Marketing for Manufacturers That Doesn’t Make You Cringe

Damon Pistulka  00:00

I want to try it again. All right, everyone, it’s Friday, and you know what that means? Yes, we had a little mishap there with our music and video, but we are going to keep right on going. It is time for manufacturing, ecommerce success. I am your host, damonka, and you know what? I have the guest move, not in the guest spot, so I gotta get Vicky down there in the bottom, because today we’re talking with Vicky Winkler from the marketing shop about marketing for manufacturers that doesn’t make you cringe. And I have the co host of the century right over there with me today, Gail Robertson, stopping by from Gail now to help us figure this out with Vicky. So Vicky, thanks for being here today.

Vicky Winkler  00:47

Oh, and thank you so much for having me. I’m super excited. Yeah, it’s

Damon Pistulka  00:51

awesome, awesome. And Gail, thanks for stopping by and CO hosting with me today. Curt couldn’t be here today. It’s just it’s a great time to have you here?

Gail Robertson  01:00

Well, thank you. And always good to be sitting in in cursed chair periodically, I feel already, you know, quite magical with the Curt name above me. And it’s Friday the 13th,

01:13

I know, right? We’re

Damon Pistulka  01:14

talking about that before we got on. So, good stuff. Well,

01:19

Vicky,

Damon Pistulka  01:20

you know, I’m gonna, I’m gonna try to keep this kind of the way Kurt does. I’m gonna ask his introductory question. So when you were a little girl who was your hero, okay,

Vicky Winkler  01:34

this was not a question that I was given, but exactly, I had those other questions all down. So who is my hero? Gosh, you know, this is probably just sounds cliche, but you know, it was my mom. I mean, she was, she was my rock, the one I could always go to, and she’s the one who, who basically made me the strong woman that I am today, and my sisters as well, just just putting it out there and teaching us to to just go after your dreams. To, you know, always don’t, don’t have regrets in your life. To, you know, in that, don’t look back and think, oh, I should have done that, or I should have done this. So yeah, so that would be, who? Who I would say, my hair. I was awesome.

Damon Pistulka  02:22

Awesome. Well, I just dropped my mom off at the airport today. She was out here with us for a while, so I know what you’re saying there. Thank you. That was great. That was great. So, Gail, what are your thoughts on this nice Friday, the 13th morning? Well, beautiful

Gail Robertson  02:38

weather, and Vicky and I are kind of neighbors, because, yes, she’s about, probably just over an hour away from where I am. And we’re just talking about that, you know, that border is there, and yet it’s, it’s quite an easy border for many to cross, not everyone, but yeah, and Damon, you know, I visited you out on the other coast at one point. So maybe Vicky. I hope we will cross paths. It sometimes Awesome.

Damon Pistulka  03:07

Good, good. Well, Vicky. So we’re talking about this got started a little bit off before we got on today, marketing for manufacturers that doesn’t make you cringe. So first of all, let’s start out with some marketing that makes you cringe. What’s some marketing you’ve seen lately that made you cringe?

Vicky Winkler  03:29

Wow, well, can’t be specific, and I call anybody out. Oh, what? Yeah. So, so I guess one is that as a client we’re working with right now that they, yeah, see, I’m trying not to give specifics, but basically, they came to us and they kind of showed us some of the things that they had done and and gently, we said, well, you know what? Let’s let’s see what else we could do. They had a specific fundraising campaign that they needed to accomplish by November. And so it was pretty aggressive, but basically, we we went in and we put together a brochure and some other materials and a nice envelope, and, you know, they saw it, and they were like, wow. We just didn’t even really realize what we were doing was as bad as it was until we saw the same basic materials, but that they were done right and they’re just they were blown away by what a difference. And they can really envision how now this campaign is going to get legs and it’s going to take off, and it would not have if we had not had the right materials.

Damon Pistulka  04:40

Gail, what are your thoughts around

Gail Robertson  04:42

that? Well, agree, I think sometimes we don’t know what we don’t know, right? So people, you know when you design something, I early on, way back many moons ago, I had a business bed and breakfast, and I had designed a brochure, and it was only when I had a designer that. Do it properly. I look, I kept the two of them because to look at them, it was like, incredible, the difference, right? And that taught me a very valuable lesson, just like what Vicky said, is that it’s sometimes when you go to a professional on anything, right? I mean, it’s this applies to so and, you know, Vicky, did you find, in terms of what clients, or prospective clients, when they come to you, what do you is there anything that they that’s a constant that you find again and again, that they come to you and they don’t know something like, is there one thing that maybe there, there’s a consistency in what people are?

Vicky Winkler  05:45

Yeah, I would say that the biggest thing is that the marketing materials that we work on, that they come to us with, are not put together strategically. They don’t understand because they’re not designers. What are the basics of where the phone number, where the call to action should be, what it should be, where certain things should be placed, the use of fonts, the strategic ways to put something together, so that it’s not complicated or confusing or hard to find information. And sometimes it means you need the QR code. We talked about QR codes a little bit, but sometimes the QR code needs to be one of the most important things. We’re putting together a flyer right now for a crisis unit, and the the QR code is super and the phone number are two the most important things. And so we need to make sure that that when people see this, these are people that are in crisis, and they need to readily see that phone number and readily see that QR code. So it’s knowing exactly what is the objective of what you’re putting together, instead of just throwing a bunch of information on a flyer and hoping that people will be able to find what you need them to find. It’s a lot more than that.

