Industrial Growth Institute: Accountability and Results Marketing for Manufacturers

• the importance of accessibility and convenience in customer experience
• challenges of bridging the gap in vocabulary between marketers and clients
• evolving roles of marketing and sales in the industrial space
• impact of #AI on marketing
• significance of branding in the industrial manufacturing sector
• budget allocation for marketing

• changing buyer’s journey
• role of marketing in driving growth – need for strategy over tactics
• importance of data and reporting and Terri’s partnership with Databox
• the need for companies to embrace digital marketing and close the knowledge gap between what is possible and what is understood
• the importance of boards of directors having a deep understanding of contemporary sales and marketing

Full Episode Transcript

Ed Marsh (00:03.342)
Hi, I’m Ed Marsh, host of the Industrial Growth Institute podcast. You know, it’s called Industrial Growth because growth isn’t just about marketing or sales or strategy or any one of the really countless details that are involved. Rather, it’s about each of those in an integrated context of how business works. And that’s why today I’m so excited to talk with Terri Hoffman about one of those areas that in my experience is seriously misunderstood. And that’s industrial marketing. Terri is the founder. and CEO of Marketing Refresh. It’s a digital marketing agency that specializes in B2B lead generation programs for industrial businesses in a variety of industries, including manufacturing, construction, and construction services. She’s got a really interesting way of simplifying some of this stuff down. She says her goal is simply to make it easier for her clients, target buyers to find and engage them online. And I think we talk about all kinds of stuff. We’re going to dive deep today and zoom out. But if you keep that in mind, making it easy to get found online. I think that’s a really great essence of what she talks about. And I’ll say she’s not some newbie who kind of comes to marketing lately and thinks that TikTok is the answer for everything. She’s been working in marketing for 30 years. She got a solid traditional background, jumped early into digital in the 2000s, and her experience has shaped around multiple perspectives because she’s worked in -house. on marketing teams. She worked as an outside consultant and now of course on the agency side. So she really understands how the pieces to fit together. But she also brings some interesting other perspectives. Lately, we’ve talked to a couple of people who talk about the values that NCAA athletes bring to sales. And I think today you’re maybe going to hear some about what it contributes to marketing because Terri is a former NCAA athlete. She played college basketball at Michigan Tech and she’s probably gonna slip in once or twice while we’re talking that she’s a native of Green Bay and a serious cheesehead. I’m sure that she’s not gonna let that opportunity pass. She and her husband raised three daughters in Houston and recently they moved to not Green Bay, but another kind of frozen tundra, I guess in Western Colorado, where she’s got a long list of outdoor activities that she loves to participate in. And I’m sure we’ll catch up a little bit on her hobbies as well today. I know you’re gonna find real power in Terri’s insights.

I’d appreciate it if you help others discover this podcast and her insights as well. So please like it, share it. You know the drill, comment, leave a review on your favorite channel or whatever. So with no further ado, welcome Terri. Thanks so much for joining me.

Terri Hoffman (02:35.521)
Thank you, Ed. Thank you for such a great introduction too. I might need to send that to my family so they know all of those things about me as well. That was awesome.

Ed Marsh (02:39.438)
Well, there you go. So that could be as Thanksgiving still a few months away, you’ve got plenty of time to get it to everybody at a time. All right. So we heard your official bio, but now let me tell us who the real Terri is.

Terri Hoffman (02:49.121)
There we go. Yeah. Mm -hmm. Oh, my goodness. Well, the real Terri is a very like very sarcastic. I love a good sarcastic joke. Love to tease and kind of not take myself so seriously. I guess that’s that’s the real Terri. But, you know, I I guess one thing that’s important to know about me is I never intended on being a business owner. I was not one of those people who kind of. You know, started their career and thought someday I really want to own my own business. That’s just one of my goals. I did everything to fight against that. Um, found myself after, uh, in 2008, laid off from a really great director of marketing position that I had at an RFID manufacturer. And that company lost their funding when most of the economy, you know, took a nosedive back in 08 and was, uh, interviewing for several different marketing roles and had my recruiter just tell me, I don’t want you to take this job that I set you up for that I have basically kind of bartered for, for you, please decline it. And I think you’re an entrepreneur, Terri. I think I realized through this interview process that you really need to take a different path. And, um, boy, was I upset with her at the time. I, that is not what I wanted to hear. I.

Ed Marsh (04:07.118)
Wow. Heheheheh

Terri Hoffman (04:18.561)
Actually, at that point was a single parent and I was in survival mode. I needed to figure out how to pay our mortgage and provide basic things for my kids that we needed in our house. And I really took what she said to heart and I slept on it and I declined the job and started marketing refresh the next day. So I think a lot of times I can, I’m a marketer by trade and by practice and you know,

Ed Marsh (04:37.966)
well.

Terri Hoffman (04:46.305)
what I’ve really focused my career on, but I can relate on the sales side to the clients that we help and the ownership groups that we help because I’ve had to figure out how to go through those struggles of building an organization, building a company, building a team, having a vision and kind of all the elements that it takes to put together a business and a team of employees and create a company culture and just get payroll paid every month, the most important thing in the whole world. So.

Ed Marsh (05:13.038)
Right, right. Sure. Well, interesting.

Terri Hoffman (05:16.737)
Um, you know, that’s, that’s a little bit about who I am. I’m, I’m a fighter. I, I, when I set my mind to something, I am going to really learn what I can to make it successful.

Ed Marsh (05:30.318)
So I think, you know, when I think back on my conversations about athletes and veterans in sales, one of the attributes that the people that I’ve spoken to say really contributes to athlete success in sales is that grit, that determination, that refusal to quit, much like you’re describing. And interestingly, on another episode of this podcast that’s coming out soon, I chatted recently with Carol Mahoney, who’s a sales trainer, who was a single mom herself in 2008.

Terri Hoffman (05:56.865)
Mm -hmm.

Ed Marsh (05:58.99)
got laid off from a job and started her business at that time as well. So there’s so many interesting stories that come out of, yeah, come out of those tough times when people say, you know what, this is the time I’ve got to do it. So interesting, interesting stories and kudos to the recruiter for not just trying to pocket the fee for putting you in a job where you didn’t belong. That’s neat.

Terri Hoffman (06:02.465)
I didn’t know that. Yeah, yeah, I really, she has a lot of integrity. I have a lot of respect for her and we’re still, we became friends again. We’re, we’re still friends to this day. Yeah.

Ed Marsh (06:24.494)
Great. So that’s how you started your firm, but how did you get into marketing originally?

Terri Hoffman (06:31.713) Mm -hmm. Um, so that was also a little bit of an accidental occurrence. I did, I do have a business degree with a minor in marketing from Michigan Tech, um, which is not a traditional path at Michigan Tech. Michigan Tech is an engineering university. It’s in Michigan. It’s the place that you go to college if you want to work for one of the auto makers. Um, and, and now they’re really known for their tech and like software development, engineering career paths. But, um, I went to be a chemical engineer. and play basketball and then decided I wasn’t nearly as passionate about science as I needed to be to really have a career in engineering. So I just decided I would go into marketing and business and write all of the lab reports for all of my buddies who were in the engineering programs. And I kind of like learned how to be a copywriter for technical businesses in college. And I had No intention other than like, Hey, this is making me some extra money that I can, I can go out and have fun with. Um, but when I graduated being a basketball player, one of my dreams was to work for an NBA team. So to date myself, the WNBA didn’t even exist when I graduated, that wasn’t even a thing yet, but, um, I decided to move to Houston and, um, went and just started handing my resume to the Houston Rockets office on a daily basis. I would just walk in.

Ed Marsh (08:00.077)
Heheheheh

Terri Hoffman (08:01.057)
And continue asking for a job. And eventually they said, yes, I broke them down and kind of maneuvered my way through different entry level roles there until I ended up in marketing. And that, you know, since it had been my major felt like a natural fit. It was something I was always very interested in. And, um, that things just kind of progressed in my career from there.

Ed Marsh (08:22.35)
Interesting and chemical engineer background. We actually met each other through another chemical engineer Pete Caputa who it’s it’s fascinating bringing that engineering mind. Yeah, bringing the engineering mindset to marketing. I think it’s a really interesting perspective because people tend to think of it as being, you know, communications and graphic arts and that kind of stuff. And certainly those are important elements of it. But having a regimented mind, you know, process and rigorous approach.

Terri Hoffman (08:23.617)
Yeah. He is. I didn’t know that.

