In this episode, The Fabricator's editor-in-chief Dan Davis provides invaluable insights on leveraging technology to drive growth for metal fabrication leaders. He draws apt analogies like Oreo's product innovations and personalized banking to demonstrate how smart investments in production and marketing technologies enable manufacturers to expand revenues. Dan highlights automation, robotics, and collaborative bots as key investments on the production side. He advocates personalized outreach shaped by AI and modern digital tactics for sales and marketing. Like financial firms once did, manufa ..read more

Our guest is Tim Doyle, the President of TopSpot, a digital marketing agency serving over 800 industrial and manufacturing clients. They discuss the current state of industrial marketing, characterizing it as uncertain yet still seeing strong growth in some sectors. Tim highlights a leadership void in many mid-size manufacturers and how fractional executive engagements can fill gaps. We dive deep into the current state of marketing in the industrial sector. Tim gives us the lowdown - things seem uncertain, but some verticals still see solid growth. He highlights a big issue in mid-size manufac ..read more

Even the smallest companies can be challenged by poor internal communications. Fortune- sized enterprises? Sure. But small- and mid-sized business? Yes, it happens too often in these businesses. You might ask how and why that can happen when you have an employee base of less than 200 and everyone works in the same facility. I asked that question after observing poor communications--and the negative effects of having a workforce which is not aligned--hurt business performance—over and over. Today’s approach to the topic of “failure to communicate” will explore an innovative way to improve commu ..read more

The dual challenges to both understanding the differences between Sales and Marketing and then align them for the benefit of your business don’t seem to be easy to resolve. For years, one of the most downloaded articles offered by Chief Outsiders has been the piece titled “What’s the Difference Between Sales and Marketing?” https://thepracticalcmo.com/ep9-what-happens…when-they-do-not/ ----more----   Understanding the differences between these two disciplines and ensuring that they work closely together can be the difference between industry-leading growth and being an industry laggard. I ..read more

This program is part of a two-part series where we explore challenges and best practices in securing investment capital required to continue growth. I thought it would be interesting to explore these challenges and best practices from the perspective of two stakeholders: corporate CEOs and investors. While capital availability is always a timely topic, it is perhaps even more so today as accessing the capital required for business expansion post the current economic crisis will be critical to many businesses. https://thepracticalcmo.com/ep7-challenges-a…ceos-perspective/ ----more---- Additiona ..read more

Ideal Customer Profiles are definitely a “Marketing buzz” term today, and legitimately so, if you understand the power of the concept and apply it to your customer acquisition programs. an Ideal Customer Profile describes the characteristics of the best customer you want to acquire and maintain over time. https://thepracticalcmo.com/ep4-finding-gran…ld-your-business/ ----more---- If you were a direct marketer or an e-commerce guru, you would recognize this type of relationship as having high customer lifetime value, which would give you the highest revenue and profitability over the longest re ..read more

Unique markets have different levels of Marketing maturity, use different ways of going to market, have different metrics of success, and view the role of Marketing in their organizations quite differently. Sometimes, it’s too easy to get too focused on what you have traditionally done in Marketing, and also a challenge to look outside your unique market for best practices in other markets which you might adopt. In today’s program, we are going to do a deep dive into the Healthcare market, and do a temperature check on its overall health and growth prospects. We will also characterize org ..read more

Sometimes the best way to get to know a host is to hear him as the guest. This special episode originally aired on SLMA Radio. Hosted by Tom Judge, President at Direct Marketing Partners, Tom and Mark dive into ABM. If we're going to implement account-based marketing, can it actually yield a healthy sales pipeline?  Do you need to get a bunch of software and a bunch of staff? No. Use direct marketing methodologies and start a long-term relationship. Hear about the most targeted methodologies. What can you do to achieve the sales pipeline you want? Mark gives some quick ways to start integ ..read more

Unique markets have different levels of Marketing maturity, use different ways of going to market, have different metrics of success, and view the role of Marketing in their businesses quite differently. Sometimes, it’s too easy to get too focused on what you have traditionally done in Marketing, and also a challenge to look outside your unique market for best practices in other markets which you might adopt. In today’s program, we are going to do a deep dive on the industrial businesses, and do a temperature check on their overall health and growth prospects. We will also characterize busines ..read more

The value proposition of most businesses is based on what they do well. In many cases, focusing on what the company does--the products they make or the services they offer--is neither differentiating nor compelling. Even more problematic, many value propositions do not offer clear benefits to the problems and challenges their customers face. In this podcast, we will discuss creating value propositions on the “how” businesses create value instead of “what” they do. Codifying, packaging, and branding a company’s service components can often deliver a message which is more compelling and differen ..read more