Damon Pistulka  06:57

That was That was awesome, because as you were talking, you said a few things in there. You were talking about the fonts, use of fonts, different fonts. You said talking about where you put the call to action. You talk of a phone number, contact info, those kind of things that you want people to find. And then you gave the example of of a crisis, someone in crisis needing to find those things quick and how you do redo that. I just realized how how relevant that is for someone that doesn’t understand marketing to know and talking to somebody that does understand marketing to ask some questions about that. Because if you don’t know marketing, like I don’t, you would not even think about those things,

Vicky Winkler  07:37

right, right? And in the in the manufacturing realm. You know, the same is for, you know, sales literature and you know, thinking about the target audience, and for, you know, medical device, what you put on a brochure or a flyer or an email PDF is going to be very different from someone who is, who is advertising and services for a daycare, or, in this case, a crisis support unit, so there is no, well, you shouldn’t ever have X, Y or Z, or you should always have such and such at least be this big in this location. It’s it’s not. It all comes down to who is the target audience. And you know, in the manufacturing realm, sometimes the temptation is to just, is just to kind of vomit all the specifications onto the piece, and there’s so much on there. And you think, does, does the target audience really care about every one of those specs? In some cases they might, but in some cases they might not. So really, thinking about who’s getting this and what do you want them to do, and what kind of information are they going to want, as opposed to what you want to tell them?

Damon Pistulka  08:53

Yeah, that’s huge. Gail, well,

Gail Robertson  08:54

I just want to say there’s two people have joined in the comments, and I want to say Dave Chrysler is the king of process. He’s also over Michigan, and I’m sure he would agree on the importance of strategy. And then the other person is Don can count who I’ve worked with as well, and she said visual hierarchy is very important. That’s something that not everybody understands. So they want to put, you know, well, my logo or my tagline is important. Sometimes it is, but sometimes you have to be always thinking about the audience, right? Yeah, that’s and I think that gets overlooked, and why strategy and having someone to ask those questions. And one last thing I know, Dave mentioned the pitch slap, yeah, something that’s like, you know, when you’re just forcing your messaging on someone without with what you want to sell, not necessarily what they want to buy. So limiting all the specs. Love

Damon Pistulka  09:50

it, yeah. And then we’ve got, we’ve got Bill polifka, starting with why Bill’s here today changed so much the way we talk to people, yeah. So let’s do more of that. That it’s great again. I just want to read these comments for our audio only. People don, don stopped by and said visual hierarchy is very important. And Dave Pricer said that the infamous pitch slap, which you just mentioned, Gail, it’s just a we do this buy from us today kind of thing. And then Dave, again, the the product vomit that you mentioned Vicky is just so throwing all those specs all over the page, and whether they’re your audience needs it or not, is so so cringe worthy in marketing?

10:32

Yeah, for sure.

Damon Pistulka  10:33

So what else you got for us today, or Gail?

Gail Robertson  10:37

Well, maybe let’s talk about, we talked about this before we came on air as well. The idea of, you know, when a client may come and they genuinely may ask for things like, you know, can you take a logo off a business card? Can you So, let’s talk about that, about sizing and why it’s in, why size matters.

Vicky Winkler  10:59

Well, it does,

11:01

sorry. Dave,

Damon Pistulka  11:03

logo size, yes,

Vicky Winkler  11:07

no, I would say in general, but

11:13

maybe watching going, oh

11:14

1. Why do we like data? Luke, happened?

11:19

Oh my gosh,

11:22

leave them alone.

Vicky Winkler  11:25

So, yeah, I mean, that’s a good point. Is that we, we get logos in all kinds of formats, and it’s, it’s basically just, just to kind of meeting people where they’re at noon. Yeah, people don’t always understand that just the logo on the business card. That’s, you know, a half inch by half inch. We cannot make that into on the side of a truck, on a logo Expo trade booth banner. It’s just, you know, and just explaining that you know. And usually it doesn’t take a whole lot for like us, for example, to vectorize a logo so that then it is scalable and we can make it large. And, you know, so, so, yeah, it’s just, it’s education. And I know we talked about this, you know, before the show started, about it’s just kind of educating people to the level that they need. Because, you know, I have had clients before say to me, Vicky, too much. You don’t need to tell me about CMYK and RGB and vectors and pixels and raster and they’re just like, just tell me what I need to do. Now, there’s sometimes people who they want to know all the nitty gritty, and we can explain down to the nitty gritty. I’d be more than happy to always do that, but, but just kind of guiding people, you know, and really our whole goal. And I know what we do is to make it easy, is to say, okay, hey, is that the only format of the logo you’ve got? Okay, we’ll make it work. They don’t necessarily need to know how or why, or sometimes want to know how much it’ll cost. But, you know, really taking that there’s, I always say there’s more than one way to skin a cat, whatever you give us, and whatever your goal and objective is, you know, let’s figure out how we’re going to get there. And let’s figure out the way that it’s going to make it as easy as possible for you know, in this case, our client, because nobody really wants to mess around with stock photos and how to vectorize a logo. They just want to see a beautiful marketing piece. And, and, and how are we going to get from from A to B? And we figure out the best way to get there and to make it as painless as possible.