Ed Marsh (08:51.086)
to things and thinking very critically about them and analytically and database is critical for marketing to be successful, particularly in a digital world. So that engineering mindset and engineering background, I’m sure, stand you in good stead each day as you undertake it.

Terri Hoffman (09:07.041)
It did, or it does. And that is what really appealed to me when the internet was created and started and started to become commercialized. I immediately knew I wanted to move my marketing career in that direction and just kind of immediately jumped on that and looked for any opportunity I could to learn more about it. And I think it was because it had that like technical component to it and the analytical skills were so important.

Ed Marsh (09:33.198)
Right. And if you set it up correctly, you see the results. You get feedback, you get data, and then you can adjust and you can experiment and you can hypothesize and test a hypothesis and do A -B testing and all these kinds of things that really empower a marketer who wants to be rigorous in their thinking and process.

Terri Hoffman (09:38.753)
Yeah.

Ed Marsh (09:54.286)
to achieve amazing things and document the value of what they’re doing. Not just, well, you know, we spend half our, we spend all this money on marketing, we know half of it’s waste, we just don’t know which half. That’s so antiquated. And as we talk more about industrial manufacturing, I think a really important mindset to help overcome.

Terri Hoffman (10:06.625)
Yeah. Absolutely, it should be something that if you’re a buyer of marketing services in this space, you should demand that from the people you’re buying those services from. Accountability is extremely important.

Ed Marsh (10:18.99)
Great. But you mentioned that you kind of ended up in marketing by accident. I think a lot of people do, and that sometimes feels antithetical to the accountability. You obviously brought a background with you where you understand as an athlete, you have to have the discipline, you have to do the reps, you have to spend the time in the weight room or on the court or at the freefall line or whatever the case may be. So often people in marketing seem to just kind of stumble into it because they didn’t know where else they were going to go.

Terri Hoffman (10:34.465) Mm -hmm. Yeah, I agree with that. I feel so fortunate. I had such a good college coach. He’s one of the winningest women’s coaches in NCAA history. He’s actually the head coach at the University of Wisconsin Green Bay now, but he’s been at a few different schools since I played for him. And that man really taught me accountability. I thought my parents had, and I have great parents, but playing for him and

Ed Marsh (11:05.006)
Hmm. Heheheheh

Terri Hoffman (11:23.585)
You know, I, I got pulled out of a game my freshman year because somebody, the, the other team got an offensive rebound and scored and it was not the person I was guarding. And I got pulled out of the game immediately. And I said, what happened? Like that wasn’t my girl. And he just said, go sit down. And later an older player on the team came to me and said, um, you should have rotated over and boxed her out, even though it wasn’t your person. And she got the rebound because of that. And I was like, I spent a week being mad about that. You know, like I didn’t get it. And it started to really sink in with me because that was such a big part of our team culture and something he was so adamant to make sure we all understood. And it all of a sudden clicked with me and I was like, oh my gosh, I’m on a team. I’m not just the…

Ed Marsh (11:58.958)
Heheheheh

Terri Hoffman (12:19.969)
person from the high school team who, you know, is, is the best player in the team and everything’s catered to me. Nope. I’m on a team and I have to be accountable. It doesn’t matter if it was my responsibility, not my responsibility makes zero difference. And.

Ed Marsh (12:33.55)
And so obviously the lesson stuck because I saw a LinkedIn post from you this morning about accountability, boiling it all down to accountability is such it’s it’s so missing from business today.

Terri Hoffman (12:46.209)
It really is. And so also connecting it back to my three daughters, if they are so sick of my husband and I saying this to them all the time, but something that will make you valuable in the business world is just doing what you say you’re going to do. Um, and it sounds so simple. Um, then of course, the more talent you have and the more skill you have and the better able to do your job is just going to set you even further apart. But if you just do what you say you’re going to do, you have such a headstart and it’s, it’s.

Ed Marsh (13:14.926)
And we’re going to work.

Terri Hoffman (13:16.065)
not great that that is such a great skill.

Ed Marsh (13:19.342)
No, it’s astounding and it’s stunning and it’s frustrating, but we’re certainly going to talk about it in the context of marketing and sales and the integration of the two because it’s so critical to sales be accountable to marketing and it happens so rarely, particularly in the industrial space. So we’re going to pull that scab off and spend time talking about that. But a little bit more about marketing refresh. So we know when you started it, we know why you started it, but tell us about it today. How many folks do you have? What kinds of clients do you work with? That kind of thing.

Terri Hoffman (13:24.353)
Mm -hmm. Good. Good, good. Yeah, so we have 13 employees. We do focus just on B2B brands who we help. And I would say like our typical client model is a B2B industrial brand that is generating at least over $10 million in revenue. And a lot of times they don’t have all of the internal marketing resources that are needed. And they may have some and they may be either misassigned. or kind of the wrong resources have been defined. I’m sorry, the wrong responsibilities have been defined for that role. And they need more help and they’re kind of needing to piece this marketing puzzle together. And I think our team can step in and help them, but it’s usually the source of the issue is our sales team needs more leads. And we think we need a marketing agency to come in and help support us with those needs.

Ed Marsh (14:47.406)
So an interesting kind of critical factor then is that they’ve reached that point of awareness where they realize that they need something else. They’re not going to hire a social media intern or do another trade show. They’d realize that they need some outside expertise.

Terri Hoffman (15:02.241)
Yeah, exactly. And they’re, unfortunately they’ve often been burned too, right? So they may have hired another agency or a consultant or a fractional CMO or the SEO guy who is doing these magical things that no one understands behind the scenes. So a lot of times we walk in because they’ve, or that too, yes. Yeah. Or doing a great job and no one was really understanding.

Ed Marsh (15:21.582)
Right. Or not doing them and charging for them. Right.

Terri Hoffman (15:31.873)
you know, what it, what the purpose of that work was and how it connected together with all of the other things they had going on. So there’s sometimes been an attempt made and it wasn’t the right attempt in the right way at the right time for the right reasons. Yep.

Ed Marsh (15:47.374)
Mm -hmm. And how many folks do you have on your team?

Terri Hoffman (15:52.065)
We have 13, we have 13 employees.

Ed Marsh (15:55.022)
Do you specifically try to hire athletes yourself?

Terri Hoffman (15:59.617)
That’s funny you said, no, that hasn’t, but I think we do have many on our team. Do you know what we, yes, they do. Another type of like hobby that we have a lot of on our team is our musicians. And I think the discipline that it takes to learn an instrument, be in a band, be in a group.

Ed Marsh (16:03.278)
No? I’m sure those attributes… Right.

Terri Hoffman (16:26.561)
Um, and perform it. There’s a lot of, there are a lot of ties and the same characteristics that you find. And yeah.

Ed Marsh (16:32.814)
Interesting. So let’s talk about the way marketing has evolved. I’ve got this theory that there used to be kind of a firewall between B2C and B2B marketing, but I think digital has changed that. And now we have these continuous consumer experiences driven by digital. We marinate in it all the time. And it almost feels like now that bleeds over into our expectations. for B2B in a variety of different ways. Do you agree with that or would you push back on it? What do you think?

Terri Hoffman (17:07.937)
I totally agree with that. Yeah. And I think a lot of that has to do with the year it is and comparing that with when did the internet start? When did people who are in that buying group of people start using the internet? What have they become accustomed to? And then without even being conscious of it, I think a lot of people are starting to expect those same types of buying experiences when it comes to their business life.

Ed Marsh (17:17.87)
Mm -hmm.

Terri Hoffman (17:37.985)
purchases. So it’s so ingrained that I think a lot of us don’t even think about the convenience of ordering from Amazon or the convenience of ordering DoorDash when we’re trying to have dinner on Thursday night with our families. It’s like you go to work and you’re starting to expect those same type of conveniences when it comes to your business purchases. So I’ve, oh, I’m sorry, go ahead.

Ed Marsh (18:00.91)
Yeah, I think that’s… Well, what I see is particularly the rising generations, you know, when I work with manufacturers, they’re often selling to plant managers, maybe global directors of engineering who are comparable generation to the owners of the company’s building machines, for instance, that I work with. But the plant engineer or the controls engineer or somebody like that is a different generation and much more really was raised as a digital native and very different expectations.

Terri Hoffman (18:35.009)
Definitely that and that’s kind of what I was going to add is that you know, I was born in 1972. So I’m 51 years old and The internet started, you know the second we got email and computers on our desks my second year being in the workplace and so that you know passing the gold envelope with the memo around and putting it in someone’s basket on their desk and really only happened the first year I was at work. From year two forward, I’ve been used to using a computer. And so if I’m 51 and that’s what I’m used to, you have to imagine and extrapolate that out to the whole entire rest of the workforce under my age and a little bit older are all expecting that as well. They want things to function that way.

