our kids had the experience and and kudos to you for providing that for your family.

Morgan Norris  15:17

Yeah, it was pretty cool. By the end, there were definitely museums that they were like, we’re done with that one. You know, visit. Yeah, people come visit. They’re like, No, I’m not going back

Curt Anderson  15:26

there. Yeah, we’re not going back to the White House again for the 80th time. My goodness, the Lincoln Memorial. I just saw it yesterday. I don’t need to see that, right? Yeah? So anyway, I just want to share that one more digression that we’re going to slide over to the industrial marketing summit now Norris, is there a, do we have a, do we have a funny connection is with, isn’t where guy does karate with the last endorse? Or what

Morgan Norris  15:51

there is, there is, you know, and we just got a dog, and we named him Charlie, because I couldn’t name my son. I love the name Charlie, but there was red hair runs in my family, and so it was like, there’s there would just be this, like, perfect storm. I felt like, if we had this baby and planned on naming him little Chuck Norris, so we got it in a dog,

Curt Anderson  16:16

not the dog. I love him. So is Charlie rock.

Morgan Norris  16:23

Well, yeah, he’s in the other room.

Curt Anderson  16:27

Mine’s incapacitated today.

Morgan Norris  16:29

Yeah, he’s still, I mean, he just turned one, he’s still kind of a puppy, but he’s like, I, I can’t, he can’t be unsupervised. Yeah, yeah, hey,

Curt Anderson  16:39

Damon, that’s what you’re that’s what Lenay says about you, right? That? Yeah, that’s what Lenny says about you, right? That? Yeah, well, hey, you know what you what are these days? Like, we are dog fanatics, so one of these days we’re gonna have, like, bring your dog on the live show. Just have everybody I am. What kind of dog is Charlie?

Morgan Norris  16:55

He’s a bernadoodle. Oh, nice. Great. Super cute. Yeah? He’s, he’s big boy. He doesn’t know what to do with his whole self,

Damon Pistulka  17:06

yeah? Like, lots of movement, lots of stuff to move, and don’t really know it’s just yeah, having fun, yeah, yeah, that’s already just knocked the kitchen table over, yeah,

Morgan Norris  17:17

and then ate everything that was on, everything on it, yeah? Kind of a bull in a china shop, right? Yeah, that’s the case, right now. Alright, so we’re alright.

Curt Anderson  17:26

So we get, I had it. I had to get the Chuck Norris out of the way. I met you. First time I met you. I think you and I had a funny Chuck Norris. And I’m sure you get that a lot, but we so anyway, let’s dive into here. Hey, do you recognize this wonderful human being again? Damon, I do, okay, Morgan, we have a master class coming up March, 2026 in Austin, Texas. It’s the Industrial Marketing Summit. Please share curious minds. Would love to know, what would they what are takeaways? Give them a little sliver. They still have to go for the masterclass by Morgan, but just give them a little sliver. What are they going to expect at your workshop?