Damon Pistulka  13:23

Yeah, it’s a great it’s a great point. So in manufacturing, one of the things that that that we really is still relevant in manufacturing, I know, in other industries as well, but for manufacturers too, is physical printed sales literature. And let’s talk about that a little bit, because a lot of people may think that you can, you know, just take the the PDF that you have on your website and print that off. And I’m ready to go. What are some of your thoughts around that, when you’re looking at trying to be digital and you need to have the physical and some of the considerations we should have with that? Yeah,

Vicky Winkler  14:00

well, I think that the most important thing is to, just like you said, is to think about in just taking the PDF off the website, or off of a, maybe a supplier or vendor’s website, and printing it out isn’t necessarily the right thing to do. You know, we’ve, I’ve had people send me PDFs of trifold brochures, and think that that’s a way to communicate to me what they’ve done. And so you’ve got the flat, you know, so you’ve got the front cover on the right, and you’ve got the other panel here, and then you got the inside. Instead, we need to take that and make it into a digital form. And so most of the time, as sales and manufacturing, or in any industry, their sales is that you’re doing both, in person, doing trade shows. You’re doing digital you’re putting things on websites, you’re sending them via email, and just making sure that it works for any one of those mediums that you’re sending it and and also the the printed brochure, trifold brochure presentation folder that you actually hand to somebody. And. That interaction is a lot different than Hey, can you email me some information the way people look at it and they digest it? Maybe it needs to be a flip book. Maybe it needs to only be one page. So you always need to think about what frame of mind are they going to be in when they’re opening this, or when you’re handing it to them, when you’re handing something to somebody, you’re often in front of them, you have a chance to maybe explain an email you don’t know, if you don’t know when they get that at what point, or they’re going to forward it on to somebody. So it’s just all those conversations are so important to have, you know, as you’re doing and again, to never think, well, you know it worked for this. And I can just print it out, or I can just email it. It’s going to work for that scenario too, not necessarily. You really need to strategically think about that, and who’s receiving it, how they’re receiving it, you know, what is the frame of mind and what kind of information do they

Damon Pistulka  15:53

need that that’s incredible. You said a few things in there. I just want to go back through. And then, Gail, you asked some questions about it. But because came from, I came from manufacturing, right? Lots a lot of manufacturing materials, and you just said something that makes a huge difference. First of all, understanding how it’s going to be consumed, whether I’m going to be able to stand there explain something, I’m going to email it. It could be a tri fold that’s left at on a debt or a table at a trade show, but really thinking about the different types of information that need to be at each one of those points and how you’re interacting and they’re interacting is so critical, and someone like yourself just is like turning light bulbs on in my head right now and thinking of all the wrong things we’ve done in the past. But it’s awesome to hear Gail, well,

Gail Robertson  16:45

I agree. I liked what Vick, what you said too, about, you know, explaining to clients, because sometimes they want, well, take this logo and, you know, you can vectorize it. There’s things you can do. And that’s where I think trust is important too, where, when you’re working with someone, it’s important to develop that trust and also work with someone who is professional. So obviously, Vicki, by I did a little research into what you’ve been doing as well, and it seems that you have a very good, clear background on on some of these things. Um, one other question I was about, and you touched on it briefly. I think you said stock photo. But sometimes the client will say, Well, can you just go grab a photo from someone’s website? So can you talk about that and the implications and why that may not always be a good idea?

Vicky Winkler  17:36

Oh yeah, yeah. So that happens on a regular basis. And again, it’s just the education is that, I mean, in a nutshell, I always, I always just kind of throw this out there is the website is 72 dots per inch. For print, you need about 300 minimum dots per inch. So what you see on the website, once you pull off the website is only 1/3 the resolution that you need. So it, while it looks it may look clear on a website, it’s not going to look clear in print. And so most of the time, if we pull something off a website, or if we ever pull something off a website to use, it’s as a last resort. It was the only thing we needed it. We had to do it, and we and it’s going to be small, but, you know, that may be something that we but we avoid it at all costs. So you know, I guess that the upshot of that, too is that if you’re having product photography taken to make sure that you get the original high resolution photos from the photographer, and before a photo shoot to make that really clear up front that you are going to want all of the high resolution images. You can always downsize to a website, but you can never upsize if you don’t have the right resolution to start with. So again, making sure the photographer knows up front that you’re going to need those is really important. Great point.

Damon Pistulka  18:59

A great point. We got a few more comments here too. Dave Chrysler stops in again. Because Dave, if you don’t know much about him, came from the printing industry. Still works in it a lot with helping manufacturers in there. We’ve says, We got to keep those printers busy. Diane Byers in here today. Thanks for saying hello with us and stopping by today. We’ve got Peter, I believe PR, I think it’s Peter, but I don’t pronounce names that well, and I apologize if it’s wrong. I like the part about interaction, and Holly interacting with those, those marketing materials. And then Diane stops by again, says high resolution is so important. And I just have flashbacks of printing out, just Gall, awful, horrible images and and going, handing it to somebody, you know, that’s the best I got, you know, but that’s so, like you said, though, Mickey, if you get the the resolutions from a from a photo shoot, when you get the just to get. The Originals, we can always cut them down and make them smaller the the marketing people can, but you can’t go the other way. That’s a huge thing. Yeah,

Gail Robertson  20:07

yeah. And the other thing, I think that’s really important, and what working with an expert and someone who understands design it’s so important is that you know, making sure you know the relativity of whether the logo or the photo, if it’s a horizontal, vertical. Because sometimes I, once I had where I worked, we had our we had a very, a horizontal, long logo. Now we had to, you know, deal with that sometimes, when it came to signage and and those are things that we really have to get creative, and you don’t want someone messing around unless they know what they’re doing, right,

Vicky Winkler  20:44

right? Absolutely. And, you know, when we design logos, we always have that discussion and make sure that there’s a stacked version and that there’s a horizontal version, and that the client’s going to know that you’re going to need to have two versions that you’re going to be happy with, yeah, um, because there’s always going to be a time where your logo is going to be needed one way or the other, and so let’s, let’s talk about that up front and make sure that we have those versions in our back pocket if we need them.