Ed Marsh (19:23.662)
Except the people writing the checks, the people making the strategic decisions often were from the generation before you. I was born in 66. And I mean, my first sales job was with dimes for pay phones and a day timer and literally a Rolodex. People say Rolodex now, they don’t know what it means. And my peers are the ones that are often making those decisions about whether to invest in another trade show or to invest in some content marketing, for instance.

Terri Hoffman (19:33.377)
Yes. Yeah.

Ed Marsh (19:51.534)
And that creates this dissonance. And what I hear so often is something that sounds like our buyers, you know, they use the internet themselves all the time, of course, but then they turn around and they say, our buyers are different. Our industry is different. Our buyers don’t use the internet. I’m just like, you’re nuts. How can you say that? You use it all the time. Your team uses it all the time. It’s almost disrespectful to say that about your buyers. How often do you hear that?

Terri Hoffman (20:18.849)
I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard that because I would probably just retire now. All the time, all the time. And one of my favorite exercises to go through is saying, okay, let’s do a little research. Let’s run some reports on how many times people are actually searching for your company name or the brand names of your products and see what data is out there. And then,

Ed Marsh (20:24.078)
Bye.

Terri Hoffman (20:48.545)
why don’t you go and pull some of your top customers and ask them how often they’re searching online. There’s some quantitative data that you can pull, but there’s also some qualitative, very simple research you can do. And I think people have to be willing to face up to that though, because any change is hard, right? And I’ve had to change a lot as a business owner and as a person. And if you’re just not going to accept facts or information, then you’re just not ready, right?

Ed Marsh (21:19.95)
What’s interesting is sometimes there’s projection. So I find one of the most common places that I see that is with chatbots. I don’t use chatbots, our buyers don’t use them, we’re not gonna do it. Oh, come on, humor me. Let’s just try the experiment. And two weeks later, lo and behold, a global director of engineering for a major multinational company submits an inquiry on there and then there’s stunned silence and then a grin and, well, geez, maybe this kind of thing. does work. So it’s a fascinating journey. I love your point about qualitative research. I love Adele Ravella’s method for doing persona research. And one of the things that I often do when I’m working with a new client is some persona interviews, I record them, and I take excerpts and I play some of it back. After they’ve told me the way they understand how their buyers buy it, how everything works, I say, okay, I’m sure you do. You’ve spoken to a number of them. You’re successful in business. You’re growing. But let’s just listen to… what at least one person says is their experience. And it really generates some very interesting conversations around the conference table with these folks that have some very strong ideas about the way things used to be and how they think they still are.

Terri Hoffman (22:31.553)
Right. Oh my gosh, that kind of research is so helpful. We do something similar with our clients when we’re developing a buyer’s journey and kind of how listening to the different questions and things that their buyers are dealing with as they go through the different stages of research. And I’m sure we can really dive into that topic at some point during this podcast discussion. But when you hear the exact words that people use when you do those qualitative interviews, it is so revealing and so telling. And it just gives you so much great information. And sometimes you realize like we’ve been going about this all wrong or thinking. And sometimes it does that. And other times it says, OK, this is great. It’s reinforcing what we believed. And it’s supporting the direction that we had been planning to go. But either way, it serves a great purpose.

Ed Marsh (23:05.998)
It is, right. So. For sure, absolutely. So you jumped digital in the early aughts, sometime, I guess, 02, 03, something like that. What did you sense? That was early. What did you perceive was going to be the evolution that was so intriguing to you when others saw it as just a gimmick?

Terri Hoffman (23:36.929)
Mm -hmm. Well, I’d really love to make myself sound smarter looking back in time, but I was also in like, first of all, I was the kid that walked around at the basketball in her hand all the time. I probably irritated every single neighbor that we had on the street. I was always outside, but if I wasn’t doing that, I was begging my parents like, can you please buy a Commodore 64 or like send me to this? I wanted to learn how to do basic programming. Like in the summer, I wanted to get them to sign me up for all those kinds of classes and courses. So I just was interested in it. Like I just thought it was cool. So when, when somebody figured out how to combine marketing, which is my career path with the computer, I, you aren’t going to talk me out of it. And so I’d love to tell you that, um, I knew it was going to like be this revolutionary thing in the business world, but I didn’t, it was purely purely what was interesting to me. Yeah.

Ed Marsh (24:45.678) So is what interested you. Got it. And you mentioned RFID. Certainly that kind of took you into the industrial space. Was that your first foray into industrial or had that been your focus from the beginning after you left the NBA?

Terri Hoffman (25:02.625)
Yeah, no, it was, it was my first foray into that like more industrial type of an offering. I had previously worked for TD Ameritrade and that was where I really, I was so fortunate to work there because that was at a time when, you know, uh, like being able to do your own trades online was brand new. They were actually called Ameritrade at the point. It was before TD Bank bought them and that, you know, they had

Ed Marsh (25:10.062)
Mm -hmm.

Terri Hoffman (25:31.489)
a $300 million a year marketing budget. And part of that was being invested in digital. And I was responsible for the partnership marketing group. But the advantage to that is we used every single channel in the partner marketing program. So I got to see how an integrated program work. How does direct mail tie together with banner ads, which were banner ads were the whole thing at that point in time and websites were just starting to be built. but I got to really see how that all tied together and how one particular channel could feed another and then how an integrated program worked. That was where I got like really sunk my teeth into like a meaningful type of digital program. And then I went to work for a different agency where I learned how the agency environment worked. And that RFID company was one of my clients at the agency. And I got an opportunity to go.

Ed Marsh (26:26.542)
I see.

Terri Hoffman (26:28.737)
to work for them directly. But that was so interesting. The company still exists today. It’s called Omni ID. So they’ve gone through a couple of different high and low points. I was there, unfortunately, at a very low point. After I left, they did end up really commercializing that business and taking off. And it’s a very successful company now.

Ed Marsh (26:42.926) Heheheheh And did you find that your engineering mind and engineering training and engineering aptitude helped you kind of look at marketing for an industrial company differently than perhaps some of your colleagues?

Terri Hoffman (27:07.489)
do and you know, when you’re in marketing, you have to be interested in what you’re doing. Like you, so if, if I was a foodie, I might’ve picked restaurants, right? And I love food, but, um, you kind of just have to like really build a, your agency model around several different factors. But if you’re not interested in the subject matter, your passion isn’t going to be behind it and your commitment to making it successful just is not going to be there.

Ed Marsh (27:33.966)
Great.

Terri Hoffman (27:36.897)
So it’s just something that I always found interesting. And it’s probably mainly because I’m like, I could never do what these guys are doing. I think it’s so cool that they can make something from scratch that physically is created and designed and engineered and made. And, you know, also I just have like a lot of family members that work in either manufacturing or construction or construction services businesses. And, it’s really gratifying to be able to see those businesses grow and more moms and dads get hired and more opportunities are created in their lives. And I think that’s really cool. So like a little bit driven by jealousy, I guess, because I’m like, I can’t do that. And I would, I think it’s so cool that these guys can make these things and make them work in an environment. It’s so cool.

Ed Marsh (28:09.87)
Right. It is so neat. I think one of the neat things about the jobs that you and I have is the ability to go into so many different places, see so many different things made. I decided probably a year ago I wanted to learn welding. I haven’t made much headway on it. I fiddle with it every now and then, but I love seeing how things are made the same way that you’re describing.

Terri Hoffman (28:45.729)
Yeah, I could do it. Oh my goodness. I want to hear more about that, about learning welding. Yeah, everyone better keep me away from that. Yeah, like they would not hand me anything with fire on it. Yeah.

Ed Marsh (28:50.318)
Some other time we’ll dive into that. Got it. So I mentioned chatbots and there’s always an interesting balance working with an industrial company on marketing because there’s this tendency to look for shiny objects, but often there’s a need to go back and really do the basic blocking and tackling. There’s a Green Bay analogy for you to really get the fundamentals correct before you worry about.

Terri Hoffman (29:04.609)
Mm -hmm. There you go.

Ed Marsh (29:28.27)
the shiny objects at the same time, there’s some technology that really is critical to improve customer experience. So chat bots, I think are one of them. Customer portals are another where you can say, I live in the machine world primarily. So users often want to access documentation in their machine, tech support, spare parts ordering, knowledge bases when second and third shift are struggling and your tech support people are all busy or out of the office. provide that kind of information to them, even e -commerce. I think you’ve had an emphasis lately on e -commerce with some of your clients. What’s driving that? What do you see about some of these other technologies that they may resist? You may want to say, hey, let’s pump the brakes a little bit because we don’t want to just talk about gadgets. At the same time, these are really important to giving your customers great experience.