Morgan Norris  18:03

Yeah, so this workshop is actually was born out of client requests that we keep getting. It came around time to kind of talk about what we wanted to do for a workshop at IMS, and I have had so many requests this year for these kind of quick brand awareness campaigns. So what’s happening is, I mean, you guys see it, but companies and news and stuff is getting, like, buried in search. And there’s a new Forrester report recently, or over the summer, I think that was talking about BB brands, and it was talking about how, like, 90% of buyers go into a purchase decision with a short list of it, of like five companies that they’re going to choose From, and people companies want to be top of mind. And what’s happening is people are like, Okay, well, I’m investing in this trade show. We’re putting all these resources into this big show, but nobody’s going to know us when we get there, like our people are having to work so hard on the ground just to get our name out there. And we want to be top of mind when somebody goes to start their kind of research journey of what they want for a solution, and companies also don’t want the answer, that it’s like, okay, yes, well, it’s going to take five years to build your brand, and it is going to take five years to, like, build your brand really strong. But there are some really tactical things that you can do in like a 30 day period to boost awareness. And so this happens, clients come to us when they’re like, you know, we just had this new partnership with a company that’s bigger than us. How do we we have this short window to talk about this partnership and promote it and get some traction out of that? Or. Or, Oh, our CEO is speaking at this big event, but it’s in a month and a half. How do we get some awareness around that? How do we leverage these things that come up, that are happening, and just don’t let them slip by? And so in this workshop, we’re going to talk about just going from like zero to some significant brand awareness in about 30 days. I’ve done it over and over again for clients. And so it’s something like, this isn’t like in theory. Here’s like, what you could do. These are, this is actually like what we’re doing that’s working really well. And so that’s what we’ll go through in this. And a lot of it is around. PR, my background in college and PR, I did a lot of that straight out of college, then really shifted more towards brand development and content development as a whole. But PR is really making kind of a comeback, because we can leverage some of these third party channels that already have a lot of repeatability to get our brand out there in that small window. And so we’ll talk through what that looks like. What does it look like to be smart with PR, to use your time effectively and and do this in a way that is really meaningful to your company. And so my goal is that everybody leaves and can go back to their job the next Monday and start a campaign like this, and not only build that awareness for their company, but man, for your career, for your marketing director or your VP of marketing or CEO, to look at you, for you to go, Hey, look what I’ve done in the last 30 days. See that. See how we showed up at that trade show, and people were already in our booth. They already knew who we were. You know. See how those those industry press are coming to talk to us, or, you know, we’re getting included in these sorts of write ups and coverage. And now, when you go to search on AI for questions about recommendations for different products or technologies, our name is coming up there. You can say, I did that, you know. So it’s a, it’s a really kind of tangible type of workshop.

Curt Anderson  22:01

I absolutely love that. And the big thing is, like, you know, for I think this, what you just said, really speaks to the business owner who, you know, they have a solo marketer, and a marketer says, hey, I want to go this conference. Well, you know, the CEO might be or president might be a little skeptical. It’s an investment. I’m sending my either away, the flight, the cost, and what you just said, my goal is that you’re going to have a tangible takeaway that Monday you can start implementing. So like, right there, it’s like, anytime somebody, you know, and I, and trust me, I get it, you know, the expense of the travel and going to the conference, but my goodness, like, you can’t put a price tag on the takeaways that you walk away with, and you’re just not going to get that following a YouTube channel, you go to a webinar, but like being there, right? In person, I absolutely love what you’re doing, yeah.

Morgrn Norris  22:50

And I love this too, because these workshops are on the I believe the workshops are on the first day. Anyway, I will be at the conference the whole time I’m in seeing the conference. Surprise, no, are

Curt Anderson  23:01

you really your MC nice?

Morgan Norris  23:03

And so it’s just these, these workshops also just start conversations too, where people are like, Okay, here’s what you talked about. Now I have these specific questions. I think that’s something that’s so cool about IMS, is your speakers are typically like, they’re pretty much the whole time. And so when you have these kind of really specific questions or want to pick people’s brain. You just go sit with them at lunch, you know, and then you’re like, get to get some of that, that counsel and kind of consulting along the way. And I think that’s really cool about IMS, too. Yeah, I

Curt Anderson  23:36

love everything you’re saying, and it’s the networking, the collaboration. If you’re a manufacturer and you’re looking for a partner, such as a true marketing to hire, it’s a great place, because now you can meet these agencies in person. You can shake their hand. You can be like, hey, is this person a good fit? Is this someone I can share working with? On the flip side, the marketing firms, you know, it just all the way around, right? It’s just a full circle, all the way around. I can’t wait for your workshop. Let’s go here for folks that maybe just popped in and or they’re not familiar with the industrial marketing Summit. Can you give us a quick overview of what is the industrial marketing Summit? I probably should have hit that earlier. Yeah.