Gail Robertson  21:15

Now would be a good time to also address the issue of brand guides, because that, yeah, that’s something, I think that some companies and people don’t have one. And Vicky, I’ll turn that over to you, maybe to talk about the importance of a brand guide, sure.

Vicky Winkler  21:31

So one of my roles, so I was early in my career. I was with Saturn Corporation, so I’m from the big D, so I’m from Detroit, so, you know, automotive and manufacturing is, you know, is it’s going to touch everyone’s life if you live here long enough. And so I grew up in that, and my dad worked in it. So I was part of Saturn, the startup marketing team. And at 1.1 of my roles was the logo cop. And so my job was to abide by, have people abide by the standards of the standards guidebook. And you know, when we moved down to Spring Hill, Tennessee, you know, we had lots of well meaning people who wanted to embrace Saturn coming down to this small Spring Hill, Tennessee town. And so they would try to take the logo and use it on their something in their corner store or something at their church group. And I had to be the bad guy to come in and say, you can’t use the Saturn logo that way. So, but it’s really important to not only establish with all of everyone in the organization as to why it’s important to have the logo be standardized in to because it well meaning employees can sometimes take the logo and change a color or do something so to make sure that everyone it’s really communicated. And you know, you don’t necessarily have to have an elaborate standards guidebook, but you need to have something that you can and sometimes it’s even at a minimum, it’s a one pager that explains, what are the fonts, what are the colors, what are the ways to use the logo and the ways to not use the logo that you can at least give that to the sign person or a vendor or somebody else who might need it. And then sometimes it takes a little bit of being a logo cop to, you know, call out people that are not using correctly, because it’s your brand. And in order to build that brand equity, you know, it has to be used consistently in the way that you have set forth in the beginning. So sometimes there’s you can have in a more elaborate guidebook that includes, you know, photo treatments, you know, other other applications of the logo. But at least, at a minimum, to have a logo standard guide one pager is, at least that to be and again, letting everybody in the organization know why it’s so important.

Damon Pistulka  23:44

Yeah, that’s great. That’s great. And we had it is Peter, thanks for letting us know that’s how we pronounce your name. So that’s cool. And we got Bill polifka, he just, you just answered his question. He said, Any recommendations on creating brand guys, would you hit a lot of the points in there, you talked about font and color and logo and how it’s applied. What are some of the other things that that could be important in a brand guide that you might not have mentioned? Mentioned?

Vicky Winkler  24:11

Um, yeah. I mean, I think that it’s important to have have somebody who knows graphic design to make sure that it’s put together, primarily because you want to make sure that it’s in the correct logo formats. So it’s a scalable vector that you also part of a brand book we have, as in some of the organizations we work with, that we create is we actually will create like, like, a dropbox folder that has like, the logo formats, so that like employees or anybody else who’s involved in the marketing can access that, but it’s only the versions that have been approved by the organization, but yet, it’ll have a PNG, it’ll have an EPS, it’ll have a PDF, so it has the versions and the formats that they can use. So that’s an apart, an important electronic part of. Of the of a brand guide, and again, yeah, to have it on a folder accessible by whoever needs it, but making sure that people who don’t need it don’t have access to it. Because it it’s easy to get it taken somebody take it and then do a little something to it, and then do a little something else to it. So I would say that that’s the most important thing is to have have a professional, somebody who’s using Adobe Creative Suite or some other vector based programming to make sure that it’s, it’s done right, and that it’s scalable, and that it can be distributed to the right kind of people who need those kind of files.

Damon Pistulka  25:36

Yeah, that’s great. We have a couple more comments and Diane hits, something we talked about a little bit ago. You were saying hiring experts to be experts. And she said, Thank you for that comment. Now that you need both horizontal and vertical logo formats, that’s a big deal. And then Bill polifka stops by and says, it drives me nuts when people misuse our logo. It has a story and means a lot. Yeah, that’s, that’s a great thing, because, like you said, it can be well meaning. But when you change a logo color or an orientation, even even an angle, I mean, even if you adjust the angle, there’s a lot of things that change when you when you do that. So that’s a great point. So as we’re, as we’re talking about this, what are some of the really cool marketing things you’ve seen lately? I mean, just stuff that, you go, wow, this is awesome. Yeah, um, so I

Vicky Winkler  26:32

think that the, I think my favorite thing lately is, is Chunky mail is the, you know, we’re, we’re all trying to break through the clutter. We’re all trying to, you know, be out there in LinkedIn and try to do LinkedIn lead generation, and have our social media, you know, post, have our posts done, and be boosting posts and LinkedIn ads and Google ads, but the go to old fashioned direct mail, and if you get a stack, if you go to your mailbox, either at home or at the office, and you have a stack of mail, and you’ve got a puffy envelope in there, what’s the first thing you’re going to open? Your first thing you’re going to go is that puffy envelope, and it can have inside of it. I mean, any anything that’s, you know, we have a company that we’re working with that does safety equipment and cones, and we’re getting little key chains that have a little, a little orange safety cone on them, and we’re going to stick them puffy envelopes, and we’re going to send them to, you know, some potential clients, so that that’s kind of my favorite thing is, is figuring out how to make direct mail so that the recipients Open it, and making it interesting, and something that just says to them, wow, that was that was different, that was kind of cool. And it all, I think that it also says that this company really cares about getting my business or main or retaining my business, yeah,