Terri Hoffman (30:18.113)
Yeah, I mean, I think one of the, like what that a lot of what you just described boils down to is accessibility and convenience for your customers and your buyers. So we have a client, for example, that builds huge vapor recovery systems that are four or $500 ,000 pieces of machinery that they design and build. And.

Ed Marsh (30:26.99)
Okay.

Terri Hoffman (30:44.417)
just providing a login to their clients to track the project throughout the design and build process, it alleviates stress for their customers, not because they’re behind or they’re not delivering what they’re supposed to be doing, but wouldn’t it just be so much more convenient to log into a portal and see where the project stands in any notes rather than having to get that person on the phone or coordinate a time when you can connect with each other, playing phone tag with each other.

Ed Marsh (30:54.35)
Mm -hmm.

Terri Hoffman (31:13.857)
waiting for an email response, right? Like those are things that add frustrations to our day, especially if you need an answer now. So even imperfect information from a portal is better than no information or waiting for some type of piece of information. So I think it’s about accessibility and convenience. Do you see that with the clients here? Yeah, sorry. Yeah.

Ed Marsh (31:18.414)
Right. Alright. Also, it sounds… Yeah, I think so. To the extent that they’re willing to step outside their wall and think really as their buyer, then yes, absolutely. There’s a perspective. There is also, I think, an interesting implication in terms of the recent book Jolt Effect by the folks that wrote The Challenge of Sale. Jolt Effect essentially says that if you look at all these deals ending in no decision, you can boil it down to customer indecision and risk aversion. And so the kind of thing that you’re describing is a great example of what the Jolt Effect offers as an antidote, a way to proactively provide people reassurance that you’re doing what you say you’re going to, that they’re not making a mistake. And it feels like that fits in very well to customer experience, but it could even potentially, before the deal’s closed, be one of those factors that would be a competitive advantage.

Terri Hoffman (32:29.281)
I agree. And it’s making me think of a LinkedIn post that you shared recently about the sale isn’t completed until the impact of what was sold is felt right by the client. And so any tool, whether it’s technology oriented, and in this case, we’re talking about technology tools, but any way that you can kind of just communicate and…

Ed Marsh (32:43.342)
Right.

Terri Hoffman (32:58.849)
build that trust until the impact is felt, I think is just critically important. And people expect easy access to information these days. That’s what we all want in every part of our lives. We don’t even have to like wonder anything anymore. We can just get the answer by Googling it immediately. So that’s what people want.

Ed Marsh (33:17.998)
Yeah, or even we expect to not Google it anymore. We kind of think that it may just be on an app, a push notification to tell us. You mentioned that many of the companies you work with, right? You mentioned earlier that many of the companies you work with may have had some disappointing experiences. They may have had the idea, kind of emotionally recognized they needed to do something, decided they wanted to undertake some digital stuff, not kind of quite sure what. Terri Hoffman (33:23.809) Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, we don’t even have to go out and seek it. but they maybe tried to hire somebody and maybe did a little bit of SEO or maybe did a little bit of social media and found that it just didn’t work. How often do you find, are the people you’re talking to normally trying it for the first time or did they try it, give up on it, wait a while and now come back to it after a lengthy break?

Terri Hoffman (34:13.889)
Yeah, I would say it’s about 50 -50 on those two categories. And they’re both relationships as we’re starting are challenging, but for totally different reasons, right? But I think what I observe a lot is that it doesn’t matter if you’ve tried it before and didn’t feel it worked, or if you’re trying it for the first time, the gap in vocabulary between the way we talk as marketers and what the, you know,

Ed Marsh (34:16.781) Okay. Mm -hmm.

Terri Hoffman (34:41.473)
client we’re working with is ready to hear are just vastly different. And unfortunately there are like, we have to do a better job as marketers, not getting too caught up in our jargon. And we, as a group of marketers need to be more consistent, right? Like I can talk about SEO and you can talk about SEO and we could actually mean two slightly different things that.

Ed Marsh (35:10.51)
Certainly.

Terri Hoffman (35:10.689)
the slight difference could make a big difference to the client. And that’s very frustrating when you’re the client and you’re trying to be clear about what you’re buying, right? Like I can’t imagine being in that position. And so providing education throughout the process to our company is very important. I’d rather go slow and make sure that people really understand what they’re buying and why they’re buying it from us before they just dive in.

Ed Marsh (35:13.486)
Right? Mm -hmm.

Terri Hoffman (35:38.241)
to like, oh, we need SEO, let’s give me some hours and we’ll buy that from you. That make entering in that way makes me nervous. I don’t think that’s a good way to start. Yeah.

Ed Marsh (35:49.294)
But you raise a great point about jargon and I wonder if you can’t use that in the customer relationship because so often they just vomit jargon up to their buyers. And so maybe what you can do is see them get frustrated with your marketing jargon and say, okay, time out. Let’s talk about what just happened. And can you think of any other place where that might be happening? Have you ever tried drawing that analogy for them?

Terri Hoffman (36:11.777)
No, I haven’t. I love that, though. I always try to say, just stop me if we’re… But the problem is that our client base are very intelligent people, right? And the smartest person in the whole world still may be exposed to new subject matter and not understand it immediately, right? And so they need time to learn it. And they need…

Ed Marsh (36:35.022)
Sure.

Terri Hoffman (36:39.233)
somebody who’s a team who’s got the patience or a person in their marketing department who has the ability to walk them through the proper way to learn it. And there are unfortunately a lot of marketers who don’t really know, they just know the vocabulary to use, but they don’t really know how to back that up with the proper execution, I guess, or implementation.

Ed Marsh (37:03.374)
I think there’s others that I’ve seen that have a good handle on the execution but can’t articulate what they do or why they do it or why the order is important or what the process looks like. They just do it and so they can’t possibly explain it or teach it to somebody else.

Terri Hoffman (37:17.121)
Yeah, you’re right. You’re very right about that. And I think really what happens in the marketing space is it’s a universal problem, right? Anytime you’re selling something that has to be explained and is a complex sale or complex service and your buyer’s not educated on it, then you have to work hard at making sure you’re closing those gaps. I mean, that’s the reason why coming on podcasts like this for me is so important. It needs to be made more accessible and relatable and not… as scary to enter or embrace into digital marketing when you’re in a manufacturing environment. Like we’ve made it too hard.

Ed Marsh (37:56.622)
I think you’re right, but then the fascinating point is that our clients often do exactly the same thing to theirs and just helping them, helping them understand that I think is enormously powerful. Speaking of jargon, I want to shift gears. As I was researching you and reading some of your backgrounds, some of your stuff, I came across the fact that you love writing a UTV, which I had never heard of. I’d only heard of ATVs. I had to look it up. That was jargon for me. Tell me about that. How…

Terri Hoffman (38:08.641)
Yeah.

Ed Marsh (38:25.87)
How did you get into that? Is that something you brought from Texas or only started when you got to Colorado? What’s that?

Terri Hoffman (38:32.833)
It just started. Um, it’s a hobby I never thought I would like, but we went to, we’re, we’re in Western Colorado, which is very close to Utah. I think we’re only 15 miles outside of Utah. And we went on a, like a weekend trip to Moab, Utah rented. Um, I think a lot of other people that they’re called side -by -sides, um, or UTVs, they’re basically like a little off -road utility vehicle. And we rented those and had so much fun that.

Ed Marsh (38:52.558)
Mm -hmm.

Terri Hoffman (39:00.737)
we got back home and my husband is like, we have to buy one of those. We need to buy one and start doing that. So we had to reprioritize some things and ended up doing that and have just recently gotten into it in the last couple of months. And it’s really fun because Colorado has a lot of public land and we go hiking a lot and we love being out there.

Ed Marsh (39:03.63)
Hehehehe

Terri Hoffman (39:26.625)
outside, but when you have one of these vehicles, you can get to places that you can’t get to on foot. And you, it’s like opened up all of these new things to us. And, um, you know, we, our dog loves it and we just like being out there. It’s, it’s, it’s not, um, I don’t think we’re very adventurous yet because we’re still learning how the vehicle works. And we’re not, not ready to like crash it into anything and have to do a lot of repairs, but we’re just starting to get into it. It’s a lot of fun.

Ed Marsh (39:32.334)
That’s interesting. Great. Hehehehe. Well, so if you don’t want to crash, then I guess you don’t mix another hobby of yours, which is wine. So the wine must be apres ski or apres UTV or whatever.