Morgan Norris  24:15

So the industrial marketing summit was born out of it used to be held it as like a track at Content Marketing World, and we found that the people that come to that are so specialized in what they do, again, right with this really technical audience, that there was so much more opportunity to just teach and train and share with this specific group of people. So we pulled this out of Content Marketing World, and it’s now a standalone event. It’s run by true marketing and then gorilla 76 which is another marketing agency as well. They work in really similar space to us, but we partner together to put this on for like, the betterment of. A marketing community across industrial marketing. And so people come, it’s three days march, 3 through fifth and 2026, and there’s a workshop day. So that workshop days, the workshop I just talked about girls 76 is doing a workshop on sales enablement, which will be fantastic. And then Dale Bertrand is doing a workshop around SEO and AEO, and just incredibly, if you’ve never heard Dale speak, he’s just super helpful, yeah, and this is specifically around kind of that AI marketing assistant. So how do you use some of these tools that are coming up again? This will just be, this will be super practical, right? So how do you create something that you can walk away with and start working more quickly and efficiently and effectively. So Dale is going to do that. So that’s kind of the workshop day. And then the other two days, the format is, there will be a keynote, and then we’ve got sessions so experts coming to talk about, you see, all these different topics. So product launches, LinkedIn, you know, how do we work within AI search and things like that and so tons of topics over the course of the two days, there are events at night. There’s a conference party that’s always super fun. There will be like, a networking happy hour the first night, which is fun. But these people like, get together and then they’re, they want to keep hanging out, because they’re, everybody shares really similar challenges and, you know, work environments. And so you people come and they feel like, Ah, this is, I found my people here. This is a community. So really trying to level up the community of industrial marketers. So we have a lot of people that come, you know, there are a lot of people that come on their own, and then as time’s going on, we’re having a lot of people start to bring, you know, they come one year, and then they’re like, ah, next year, I’m bringing another one of my marketing people with me, because we both need to be hearing this and then leaving and executing better. So we’re seeing that happen for sure. Yeah, it’s in Austin. I think that’s kind of the details.

Curt Anderson  27:04

Yeah, and I tell you, if and we so we have the privilege of, we’re interviewing a bunch of folks. So Luke was show on Friday. We have a conversation with Luke on Friday. We have, let’s see a she’s coming up. I think in a few weeks we got Craig. I think Craig’s coming on a week from Friday, and so anyway, so we’re going down the list. Oh, these two. They were on the show in June. Yes, have to have them back on. Carla Carlin and Brittany were both on the show. We had them on the June. They’re just a powerhouse. Josh is coming on in December. Awesome. Let’s see. We’ve Dale’s been on the show multiple times. Him back. Jim was on this year. So again, just, Jake was just on the show a few months ago. So, and then let’s dive into your keynote. Yeah, right there. So huge This, to me, is, this is a home run. I know. How did you guys land? Rand Fishkin, well,

Morgan Norris  27:59

just, you know, made a big ask, and good things happen. So yeah, we Rand fishkins Coming. He’ll be the keynote speaker. So he is the CEO of sparktoro, and he will talk about SEO AI. He’s an incredible business leader, speaker, but he has lived in this SEO space for, I mean, 15 years, maybe he, he founded Moz years ago.

Curt Anderson  28:32

Yeah, he’s so he’s a Seattle guy, Damon, right in your backyard. Yeah, he founded, he was a digital marketer, and I think I used to catch him, like, 20 years ago, yeah. So, I mean, he’s been in the industry for years and years and years, just literally a legend. And so when I saw that this was your keynote, I was like, kudos to the team for going out. I mean, like, you really stepped up, and you landed a big fish here. So congratulations.