Damon Pistulka  27:56

well, and you make a great point. Vi, and I think manufacturers sometimes miss this is that a customer getting a customer, I’m so one customer in a manufacturer may mean millions of dollars or 10s of millions of dollars over the next, you know, five years, or whatever it is. So it’s really cool in manufacturing when you think of the the unique things that we can do. I think chunky mail is a great one. I mean, we used to in the molding industry. We would do chunky mail kind of things. We’d always we would make molds, as, you know, Gail, you making a mold. We would make molds to go golf tees, or we did things with a golf divot, fixers or other kind of, you know, little things that you put in the mail, just because it is a way to get people to open things, but manufacturers have the opportunity to spend a little bit more on each interaction with a potential customer, because the return is so high with just one. And I think that’s a fun part of the manufacturing marketing game that we get to play. Yeah,

Vicky Winkler  28:57

yeah. And I think it’s really important to to really systematize that with your larger and really, you know, the clients that you really want to retain is to have a schedule on the calendar, not to take away from the genuine interaction of thanking and appreciating your relationship with those clients. But just, just make sure it happens because you want it to happen. You know, I feel bad when I have forgotten to thank some of our biggest clients. And it’s, it’s really because I genuinely wanted to, but I got busy, and then all of a sudden, it’s five months later, it’s like, Oh, I haven’t even emailed her or said anything to her in five months. You know, my team’s working, doing all of her stuff, but me, as the head of the organization, I have, not personally. So I I know that I need to systematize, I need to have it on a calendar to make sure those interactions happen. And, you know, I just think that that’s, I think that that’s really the going to be and in a lot of cases, you know, in manufacturing, has been the name of the game. And it’s not that cheesy, disingenuine type. Of Thank you. You know, it’s that really from the heart that we really do. We really do appreciate your business. We do really care about, you know, continuing our relationship and figuring out because your target again, going back to the target audience, it’s going to be different for everybody. You know, I have a couple of clients that I send them flowers occasionally, because that’s okay with their them and who they are and their personality, but there’s others that that would not be appropriate for. And so just figuring out what’s what’s important to them, what would be something that they would appreciate, and that would really show that, you know, gosh, I think that Vicky really does appreciate this business, and that was really nice of her and her team to send me whatever it might be, yeah,

Damon Pistulka  30:42

and, and I just, actually, I just got this card in the mail from someone that was on one of our live stream shows, handwritten and just a simple thing. And if, if you the the design on these can be so unique and really, really bringing him, but that handwritten note sometimes is such a big deal to drop it in the mail, because we don’t get those kind of things anymore where you really look at and go, Wow, somebody did that, not just somebody, you know, a marketing agency or somebody or a big printing house, just spit them out, threw them in an envelope and, you know, they went out bulk mail and it had a stamp on it and everything, and handwritten on the outside with the envelope. And because, yeah, it’s not even a postcard, postcard. It was inside of an envelope. And when you do those kind of things, that’s, that’s huge in the eyes of the receiver. Yeah,

Vicky Winkler  31:34

that’s right, I had a somebody that I had met on on LinkedIn. We started talking. He was a consultant and and it turned out, you know, I was just kind of talking him through some things. You know, he hadn’t pay me for any of my services, but we just had a really good interaction. And we know we may do some things in the future, but he sent me a chunky, a piece of chunky mail, and it was a book and a nice little handwritten note. And I still, I think about that all the time. I mean, in the past, in the past year, the past two years, have I gotten anything like that from anybody? No, I haven’t. And I and I remember that all the time, and he’s always crosses my mind because of that one thing that he said. And how much did it sent? How much did it really cost him yes to send that. And you think about, how much are your large clients worth to you? And think about, could you send them a little something in the mail every once in a while that really is meaningful? You probably can.

Damon Pistulka  32:32

Yeah, yeah, that’s great. And Bill, I gotta put this talk about this comment. Bill Polivka said, he said he had to leave. He might not be here yet, but he said, I once sent

Gail Robertson  32:41

a show, I think it should be shoe, a shoe,

Damon Pistulka  32:45

to a prospect, an Air Jordan, and said, Call me and I will send the other one. Oh, cool. Is that me? That’s

Gail Robertson  32:53

a bigger client, I think. And you know, their shoe size,

Damon Pistulka  32:56

yeah, yeah. That would be awesome. Because that would really, that would really be one of those things that you, you go, that’s pretty darn cool. Yeah, the and Diane says chunky mail got me thinking now, and I think we should, this is something we really need to consider. And I think, you know, we’re in here talking about manufacturing or other companies that have high value clients. This is where we really and as I said, before we get to have fun with this and really think about it. And as you mentioned, Vicki, it’s not really that expensive at the end of the day, right when you do it. So awesome. Gail, what are your thoughts? Well,