Terri Hoffman (40:01.505)
No. Absolutely no. Those are definitely not mixed together. And if you, if you ever, um, Oh my goodness. If you ever got to know my husband, you’d know he’s like the world’s most cautious person. So he would definitely never do that. Um, yeah, well, we live in Colorado’s wine country. So the Western side of the state has a little town called Palisade and there are, I think close to 40 wineries.

Ed Marsh (40:07.95)
I’m going to go ahead and close the video. Got it.

Terri Hoffman (40:31.745)
in this little town that is like 20 minutes from where we live. Yeah. So it is it’s really fun when we have people come into town to visit to take them there. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. I don’t know. I just go drink the wine. I haven’t gotten into that yet. Yeah. It’s it’s mostly reds. Yeah, mostly reds. And I’m sure I’ve been on enough tours where I should know what kind of grape that is then, but I don’t. I.

Ed Marsh (40:39.886)
What kind of grapes? Well, what varieties of wine are common there? Got it? Hehehehe.

Terri Hoffman (40:59.873)
I’m just smiling and listening and drinking the wine. Yeah.

Ed Marsh (41:02.734)
There you go. Have you ever seen the movie Psalm?

Terri Hoffman (41:06.977)
No, uh -uh.

Ed Marsh (41:08.782)
I look it up, it’s fascinating. It’s about the process by which people become certified. I’ll screw the terminology up, but master sommelier to the 11th degree or something like that. And to understand the way their noses and their eyes and their memories and their taste buds work together. It’s fascinating how they can actually lock in those different senses in a memory. I can lock in something that I’ve seen in my memory.

Terri Hoffman (41:17.537)
Oh, okay.

Ed Marsh (41:38.382)
I can’t lock in a taste really in my memory, at least not that I’m aware of. Not to the way they can. They can, on a blind tasting, I think determine the year, the terroir, the kind of grape, the variety. It’s fascinating what they do. Check it out. It’s a really interesting movie.

Terri Hoffman (41:50.561)
What? Wow. Okay, and is it S -O -M, SOM? Somalia? Okay, yeah, I will check that out. That sounds cool. Yeah, it sounds really interesting.

Ed Marsh (41:59.054)
Yeah, as in sommelier. Yep. S -O -M -M -E, I think. One of the things that thinking about how people’s minds work differently that kind of triggers for me, I thought, is marketing and sales. You know, traditionally very different. And in many of the industrial companies, a really linear and distinct set of disciplines. Marketing made sure that they had the right…

Terri Hoffman (42:15.553)
Mm -hmm.

Ed Marsh (42:25.134)
carpet and pad in the trade show booth and maybe signed up to sign the Thomas Register insertion order. Sales really did everything else out there, pounding the street, finding leads, developing business, closing deals, customer service. But now it’s different. The buying journeys are so chaotic and so all over the place that buyers one day or one moment will be doing something engaging with the kind of material that we might traditionally associate with marketing. The next minute. with sales and then back again and bouncing back and forth. So there’s still distinct skills, but there’s so much overlap. How do you see that? Well, first of all, do you see that as well or am I imagining it? And if you do, then how do you see that impacting companies in the industrial space?

Terri Hoffman (43:08.001)
I don’t think you’re imagining that. We see that too. Yeah. Yeah. And then what was your follow -up question? How do I see those roles evolving? Yeah.

Ed Marsh (43:16.782)
All right, good. How do you see that in? Well, how’s it impacting industrial companies?

Terri Hoffman (43:23.105)
Oh my gosh, in a huge way, I think. So they like, I totally agree with how you described those roles being distinct in the past. And I guess one thing that I always try to emphasize when I’m talking to a prospect or someone in this market is it’s not wrong to have someone whose job it is to pick out the carpeting and decide which trade shows you’re exhibiting at and sending in the order forms and creating proposal responses, right? Like, That’s great. That does need to be someone’s job role and responsibility, but you have to add onto that now. Make it, make there be more responsibilities for that person or find other resources who can add onto that. And I think that the same could be said for the salespeople, right? So maybe in the past, certain skills to be a successful salesperson have worked really well, but now that…

Ed Marsh (43:54.51)
Mm -hmm.

Terri Hoffman (44:21.121)
digital presence is becoming more important. Those salespeople also have to add onto their skill sets. And I think what’s happening is now there’s much more crossover between the skill sets for the salespeople and the marketing people, particularly when it comes to digital marketing. So I think the impact is you’ve got to revisit those job descriptions and job roles and how you’re resourcing for all of those skills that are needed.

Ed Marsh (44:45.966)
Would you advise a client against hiring a sales rep who didn’t have a LinkedIn profile?

Terri Hoffman (44:54.017)
Yeah, I would. I would. Or hire them and that better be the number one priority for that person. They have to at least be open to it. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That would be a red flag for sure if they didn’t have one. Now, what’s interesting is there are still many salespeople in this space who are successful salespeople and they don’t have a LinkedIn profile. Right? And so you can…

Ed Marsh (44:55.822)
I agree. I agree. It’s just such a statement about their mindset. Right.

Terri Hoffman (45:22.785)
I just think you have to consider the trend. You have to consider the way that that’s trending is towards you better have a LinkedIn profile.

Ed Marsh (45:25.87)
Mm -hmm. Right. And LinkedIn profile, of course, is just an example of any number of sort of digital proficiencies and comforts, whether it’s the ability to use a database to search for contacts or whatever the case may be. Look for second degree connections using LinkedIn sales navigator, really that digital mindset. Speaking of evolution, would you recommend your kids go into marketing these days or would you recommend they steer clear of it?

Terri Hoffman (45:40.737)
Yes. I would love for any of them to be interested in it. But who picks, you know, like.

Ed Marsh (46:03.854)
So you think it’s a growing, developing space.

Terri Hoffman (46:08.225)
Definitely, absolutely. Yeah. There’s always the need to build demand for a brand is what marketing is all about. And so just the way that that demand is built will continue to evolve, just like it has throughout my career. But it’s always going to be something that is a necessary part of generating revenue. or attracting new employees or getting whatever message that you have out is, is marketing. I, you know, I’ve already seen it change so much. And now of course, all anyone can talk about right now is AI. Um, but there’s always that new thing that has to be embraced to get the message out.

Ed Marsh (46:54.862)
That’s a great point about employees. I think people don’t often stop to think that their marketing speaks to so many audiences. It speaks to their own employees. It speaks to prospective employees. It speaks to their community, to their industry associations, to their vendors, to their investors and lenders, and of course, to their prospects. But they tend to think of it just to their prospects. So I love that point that you make. But how about AI?

Terri Hoffman (47:13.313)
Mm -hmm.

Ed Marsh (47:23.566)
What’s AI going to do to marketing? Is it going to do away with marketing? I guess not. You don’t think so. If you would encourage your daughters to go into it, is it going to eliminate the need for anybody writing? Is it going to create all the video where we need nobody behind the camera? What do you think is going to happen?

Terri Hoffman (47:32.385)
Yeah. Terri Yeah, I mean, this is another area, like I said earlier, I don’t have a crystal ball, right? But my suspicion and my prediction at this point would be that it can definitely replace a lot of the research components to what we have to do. Information gathering, general ideation to kind of get the ball rolling. And those are just a few examples, right?

Ed Marsh (47:58.03)
Mm -hmm.

Terri Hoffman (48:08.001)
but you can’t program software to think exactly like a human being. That’s not done yet. AI, one of the places that it started was in the banking industry to be better at predicting and kind of like doing a better job of giving information to make a better decision. And that is just starting to…

Ed Marsh (48:30.446)
Mm -hmm.

Terri Hoffman (48:33.185)
roll out into the marketing industry. And so I think the place where it can really make an impact now is just improved decision -making and faster decision -making. AI is a tool that we at Marketing Refresh have used for a number of years because it’s baked into the Google algorithm. It’s baked into different ad platform algorithms. So it’s not really new to us. I think it’s new to our customers. in the marketing context because it’s just now there are so many tools coming out onto the market and those tools are marketing themselves as replacements to people and resources. And I don’t think it’s quite there. I don’t think it’s ever really gonna get there, but certain tasks we each do can be more efficient now.

Ed Marsh (49:23.182)
I saw a really interesting example a couple of months ago where somebody has created a custom GPT that is essentially a… I’m forgetting the word for it, an avatar essentially for one of your buyer personas. So you create this custom GPT as an avatar, and then you ask it questions. You sample messaging on it. You use that as a first tier of, call it feedback or focus group feedback or something like that. I thought that was a really interesting kind of creative way to use it at the intersection. I think we’ll hear about a lot more of those.