Morgan Norris  28:58

Yeah, we’re I, my team, I know is incredibly just looking forward to this session, and so it’s fun to see that, you know, your organizers are excited to hear from your keynote Yeah, this is, like, it’s amazing. So like, yeah,

Curt Anderson  29:14

when you’re starstruck by your own keynote speaker, yeah, I know you’ve got a good one. You know, you got a good one. And I’m looking up, you know what I have, I should have I should have done it before the show. I’ve read his book. So it’s right here, lost and founder, see it right there. It’s lost and founder, and it’s a phenomenal book, and a very what’s the right word vulnerable, like very vulnerable and transparent on he had a marketing agency, and they, they started this tool, and also it turned into Moz. And so, like, if you’re an SEO guru, you’re like, wait a minute, this guy founded Maz. Yeah, founded Moz and built it up, and then, you know, one thing led to another, and then he was not at Maz, and he kind of walks through that. It’s a really powerful story. It’s a great book, and strong and Curt. If you’re a entrepreneur. A great book to read. And did you read it? Morgan,

Morgan Norris  30:03

yes, yes, I read it. Would you follow his journey? Yeah, it’s amazing. And he walks through, you know, even from a business perspective, like what that journey looked like for him. And then, you know, kind of the story of him leaving Moz, and then now it’s great just to see him build up sparktoro And kind of what that’s becoming and and it’s really remarkable, I think, in a field like that that’s changed so much like SEO, looks 1,000% different than it looked 20 years ago. And he is has committed to staying ahead of that. And so I we all need to hear whatever he’s going to talk to us. Yeah, very,

Curt Anderson  30:46

very dynamic leader. And so, so again, you know, a great book to read if you’re an entrepreneur. Just business owner. Want to, want to be entrepreneur. It’s a great, very transparent. He, it’s not all roses, you know, it’s, you know, he shares a lot of the down and dirty, you know, if I could politely use like he’ll the mistakes he’s he made through his journey. And again, great opportunity to catch him live here at the industrial marketing Summit. So okay, we’ll start. Let’s turn the corner here. So again, guys, strongly encourage you. Welcome you. If you have any questions about the industrial marketing Summit. Please reach out to Morgan. Reach out to anybody at true marketing reach out to Damon. Myself, we’d be more than happy to get you guys connected. So Morgan, let’s go here AI. I know last time you were on the show, it was like it was new ish, right, newer, like the masses, if you will. Give us a quick little overview, little taste like, what’s AI for you personally, or how you’re using it, how you guys are using it as a team at true say, there’s a marketer, a manufacturer out there who, like, maybe, um, I would say, uh, lagger or resistant, but maybe, hey, I’m a little late to the game. What’s your perspective on AI for the for the newbies out there?

Morgan Norris  31:58

Yeah, so, um, I mean, you’re, you’re not late to the game. There’s always you can start today, for sure. Um, what we’re really seeing AI help with, I think, is, first, some of the, just the tasks that that historically took a long time, we can accelerate using some AI agents, and what that means is we can do a lot more for our clients. So I think you know what I’m talking about. Even like PR in this 30 day brand awareness, we used to keep a media list of, you know, 10 or 12 publications, and to be able to use some AI tools to help research and find you know the relevant kind of contacts and where you should be talking and who you should be talking to, we can take lists like that and expand that reach from 10 to 40 or 50, because we’re able to work a little Bit more efficiently. And so I think what we’ve seen is, yes, there are some things we can do faster, but we can also cast our nets wider. I think with some of these tools. The other piece is like for technical content and for technical pieces that you’re creating, our your company’s expertise is what differentiates you. And so where I see people kind of making missteps is trying to use AI to come up with something differentiating about their company, or come up with something uniquely compelling about the technology that they have. And if you’re coming up with something new like that that doesn’t exist in the AI tools that are summarizing what art e sits out there. And so some of our best uses, and I think technical audiences, for sure, is to start to train, you know, some of your own AI agents and models using your internal subject matter expertise, and so turning off the web search functions on your AI agents, loading all of your domain knowledge and continuing to add to that domain knowledge as your company’s technology advances, and then using that as a tool to help you kind of pull from. So that’s, those are kind of things we’re doing. And I think that’s probably the route Dale will go down in his session when he’s talking about, you know, in his workshop, kind of end to end, creating an AI agent. And so that’s something I think people can do and learn from, and until you walk somebody through it step by step. So like in Dale’s workshop, it feels that it just feels like there’s a big barrier in between, which is okay, it’s okay. If you feel like that, you just you need to find somebody who will teach you and walk you through step by step, like Dale do in that workshop, I think people feel stressed. About it. It feels like there’s like a big barrier in between sometimes. And then I’m talking to companies. I’m constantly asking clients and prospects, you know, even in the kind of sales process, like, how are you guys using tools? And the the I’m hearing a lot of kind of industrial and manufacturing companies say, well, we’re not, we’re basically, like, not allowed to do anything right now, they get a little paralyzed, you know, they have outside legal counsel or something, and the easiest answer they can give is, just like, don’t use it, right? Yeah. And so, you know you’re you can always catch up, but I we’re having to kind of teach and train company leadership like you guys, have to use this and use it responsibly, or you will fall behind as an organization. You’re going to get lost if you’re not using the tools. And I think this is a conversation that, like, five years from now, everybody’s gonna be like, oh, yeah, why didn’t Why didn’t we jump in, right? Like, why were we sending faxes when we had email like, we don’t need to do that.