Gail Robertson  33:31

I agree. I like that the idea too, of something very simple. And if you look at sometimes you have to step back and look at the overall cost in that, I am a big fan of using all aspects of marketing types, right? So whereas some people, I find like, oh, it has to be digital. You have to track everything. And I go, not everything can be tracked because I think billboards can work too, depending on the industry, depending on what your messaging is, and if you’re using it with social media or something else. So it’s and that goes back to what you said, Vicky, is that you have to really ask those questions and know what is, what is their end goal, right? Of what they want, and then looking at at budget as well, that was a great I love the idea of the like, chunky mail, because I, I think if you do it right, it’s really amazing. And yeah, now it’s not going to land with everybody, though, that’s how, but that’s how market error does. It works, right? There’s going to be some people that go, oh, this is why don’t read this stuff. But a lot of people like little kitschy stuff, you know, I’m having, I have something in my hand right now that I got, this is part of my brain. It’s, it’s a pen, but it’s one of those four colors, you know, last night, and I gave it to someone, and she was, like, so excited. I just and she appreciated it. Now, not everybody appreciate this is kind of old school, but everybody remembers, you know, the four color pen, and you don’t see these very often. So, so these, so, yeah, I think you have to know, yeah, who your audience is, yeah. Um, another. Topic, Dave, and I want to because that, that was a great one, but we talked about this earlier too, is and that term Canva, let’s talk about camera. Because I always said, you know, just because I have a kitchen and some things in my kitchen, like, doesn’t make me a chef, so I am measuring cups, doesn’t make me a big talk about Canva, because I think that’s so important right now, because I see this too, that people think someone on staff has Canva, and they go, Oh, we, I’m just going to turn over to you Vicky, because this, I’ve got lots to say, but I want you to answer that

Vicky Winkler  35:37

one, right, right? Well, and it’s funny, because, you know people, people automatically do think, Oh, you must hate Canva, you know, because you know you’re you’re doing all this high level graphic design, but I think that it’s just for people to really honestly look at how is Canva being used. And the first thing is that Canva is not intended for print. And so very often, you know, we will get files from clients that were created in Canva, and we may need to recreate them, but maybe it was for them internally, they came up with a concept that needed to be shown to ton people. And so they saved us a lot of design time by kind of narrowing down, well, what do you guys wanted to say was, what kind of picture do you want it to have so it can have a lot of value, because then when it comes to us, we might need to recreate it, but we can fine tune it and polish it up and create it and put in the high resolution photos that are needed, put in the right logos, and it saved that time of going through Maybe all those approvals so Canva can be great. It can be great for for social media, for creating social media posts and putting in certain products, certain testimonials, certain things that are still unique. But you know, when it comes to, you know, really strategically, knowing how to create a piece where the stuff we talked about earlier, the the call to action? Where should that be? Where should the phone number? Who’s the target audience? Those are usually the things that I think somebody internally who’s just kind of somebody said, Well, just use the Canva account and just kind of create some stuff. Well, that person might be thinking to themselves, well, of course, you know, as an employee, you’re going to be like, Sure, I can do that. I can do whatever you throw my way, but they might be thinking to themselves, I really don’t know graphic design, I really don’t know what to do, but just give me all those, all those bullet points and those specs, and I’ll just kind of throw them on here. So I think that there’s maybe some simple kind of, maybe internal things that Canva can be good for, but I just say to kind of use it with caution and be thinking, Is this really the best that we could be doing? And if there’s some question, then it’s probably not the best you could be doing. If you’re questioning it, or ask a professional. And I always say to people, you can always call me up. Set up a zoom call. I’ll do a brainstorm. If there’s something you want to show me, if there’s a logo you want to show me, or a flyer or brochure, and you’re just like, I’m just not sure if it’s right. I’m always I’ll talk to anybody and and take a look and say, You know what? Sometimes I come back and say, It’s fine, you’re good. Just tweak it here and tweak it there. And then sometimes it might be a no. This probably needs an entire revamp, and I’ll say it gently. I’ll let you down gently, and just kind of push you in the right direction. But, but yeah, so I think that that’s it. Gail, you had said it. Sometimes we just don’t know what we don’t know. Yes,

Gail Robertson  38:37

yeah, and, and certainly I know Don wrote, ugh, Canva, because we’ve had some discussions about this. Because I, I do think Canva has a place like you said, sometimes for some social media, I always say, like, if I’m doing something on Twitter, X that I’ll I can throw something together. But you know, if you’re getting an ad, fact, even for me personally, if I had to do an ad one time. Then I go to a professional because it’s going in amazing. It’s like, I wanted it to look, you know, proper and on brand behind me too. I had this designer did this because I wanted, I don’t want to just throw it together, right? It has to be on my brand and brand colors and the right colors. And that’s we talked about that too, right? Vicky that it can be for a lot of people can be confusing. Now, what about maybe we can talk about trade shows, because in manufacturing, I’ve seen many cringe things on trade show floors and and also just like, what how to stand out? Obviously, the goal is you want to stand out sometimes at a trade show. Vicky, any tips on for manufacturers preparing for a trade show? And, yeah, yeah.