Terri Hoffman (49:58.273)
That’s an awesome idea. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, it’s maybe like a litmus test. Yeah. Hey, any? I think one of the things that’s still in question for me when it comes to AI is, you know, anytime you get data or information, you always have to consider the source, right? So it’s AI right now is just a regurgitation of things that are out there.

Ed Marsh (50:20.046)
Right. Mm -hmm.

Terri Hoffman (50:26.241)
but you don’t always know exactly what that source is just yet. So it’s, I think it gives you some information that’s better than no information, but it’s very difficult to like think, oh, AI is gonna replace people in any career field.

Ed Marsh (50:44.558)
You mentioned a minute ago that the role of marketing is to build demand for a brand. Obviously, another role of marketing for many years has been actually creating the brand and reinforcing the brand and developing the brand itself, not just the demand for it. How important do you find branding from the perspective of an industrial manufacturer?

Terri Hoffman (51:06.273)
I think it’s really important. And branding is really like broken into two components. There is your visual brand, you know, and the most tangible item is your logo. And then how that is carried visually across all of the rest of your brand components, like your website and golf shirts and hard hats and, you know, different things that you have to design, truck decals. And then there’s the messaging side of your brand. And if you cannot easily articulate as a brand what sets you apart and what your value proposition is and why buying from you is a better route than buying from one of your competitors, then any Google ad campaign or page you create on your website is going to be at a disadvantage because you don’t have that clearly understood and articulated. And I mean, one analogy I like to use all the time is your brand is like, if you have an outdated brand visually and your message, it’s like inviting somebody to a party with bad food. They’re going to leave. Yeah.

Ed Marsh (52:18.542)
Sure, sure. Yeah, there’s no doubt that good brand is kind of transparent and bad brand jumps out at you. I’ve maintained for a long time though that for an industrial manufacturer, the biggest part of their brand is the consistency of the customer experience. You know, is the quality there? Is the availability of technical support there? Are spare parts available when they’re necessary? Do people pick up the phone and answer technical questions when somebody’s wrestling trying to get something to work? I’ve always felt like that’s the most important aspect of a brand. Obviously you want the visual identity, you want the colors matching, you want all that kind of stuff. But often I think companies just assume because they’re 75 years old, they’ve got a strong name recognition in the industry. Their website says they’ve got a 75 ,000 square foot facility with this many of this machine. And they think that somehow that’s the brand. I think the brand is what buyers experience in the industrial space.

Terri Hoffman (53:20.577)
Yeah, you would make an agency I used to work for the owner was like a branding expert. And he would always say, a brand is a promise made and a promise kept and delivered. And I feel like that’s exactly what you’re saying, right? You can make the promise, but if it’s not founded in something that’s actually delivered upon, it’s not going to mean anything. It’s not going to resonate with the market.

Ed Marsh (53:31.246)
I love that. I love that. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah, that’s a great way to put it. Branding also can be very expensive. And so let’s talk a little bit about budget. What general rule of thumb do you have for a typical middle market industrial manufacturer? Do you have any guidance on what percentage of revenue they should expect to spend on marketing?

Terri Hoffman (53:53.761)
Mm -hmm. Oh, wow. That’s just such a hotly debated topic, isn’t it? So you can find, I think it has a lot to do with where they are in their journey, right? But I think a general rule of thumb that gives you a good starting point is three to 8 % of revenue, like somewhere in that range. Now, you can be on the lower end of that if you’re maybe adding a new

Ed Marsh (54:24.686)
Good.

Terri Hoffman (54:32.705)
one new product line and you already have like a great foundation in place and you have an existing marketing program and that’s your add -on. But if you’re kind of building from the ground up, then you’re going to have to invest more to get your foundation established. And then you can kind of even out at a different percentage. Also factored in like, where do we stand in the competitive field? What are we trying to accomplish? Right?

Ed Marsh (54:48.718)
Right.

Terri Hoffman (55:01.409)
Are we trying to overtake a competitor here? What is our goal? And that’s a huge factor.

Ed Marsh (55:06.926)
Right. So three to 8%, that’s a bold call. I mean, I’ve always kind of felt that 5 % was aspirational. And if a company got to 3%, I think that they were doing really pretty well. One of the things I think that companies don’t necessarily take into account when they may be horrified at, oh my goodness, how do we come up with 5 % or 8 % or even 3 %? Well, remember, of course, that so much of what used to be sales is now done by marketing. It doesn’t mean that… Sales are going away, you need great salespeople, they have to be involved, they have to follow up on leads and create opportunities and all the kind of stuff that salespeople do. However, a lot of the early work is done in parallel by marketing. So it’s almost in many cases a function of not increasing your revenue growth budget, but shifting some of it. Shifting some from maybe a couple of those chronically underperforming reps.

Terri Hoffman (55:55.521)
Yeah.

Ed Marsh (56:06.19)
into content creation, for instance, or an improved website or e -commerce to help grow spare parts revenue. Do you end up discussing with companies shifting resources from sales to marketing in order to help ease their investment in marketing?

Terri Hoffman (56:23.681)
Yeah. And actually I’m really, really glad you made that point because, um, I think, I do think that what you’re saying was kind of embedded in my response and that, so if in the past you had budgeted, let’s say $50 ,000 a year for the, the person on your marketing team who is creating proposal responses and flyers and things like, yeah, that percentage I said is terrifying.

Ed Marsh (56:49.39)
Right?

Terri Hoffman (56:52.897)
That’s aggressive. But I think that’s all part of redefining what marketing is and how that is impacting the overall strategy of you growing your revenue. Like how does that feed into your revenue operation? So yeah, we definitely talk about that. One example that immediately comes to mind is we had a client who was interested in adding e -commerce to their existing website.

Ed Marsh (56:53.262)
Hehehehe. All right.

Terri Hoffman (57:22.433) platform because they sell through distributors. And they had huge distributors that would place orders through EDI. And then they had kind of the onesie twosie orders that they took here and there, which are very easy to handle over the phone. But they had this huge group in the middle that wanted an easier way to place repeat orders. And.

Ed Marsh (57:28.174)
Mm -hmm.

Terri Hoffman (57:48.513)
kind of build their own cart of order history that could easily be ordered and then you don’t need a salesperson unless there are technical questions or they need guidance on exactly which products to select. So it’s like a hybrid, right? That a salesperson is still very important, but do you need as many? And do you need the same skill level of salesperson at that point?

Ed Marsh (58:02.99)
Great.

Terri Hoffman (58:13.953)
So I think it kind of shifts the overall makeup of that resource pool between sales and marketing.

Ed Marsh (58:19.822)
That’s an interesting e -commerce example that goes back to what we talked about earlier customer experience But it also reminds me of some statistics I saw probably the middle of last year from McKinsey and and I’ll screw the numbers up I’ll find a link to drop in the show notes But something like 70 % of buyers were comfortable spending more than $100 ,000 in a single e -commerce transaction for B2B Purchasing and and think about that. I’ve traditionally associated E -commerce says, okay, you know, the maintenance team needs to go to the Granger site to get another set of wrenches or some MRO parts or something like that. $100 ,000, you know, even for large companies, a material amount of money that often requires a number of sign -offs for a purchase. And companies are increasingly willing to do that by e -commerce. I think it shifts the way people think about e -commerce.

Terri Hoffman (59:09.025)
Wow, yeah, I’d love to read that article. That’s interesting. So especially if they have that order history, right? Like obviously you wanna make sure you have the right controls in place on that platform. They have to be like a qualified client. They’d have to be onboarded. They’d have to have the proper authority and sign -offs on their end. You don’t want like a $50 ,000 order just being placed willy -nilly and then…

Ed Marsh (59:22.318)
Right? Sure.

Terri Hoffman (59:38.753)
You ship it and it’s, you know, they’re not on, they don’t have the right terms and agreements in place with you, but that those are, I think what I would love for this market to realize is everything that I just described is completely possible on e -commerce platforms. Shopify Salesforce has a great e -commerce platform. There are numerous of them out there that can build all of those capabilities in so that you have the right controls in place.

Ed Marsh (01:00:06.638)
And great point on that because I think many companies in this space have have call it commercial PTSD from an ERP instilled implementation. They may have done at some point that was supposed to cost $600 ,000, cost $2 million by the time they were done. They still have legacy issues with it. And the idea that they just associate an e -commerce site as something analogous to that. And it doesn’t have to be, it can be uploading a spreadsheet, putting the code on your website and bam, you’re running.