Damon Pistulka  36:18

And every day, these companies that are adopting and trying and failing and trying and getting better with it. They’re they’re going through those things that the companies that aren’t even trying yet, yeah, are half right, right? Not something I can catch up just by, you know, jumping ahead somehow, right? There’s a lot of learning and a lot of bruises you get trying to figure it out and catching that up with others in your industry that are using it, I think is going to be very

Morgan Norris  36:47

difficult, yeah. And I think that some of the things people can do are start using, well, first pick a tool if you’re going to start using some kind of AI tool, whether that’s chat GPT or Claude or something like that, pick one tool and stay in that tool a lot of times. Like the the kind of speakers in this realm and stuff will be like, Oh, you got to use, you know, I use this tool for this, and that tool for that, and this tool for this. And that’s just so overwhelming to somebody who’s not doing anything right now. So the way you start is you pick one kind of get started there. And the other thing you can do is look at the systems you’re already using and start using the AI integrations that are built in there. Right if you’re a HubSpot user, there are already some AI integrations you can use. So use it, use a platform like that, that you’re already familiar with, and use some of the integrations that they’ve built in. And that will help people kind of get started. And then I always tell people, like, start using this stuff in your personal life. That tool that you chose, start figuring out how to accelerate and and make your life easier personally. And that’ll just start to get your hands wet in to what you can do, and kind of start getting your mind going. I’m like, Ah, if I, if I took this task I hate doing at home, like organizing my grocery list and planning out meals. I wonder how that could right help organize some of my work tasks, and then how can I share that with my team? And so that’s usually a good way for people to get started when they’re feeling like, overwhelmed.

Curt Anderson  38:18

Yeah, yeah. Great, great tip, and this scary for the folks that are and are you running into quite a bit with companies that are that are kind of resistant or legal or saying, don’t, don’t use it. Are you running to that? Are you,

Morgan Norris  38:32

yeah, and I and the marketers are frustrated. But what, what actually is happening is then people are just kind of using things on the side with no guidance, yeah. And so the companies need to lead in this effort, because they’re just saying blanket answer, like, no tools. Can’t use anything. And so then people are off on the side, just kind of going rogue, like doing whatever. That’s not good either. And so companies need to that, that marketing leadership and within the company needs to help be a voice there, for sure. Yeah,

Damon Pistulka  39:06

well, in the Yeah, it’s I just the depth of knowledge base you can build by responsibly using it. First of all, yeah, and feeding information in that really tells your the tool you’re using. More about you, the company, who you help everything I mean it, it can help in so many ways. When it gets smarter and smarter and helps you more, right? Just, yeah, I can. I can. For me, it’s, it’s hard to fathom how you would do what you need to do in today’s it’s changed so fast. Yeah,