Vicky Winkler  39:55

So I think that the biggest thing is to to think about. Your booth as as a backdrop, and not as an advertisement. And I, when I say your booth, I mean everything that goes into it. If someone walks up to your booth, and it’s like, again, I’m going to use the same vomit analogy, you know, you kind of just things have been vomited all over the table. You know, there’s a flyer here, and there’s pens here, and then there’s this retractable that’s got seven bullet points over here, and your backdrop has like 10 other bullet points, and this thing has a bunch of specs over here, people are going to walk up and be like, Whoa, what do we got here? And so you cannot rely on the people who are staying behind the booth and your salespeople to divert their attention from all that and be like, I know this is all here, but let me talk to you, and I’ll tell you, and I’ll summarize what we’ve got going on back here and on the table, you need to have it be so think of yourself. Always put yourself in the shoes of the person walking the trade show. And if they walk up and they’re in everything’s they’re all everything, you’re inspiring, and all these different directions, well then it’s probably not what you want to do. So you gotta declutter some of that stuff you know, don’t have every piece of literature on the table, you know. If you you know, have things in sections you know, just again, think about who your target audience is, and make sure. I would say that in general, people overdo. They have too much stuff. They have too many messages going on, simplify, cut it down. Have it be a lot more straightforward for people, because that’s what your salespeople are there for at a trade show. They’re there to explain all that stuff, to hand them the right kind of literature. Keep the literature behind the desk that are under the table that is for specific things, and hand it to the person that that is specifically needs that when you’ve got too much going on, people do tend to just be like, Oh, and don’t worry about having a million different tchotchkes that people need to pick up, because if they really want to do business with you, it doesn’t matter if you’re giving them a pen or a notepad or a water bottle.

Damon Pistulka  41:54

Great advice, because I can’t tell you how many times you walk up to a trade show booth in in a manufacturing show and it’s got every machine they make, every specification on, or the product they make, all the specifications when a simple backdrop picture. And this is the problem we solve for these type of manufacturers, or whatever it is, that alone. And like you said, just something simple, and let your sales people start some conversations. Yeah,

Gail Robertson  42:23

yeah, yeah. For sure, good

42:25

stuff.

Gail Robertson  42:26

I just want to add one thing, because I heard this way back about website design, and someone once told is the best advice ever given. It just sums up what we’ve been talking about is when everything is important, nothing is important. And, yeah, I’ve seen this at trade shows. I’ve seen on websites. I’ve seen it pull up banners. When people put, Oh, I get a headache. Sometimes I look at that, I’m like, like, you just, I don’t even know, and then I don’t even know what, yeah, so Dave, I just wanted to

Damon Pistulka  42:58

awesome, because you really, you know, you’ve gotta clarify. And as you said, Vicky, it’s got you gotta understand where people are coming from. I mean, in a trade show, you also gotta understand that you might be the 500th booth they walk by. Yeah, The simpler you can make it for them to go. I should come in and talk to these people. They look nice, or this looks like a problem that I could, you know, discuss just, it’s gotta be simple, because you get, just like anyone, you get overwhelmed in those trade shows. I mean, I think is an IMTS going on now. I mean, I’ve been wrapping up today, wrapping up today. I’ve been in that. I’ve been in the npe show, the plastic show. I think you were there, Gail, weren’t you?

Gail Robertson  43:36

I wasn’t, but I would there. Yeah, it’s like, it’s like,

Damon Pistulka  43:41

it’s like, literally miles and miles and miles and miles of booze. Yeah, so you are going to be there two or three days, and by the second day, you’re just numb. Your feet are numb, your mind is numb. So these the The simpler you can make it and allow people to really, oh, that’s, you know, like I said, just get think of where those people are coming from. It’s so important, like you said, and I we got Peter said, drop another comment a while ago. I said, various forms of appreciation are always welcome, especially those for the work one does. Such gestures always show that the work we do is important and meaningful. And this, I think, is is kind of reverse, too for clients. They they often forget that, Hey, you, you know we appreciate what you do as much as we do. And I think it helps if we we can start the ball rolling by in our outreach and how we do that, but they can keep it rolling. And then Jacob Bellman said he they call the pro prospect once, and could hear that they were sick, so I had Uber pick up some crackers, ginger ale and send it to them with a handwritten note. I asked the driver to write for me, and he said they still talk now, even after changing companies. I mean, that’s that’s thinking on your feet, understanding you know your audience, and really going. That, and let’s see. And then Diane said at the end, she said honest feedback and support is so important. Having difficult discussions is easier than dealing with going forward with the wrong information and ideas. Boom, that’s awesome. Diane, yeah, it’s a boom. That’s a mic drop, Diane, because that is, as you’re saying, Vicky and Gail talking about that honest feedback without, without, you know, upsetting people and and getting it, because going forward with something that you know is not what it should be is can be way more detrimental long term. So thanks for all these great comments. There’s a bunch more. Oh, yeah. Diane said, people don’t like to be overwhelmed. Yeah, yeah. And Peter said, so, so, like, the core information is better than the whole technical specification 100% Yeah. And like, I love what you said, Vicky, if I’m an engineer and I walk up there and I start acting about those technical specifications. It’s under the table, my sales person. You pick it up.

46:05

Here’s the complete specifications

Damon Pistulka  46:06

for you, right? And you know, when you think about the online that’s what I love about Amazon. And I mean, Amazon, yeah, there’s good and bad, but one of the things you can do is, if I need to know the specifications, I click specifications, and I can see him, yep, and that’s the just the same kind of thing. But all you’re in person. So good stuff. Gail, where else should we go here? We’re going to have to wrap up here shortly. But,

Gail Robertson  46:32

well, I, I liked what Tammy, what Vicky said, sorry. Think about something else. What Vicky said about that idea of overwhelm. I think that’s something that why you need to go to an expert, because what tends to happen is that people want to, because this is what you’re selling, and you’re very close to it, and you feel passionate. So I just work with some reason. Like, you know, when it comes to billboards, they often want to put so much information, and you have to get it like, pare it down. Pare it down. Pare it down. So I think that’s another key point, is that it’s so important to focus in on those key points. So, yeah, I got some great ideas to myself. Vicky, I liked what you said about, you know, sometimes, yeah, using, like, not just printing off the PDF of your website. And, you know, you might need a flip book. I mean, there’s but knowing what to do, and that’s why you go to an expert, right? Because they have these ideas and they have the suggestions, so you’re not lying on your own. And I did want to just say I know Don had mentioned, there was a comment that said, sales staff are part of the trade show booth. Include them in your theme. I think that’s also important to make sure the sales staff are part of like, if you’re talking about what we talked about in marketing for manufacturing, is that including the sales people in those discussions?