Terri Hoffman (01:00:36.129)
Yeah, yeah, no, you’re absolutely right. There’s, oh man, this industry has had so many bad, bad experiences with technology. I really have a lot of empathy for that.

Ed Marsh (01:00:47.982)
Absolutely. Let’s talk a little bit about strategy. You used the term strategy earlier in the context of growth strategy, but let’s talk about marketing strategy versus tactics. Those two tend to get conflated, but often I find, you know, I’ll have a conversation with a CEO who says, you know what, we need to do more digital. And so we want to do more social media or we want to do more SEO. And I love the energy. I love the commitment. I love the willingness to change, but are those the right things? And what do they mean by SEO? You spoke earlier about how that means so many different things to different people. How do you get people, how do you kind of maintain that enthusiasm, but slow it down enough to say, okay, let’s back up and let’s really think about how this fits together and where we should focus and what we should do first.

Terri Hoffman (01:01:35.521)
I, well, for me, it’s all about helping them protect their investment, right? So yeah, the enthusiasm to do something is great, but let’s make sure it’s the right thing so that it works and that you can either, um, expand upon that or have something that just, even if it was the first step, that’s maybe the only step, right? Or if it’s the first step, it’s a really good one and that the second step doesn’t feel as scary. So developing that strategy is.

Ed Marsh (01:02:01.742)
Mm -hmm.

Terri Hoffman (01:02:04.993)
is critical because I’m excited when someone says they want to get active on social media. But I also know that’s probably not going to be the biggest thing that moves the needle. So let’s make sure it’s prioritized and that we take some time to research what would be the most impactful place to start.

Ed Marsh (01:02:13.966)
Right. And how do you keep them from getting frustrated? Because now after all this time, they’re ready to go. They want to go. And now you’re saying, no, no, no, pump the brakes. We’re going to back up, and we’re going to think about whether you should do this.

Terri Hoffman (01:02:36.417)
Yeah, well, that comes down to the relationship, right? And they have to trust that we’re operating with integrity there and that the goal is to find them the right answer and not just an answer. So I think you have to explain, and having obviously a successful track record that we are able to refer to and showing case studies and times that taking that strategy step helps quite a bit to build that trust.

Ed Marsh (01:02:43.822)
Mm -hmm. Right. Right? Right?

Terri Hoffman (01:03:05.825)
But a phrase I use a lot is the ready, aim, fire, because I had a client use it with me. And I feel like if you just say we’re ready to start in digital, and so let’s do social media, that is ready, fire, aim. That’s ready, fire, and that’s not a good equation. So take your time. Make sure you’re aiming in the right place and that.

Ed Marsh (01:03:28.014)
Right.

Terri Hoffman (01:03:32.641)
You’ve got the proper strategy in place because then when you fire, you fired and you can say, well, we missed with that fire, but now we have less data points to go back and question. Um, it’s easier to figure out how to fire and hit your target that way.

Ed Marsh (01:03:52.622)
And I think the other thing that strategy does, let me say it differently. You don’t have to do everything that the strategy includes. What the strategy does is gives you a roadmap. And then from that, you understand how the pieces fit in and you can start to work on one of them at a time, keeping in mind the way it’s going to integrate with others. And then you pick the next one to work on. And eventually maybe you execute on the entire strategy. Just because you’re thinking big picture doesn’t mean you have to disrupt everything, blow it all up. to create chaos in order to work on all of it at once. And I think sometimes that’s misunderstood too.

Terri Hoffman (01:04:26.689)
Oh yeah, yeah. I love the way that you said that. So you can’t, especially if you’re starting for the first time or you’re trying to revamp a previous bad start. I actually really don’t like it when clients want to start with everything. Like, okay, here’s an entire plan of everything that you could do. And then they’re like, yes to all of it. That actually like, oh, well, I’m glad on one hand, but.

Ed Marsh (01:04:49.774)
Mm -hmm.

Terri Hoffman (01:04:56.161)
Also on the other hand, let’s roll it out step by step because the other factor that we didn’t really talk about when you take on digital marketing is this all has to be tracked and accounted for and you have to do reporting, right? And so you wanna make sure that you have the proper time and resources internally to review work that’s been put together for you, give feedback on it, give direction on it, and then also review how it’s working. And every…

Ed Marsh (01:04:58.318)
Right? Right. Mm -hmm.

Terri Hoffman (01:05:24.929)
new activity that you add upon that adds more time and another layer of complexity.

Ed Marsh (01:05:31.566)
And I know you actually walk the talk about data and reporting and metrics. You’re a big proponent of DataBox, our mutual friend Pete Caputa, who I mentioned earlier, also a chemical engineer. They’ve got a tool set that plugs into a lot of different software and helps to create really clear dashboards to give management an understanding of what’s happening.

Terri Hoffman (01:05:39.201)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh. And then they’ve so data box is the reporting platform that we use, um, with our clients to review. And another awesome thing about that whole platform is they’ve created a new offering that’s called benchmarks and the benchmarks, man. So you can filter on their website by industry company size. I mean, they have. many different pieces of criteria and you can immediately see how what you’re doing compares to other companies like you. So that, I mean,

Ed Marsh (01:06:28.814)
If there’s a, there’s a big if though, and you said it earlier, you, you start doing these things and you have to capture the data. And so for many companies, even hundreds, 200 million dollar manufacturers I’ve worked with where nobody uses a CRM, where there are opportunities to track somehow in a series of emails and outlook and, and nobody knows what’s going on. No data is going to be productive. You’re not going to get anything worthwhile out of that. So data bucks and other tools are fabulous and a company like.

Terri Hoffman (01:06:37.601)
Yes.

Ed Marsh (01:06:58.67)
like yours to help people set it up, know what to track, know how to interpret it. But they have to, let’s come back to early in our conversation, accountability. There has to be accountability to use the tools, whether it’s marketing automation or CRM or whatever the case may be.

Terri Hoffman (01:07:17.281)
Okay, yeah, now you’re gonna get me going on my soapbox about something. But it’s because like all of my, the different soapboxes that I jump around to are all founded in one thing. I’m frustrated that people who are in these industrial marketing companies don’t have things that I want them to have to better run their business and grow, right?

Ed Marsh (01:07:19.438)
Alright, go ahead and preach. Mm -hmm.

Terri Hoffman (01:07:46.529)
And so, um, the number of times that we also run across very successful and high revenue, industrial B2B companies that do not have website tracking, that do not have a CRM tool to it. Every single day we run across that. And it frustrates me because I’m like, but you wouldn’t have your CFO just tell you the amount of revenue you made this month.

Ed Marsh (01:07:59.918)
Yep.

Terri Hoffman (01:08:14.529)
And then that’s the only data point you have about your financial position. Don’t you also want to know your bank account cash balances? Don’t you also want to know how much inventory you have on hand? Don’t you also want to know your cost of goods sold? Like, aren’t there hundreds of other data points that you need to be tracking? Well, guess what? That’s the same thing in your sales and marketing functions is you can’t just say like, how many leads did we get or what is our revenue pipeline? very important points, but shouldn’t be the only points that you care about or track.

Ed Marsh (01:08:47.758)
I love that you raised leads the number of times. So you talk about talking to companies that don’t have CRM and I completely agree. And I see that too. Another really simple, low hanging fruit, if you will, indicator is to look at their, look at their lead list and understand what percentage have been followed up on what their lead to meeting rate ratio is, what their meeting to qualified opportunity ratio is. And if they can’t provide that data, then. Really, before we even talk about marketing, we need to talk about the capability of sales team, the accountability, the mindset, and the expectations. Because creating 1 ,000 leads over the course of a quarter or a year or whatever length of time is appropriate for the business, if nobody’s going to sell them, what’s the point? I worked with a company one time that had, I think, four years worth of trade show leads in a spreadsheet that had never been put in their CRM, never been called. And that represented probably about a $2 million investment in trade shows to generate that. Imagine $2 million just burning it up.

Terri Hoffman (01:09:52.129)
Well, I’d love to say that that’s unique, but we do see that pretty commonly. And that frustrates me for them. And I know it does for you. I mean, you just kind of stepped right into the mission of our company. The mission is to prove to these companies they can get a return on these investments. But it takes a lot of work and commitment on their part.

Ed Marsh (01:09:54.894)
Yeah. Right. Exactly. Right?

Terri Hoffman (01:10:21.633)
to change the way things are being done now or have been done in the past. They have to be ready to embrace that.