Morgan Norris  39:41

and you’re having to do so much more, like the we’re asking marketers to do so much more, but then if we tie their hands on tools, like people are getting frustrated and burnout. So yeah,

Curt Anderson  39:55

yeah, tough, tough, tough situation. But like you said, you know, it’s 1995 Hey, this internet thing is gonna be a fad to use this internet thing, you know? So I don’t, I don’t know that AI is a fad or that’s going away anytime soon. I think it is. Gosh, you know, when social media first started coming out, man, I was, I was the first I’m on the record. I’m like, Twitter, I’m like, 140 characters, like, that’s never going to work. So I fully admit that. But you know what we did is we jumped on Twitter because I’m like, You know what? I don’t want to get beat by a competitor because I ignored a new technology. We weren’t good at it. I vowed that this thing wasn’t going to work. But at least we did it. Probably didn’t do it well, but you know, gosh, I just really encourage with what you’re saying. Just, you know, have an open mind to see what possibilities. Just explore the possibilities, right? Yeah, you could have that mindset, right? What do you think?

Damon Pistulka  40:48

Yeah, the industrial marketing something is Summit. You know, in 2026 it’s such a great place to go to learn more. Because if you’re setting your date, I don’t know what I mean, just look at the lineup of people you can learn from and go and as you said, Morgan, maybe at lunch I can talk to somebody about your marketers. What are you using? What are some good tools to get into that? Because, as you said, they’re just expected to do so much more, and it’s not going to get easier.

Curt Anderson  41:18

It’s not Damon, Dude, you just gave me chills. Like, phenomenal, phenomenal points. Matter of fact, Morgan, like, that could be a tagline right there, because, like, send your marketer to the industrial marketing Summit, and guess what? Like, if you have resistance, you’re going to come back with major FOMO. Like, they’re going to come back and being like, people are doing this. People are doing this. I learned about this. I learned about this. And like you said, even that overwhelm, I know people don’t want to be overwhelmed. I agree with you 1,000,000% however, that also lights a fire under people like to realize, like, hey, how far behind we are because, like, we’re not doing anything. So that, Damon, both you Great point. You know, you know. Check out. Follow Morgan on LinkedIn, best place to file, to find you Morgan. LinkedIn, we’re

Morgan Norris  42:02

also LinkedIn, yep. LinkedIn, for sure, you can email me, Morgan at true marketing, but I am always on LinkedIn,

Curt Anderson  42:11

and here there, look at that wonderful smile once again. One more. So hey, there’s Morgan. So guys, do us a favor. Connect with Morgan on LinkedIn. You can stop by here. Go to true marketing. Check out their website. And again, if we didn’t make our point clear, I don’t know. Hey, did we talk about the industrial Americans? Man, I just as she said, Let’s go for the food. Man, just go. I know, right. Yeah, good food. It’s almost, it’s almost criminal how like, one city can have like, such, great, yeah, rest of the country is, like, feeling bad. So Morgan, as we close out, Hey, I don’t know, Damon, should we go there? Should go there with Morgan? You ready? Morgan, are you a baseball fan?

Morgan Norris  42:53

Yeah, I am. Well, you are. Who’s your team? We’re, I mean, being from Houston, we’re Astros fans for sure. Okay, my son is has a lot of teams that he like follows, so we watch a lot of baseball.

Curt Anderson  43:08

Who’s your All right? So we’re huge baseball fans. Who’s your son?

Morgan Norris  43:11

I mean, he’s a Rangers fan, he’s a Dodgers fan, he’s a nats fan, because we were in DC, yeah.