Damon Pistulka  47:51

Well, yeah, that’s a great point, because if you just put the marketing materials out at the booth, they wouldn’t know why the thought behind them and why you did it this way, and your explanation, Vicky, was, was awesome about the fact that we could have our general or whatever thing in any all the specifications or product specific line information is all down below. And then talking through that with the sales people, they’ll see why you’re doing it that way and understand that that’s that’s a great and you’ll get feedback too, that can make it even better,

Vicky Winkler  48:21

right, right? And, you know, the other thing too quickly about trade shows is, you know, then the literature that you hand out at the show is not necessarily going to be the same that you’re going to send to your follow ups after the show. And even if there’s opportunities to do marketing before the show, again, it’s, it’s that frame of mind that people are in and having something that’s specifically put together for an after the show follow up, and it’s going to be different than the stuff that was at the show. Most likely. Yeah,

Damon Pistulka  48:52

great points. Great points. Well, Gail, any final, final questions, comments. What we should be thinking about today?

Gail Robertson  49:00

No, I think there’s a couple of comments that come in that maybe you’ll want to read it. Diane. Diane is over, and I think she did get a great since I’m in Kurt’s seat, we want to say, we want to, what is it? He says, We have to have a moment of silence, or a moment to, yeah,

Damon Pistulka  49:15

silence. Here, we had a few moments of silence today. You know, drop the mic, moments that we did, that’s for sure. And and Diane says this at the end, and then I’ll get a comment from Vicki, and we’ll wrap up. But life is better when we include our circle of experts. I cannot more wholeheartedly agree with that. They lift us up and allow us to be focused on our area of expertise, so we can be great and we are better with them. And Vicki, you have shown us that consistently. Today, I’m so happy we were able to talk with you. How would you like to wrap up today, Vicki,

Vicky Winkler  49:52

I guess that just you know to exactly on that point you know to reach out for for help, for an expert. And just if you’re questioning something, then, then that’s a good point to say, You know what? Maybe I need to ask what somebody else might think about this, and it might be just some great ideas. So like, okay, good, I’m on track, or I need to just change a few things and go off in the right direction. But it’s going to make you feel a whole lot better if you have talked to an expert. And they have said, you know, you know that. You know you’ve gotten that expert advice. So, yeah.

Damon Pistulka  50:27

So what’s the best way for people to get a hold of you, Vicky, if they want to talk to you, if they want to learn more about the marketing shop and some of the great things you’re doing for manufacturers? Yeah. Well, thank

Vicky Winkler  50:37

you. So the best way would be to go to our website at WWW dot TMS, dot marketing, and there’s no.com in the end. And on the Contact Us page, there is a link that if anybody wants to set up a 30 minute session with me, no obligation, and it’s right there, you can go ahead and schedule a call with

Damon Pistulka  50:58

1. Awesome, awesome. Well, thanks so much for being here today. Vicky Gail, parting thoughts before we shut down for the day.

Gail Robertson  51:05

Nope. This was great. I like that. There was lots of interaction. I think what just said that’s really key, because when I did my post on LinkedIn today, I said, you know, tune in for some tips and tricks. And I think we heard about brand guys. We heard about how to show up at trade shows. We learned about, you know, what are the cringeworthy things and why having an expert is so important. So today’s show, I think Taemin really is all about, you know, why you want to also not be, you want to stop being the best kept secret, and then you want to, you know, show up and and ask questions. And I think having lots of interaction today was great.

Damon Pistulka  51:44

Yes, I want to say thanks. Thanks, Gail, for the great comment there at the end and all the way through. Thanks for for being the incredible co host you are when you stop. Step in, Vicky, thanks so much for being here today. We had Vicky Winkler from the marketing group. We were talking about marketing for manufacturers that doesn’t make you cringe. Now, we’ve all seen cringe worthy marketing, and we don’t want that today, I want to drop a couple of the comments here. Diane buyer says, Thank you, or Bravo, Vicky. Vicky, thanks so much. Jacob Bellman, thank you for all the valuable insights today. Multiple topics are re resonating with what I’m currently working through now, I look forward to joining more of these in the future. Awesome. Peter said, Thank you for the live stream. You are spreading the amount of positivity I have needed. Yes, Diane stops by one last time, and she said to all, make it an awesome day and a fabulous weekend. Thanks so much. Well, I want to thank everyone who was listening and commenting today, as Gail said, the comments just make this interaction with Vicky and the just so much more rich, because we can only think of so much, but the questions from you make it incredible. I want to thank the people that were listening but didn’t comment. We’d love it that you’re out there listening to us and week in and week out, we appreciate you. We will be back again on Monday with another incredible guest. And have a great weekend, everyone. You.