Curt Anderson  43:23

So, all right, so let’s, let’s. So you’re baseball mom, you totally alright. So let’s, I have, I have a question for you. You ready? You sitting down? I’m ready. Okay, let’s go here. Okay, so the dread the Houston Astros are playing the dreaded Yankees. Everybody hates the Yankees, of course, right? Unless you’re from New York. So Astros are playing the Yankees. It’s the bottom of the ninth inning. Okay, two outs, there’s a runner on second base. You with me? Astros are playing the Yankees bottom of the ninth two outs, there’s a runner on second base. That run is the winning run, right? The manager looks down the bench and says, Hey, Norris, grab your helmet, grab your bat, get up to the plate and hit in the winning run. Will you please? We gotta get out of here. So you walk up, you grab your helmet, you grab your bat, you’re strutting up to the home plate to hit in the winning run. Right? You with me?

Morgan Norris  44:13

Yeah, I’m really bad at baseball, though. They shouldn’t have called on me. Oh, we have

Curt Anderson  44:20

total confidence. So you’re slap on the helmet, got your bat, you’re walking to the plate. What’s your walk up song?

Morgan Norris  44:27

Oh, this is a good question. My husband is in charge of all the walk up songs for all the boys on the baseball team.

44:38

That is awesome.

Curt Anderson  44:41

Miss Norris, what’s yours?

Morgan Norris  44:44

I’m a big fan of all I do is win Yeah. And in that song that like drops for a second, yeah, and then it comes back, yeah. Like some drama there. I. I would probably pick that off the top of my head. That’s my favorite one of the lineup when

Curt Anderson  45:03

they come. That’s your favorite. Okay, hey, great answer. So tell your husband. What’s your husband’s name? His name’s John. So told John say, Hey, I was asked what my favorite walk up song is today. So he’ll, he’ll get a kick

Morgan Norris  45:13

out. He will. I will say, you won’t be able to see this. But look my son, they won their baseball championship. Look at that. Oh,

Speaker 1  45:19

nice. That is awesome. How old is he? He’s eight, eight. Well, congrats. Oh,

Damon Pistulka  45:23

very good, champion. A lot of fun years. Lot of fun years. Yet, yep,

Curt Anderson  45:27

last year is right there. Oh, wonderful, wonderful. Well, Morgan, as always, you’re just such a dear friend. We adore you. We appreciate you, we applaud you. Thank you for everything that you’re doing, for manufacturing, for all your clients, everything that you’re doing at true and again, one more time, Damon, let’s catch Morgan at the industrial marketing

Morgan Norris  45:47

Summit, right? Yes, yes, for sure. Thanks, you guys. Thanks for having me. Damon, anything

Damon Pistulka  45:51

you want to share as we close out? No, just thanks so much, Morgan for being here. And I want everyone out there listening. If you have not researched the Industrial Marketing Summit for 2026 get out there, take a look at it and get signed up. And as Curt said earlier, there is a b2btail code that you can use to get a discount when you sign up. We want to get you signed up early so you can get your spot. Like Morgan said, everyone’s staying in the same hotel. It’s going to be awesome. Going to have great convention area for this. So get out there and do it.

Morgan Norris  46:22

And that code is that b2btail is that the code, it’s

Curt Anderson  46:25

b2btail is the code b2btail. And again, hey, and shameless plug out there. Guys, sign up for we have a wonderful at least my mom thinks it is. We have a wonderful weekly newsletter that goes out. It’s called the best kept secret sauce. And in the best kept secret sauce, we’re going to be promoting the industrial marketing Summit. So sign up. Go to b2btail.com sign up on our website. We have all sorts of wonderful tools for you. And sign up for our secret sauce newsletter, and you can get the code there as well. So Morgan, thank you. We appreciate you. And guys, go out there and just be someone’s inspiration, just like our dear friend Morgan, and you too will make the world a better place. And so Morgan, hang out with us one second, and we wish the rest of you an amazing, incredible, wonderful week, and for our veterans out there, God bless you. Thank you. We appreciate you. We love you. And have a wonderful veterans day this week. So alright, guys, have a great week. See ya.