Ed Marsh (01:10:29.614)
All right, so when they’re ready to embrace that, there’s lots of ways they can start. They can go to an agency, they can hire somebody, they can hire consultants, they can look for contractors. There’s pros and cons. You know, I talk about companies, let’s say a hundred million dollar company, I think should have in mind the fact that they’re gonna set up their own publishing operation in -house. That’s obviously aspirational, that’s not out of the gate, but how do you recommend to a company that they start? Should they hire an agency? Should they try hiring their own person? Should they do a…

Terri Hoffman (01:10:34.593)
Mm -hmm.

Ed Marsh (01:10:58.03)
combination. What do you suggest?

Terri Hoffman (01:11:00.545)
Oh, yeah, I think some type of a combination is really important. So we actually won’t take on a client unless they have some type of in -house marketing person that would be a point of contact. And that’s important to us because we need responsiveness. We need the information. And so even if we just have a conduit to the subject matter experts or the leadership team, who’s got some project management responsibilities and

Ed Marsh (01:11:12.896)
Okay.

Terri Hoffman (01:11:29.953)
program responsibilities, I think that’s vital. So I think before you even hire an outside consultant or agency or whatever the outside resource is, it would be really important to know who is our internal conduit to that person so that there’s some accountability. Because it’s not reasonable to expect executive level people to be able to do some things that are maybe more day -to -day administrative information gathering type tasks.

Ed Marsh (01:11:33.166)
Mm -hmm. What warning signs would you recommend that they look out for? Let’s say they decide, OK, we’re going to hire an agency or we’re going to try to bring in consultants. How and when do they say, wait a minute, maybe this isn’t doing quite what we need it to do? The problem, of course, being they don’t know exactly what it needs to do or what it should do. But how can they sense without knowing exactly what it ought to be that it may not be what it should?

Terri Hoffman (01:12:26.305)
Yeah, wow, that’s a really good question. Some basics that I think I would look for is, do they have any type of experience in the overall field that you’re in? That’s a big one. What is the system for accountability and communication? Are they trying to push tactics or are they actually suggesting that you develop a strategy first?

Ed Marsh (01:12:37.87)
Right.

Terri Hoffman (01:12:56.513)
before you just jump straight to tactics. And I guess, like, related to the point I just made about accountability and the system for accountability is like, how are they providing recommendations? Are they just saying you should do these things? Or are they saying you should do these things? And here’s why. You know, here’s the data that supports what we’re recommending and how you should prioritize things. Yeah.

Ed Marsh (01:13:14.606)
Mm -hmm. And here’s how we’ll measure it. And here’s the milestones we’re looking for to justify it or to pivot if it’s not working at that point. I think they ought to be able to articulate what happens next as well.

Terri Hoffman (01:13:27.361)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, exactly. So I think those are some key things to look for. And, you know, of course, I can name those things very quickly because those are things that are important to us in terms of how we operate and what we’ve learned to make a successful relationship with our clients.

Ed Marsh (01:13:41.486)
Right. Thinking about manufacturers, one of the things that I know about them is they love talking about their stuff. They love talking about the specs or the millimeters, the foot pounds of torque, the feet per minute, whatever the specs are, the durometer of the rubber, any of that kind of stuff. They often get offended. And maybe it’s my New England charm, but I say, hey, listen, nobody cares what you sell. Nobody cares about it. Well, but they ask this, well, they ask you because reflexively that’s what they think they’re supposed to want because you and your competitors aren’t doing any better job helping them understand what they ought to care about. And ultimately that’s the business outcomes. But that really becomes a challenge for marketing and sales teams as buying teams get bigger, buying journeys get more convoluted and elongated. How can marketing help to create the appropriate mindset in a company? to focus on outcomes and help buyers understand how to make the kind of decision that we’re asking them to make, even though they don’t make that decision on a regular basis.

Terri Hoffman (01:14:54.049)
Um, okay. So I think the first thing that a company has to be clear about is who are the different types of job roles and, you know, personas who are part of this decision -making process, right? Because certainly at some point there probably is somebody in that decision -making group who does need to know like, which presses do you have and which, you know, how many welding stations do you have and how much can you, can you, um, like put through your process?

Ed Marsh (01:15:06.126)
Mm -hmm. Of course. Right.

Terri Hoffman (01:15:22.945)
They have to know that, right? But I think most of the people who are part of that decision -making process care way more about the, how are you solving my problems? And yeah.

Ed Marsh (01:15:24.366)
Mm -hmm. Well, let’s look at it this way. Capital doesn’t get allocated because of the number of welding stations. Capital gets allocated for some very different sort of a problem.

Terri Hoffman (01:15:39.777)
No, exactly. Yeah, exactly. So I think we are big believers in the buyer’s journey process, which is basically something that HubSpot publishes. They have a whole framework for that because it helps you identify the different buyer personas involved in the decision -making. And then it helps you identify the things that are important to them at different stages. When you go through that process, you become very clear.

Ed Marsh (01:16:03.502)
Mm -hmm.

Terri Hoffman (01:16:08.481)
about why focusing on business outcomes and what those business outcomes that are important to each one of those buyer groups, you have that all articulated by going through that process. And then you also see very clearly like, oh, that spec sheet is important, but that’s something that can be emailed out later to this one particular group who does need to know all of those pieces of information. But maybe videos that show it could also be important. And… Just seeing that that’s been done says a lot about a manufacturer and their brand and how they’re placing importance on their capital investments of their own in their environment. So the buyer’s journey is just a process that I believe very strongly in because it helps you get clarity to something that feels very overwhelming until you go through that process, right?

Ed Marsh (01:17:02.83)
But I love the implication of what you just said, that if you understand the buyer’s journey and you create the right sales enablement content, the right buyer education content, that that becomes a differentiating factor for your firm in the sales process. So you’re not doing it based on who’s got more meters per minute or higher pressure or whatever the case may be. You’re doing it because they’re more comfortable that you’re helping them solve their problem.

Terri Hoffman (01:17:29.281)
Yes. Yes, a hundred percent. So when we do a buyer’s journey project for a client, our intention with it, because our responsibility is putting together content to help them build their, you know, kind of marketing qualified leads and then also feed to the sales team tools that they can use. But every single time we finish one, the VP of sales or the C level person involved says, Oh my gosh.

Ed Marsh (01:17:50.99)
Great.

Terri Hoffman (01:17:57.889)
this is a great onboarding tool for new salespeople. Like they’re gonna understand every single one of our groups that are part of the decision -making process and they’re gonna know exactly what needs to be said at different stages, right? Now that’s cool, but you also need people who recognize when they’re hearing, okay, this is a procurement person and they’re just doing their research, right? You kind of have to know. you have to have the skills to identify like, who am I talking to and what I have to figure out which stage they’re in. So I know how to respond to them, right? That the tool can help. Go ahead.

Ed Marsh (01:18:32.846)
Sure. I love, and another way that tools can help in a really interesting way is if you have good marketing automation, if you’re tracking engagement with content, with website pages, then the first party intent data, have they opened it up? Have they read it? What pages have they looked at? How much time did they spend on it? That becomes hugely valuable information for the salesperson if they’re coached on how to incorporate that into their analysis and outreach.

Terri Hoffman (01:19:01.825)
Yes, exactly. Yeah. And well, you’re hitting on something that is huge. The promise that I think is made by a lot of software platforms is you can figure out how to automate your whole sales process. Well, no, that would be really cool, right? You can’t just automate it, but there are parts of it that can be made so much more efficient and automated and give

Ed Marsh (01:19:16.782)
Heheheheh

Terri Hoffman (01:19:31.745)
way faster information to the salesperson so they don’t have to go back. They don’t have to get that prospect on a call and try to figure out where they’re at. They can already look for clues in that automation platform and be like, okay, they’ve done this research, this reach. Now I think they probably want to know this next thing. I can guide them to what I think they want to know next. Just a more intelligent conversation.

Ed Marsh (01:19:52.462)
The trick I think though, but intelligent is an important point. And if you understand that salespeople like all of us follow a bell curve in different aspects and attributes of our lives, there’s a lot of average salespeople and they may not have the ability to do that. So really strong, maybe second, I talk about second and third standard deviation sales talent is necessary, I think to unlock the potential of a lot of what’s available these days.

Terri Hoffman (01:20:19.681)
Yeah, no, I totally agree. It helps them move to different, it’s the same thing that we were talking about earlier with AI, right? AI tools. These automation platforms or AI tools help alleviate time you’re spending on something that can be automated or done with a software tool so that you can move on to things that are more impactful and get you closer to that revenue being generated, yeah.

Ed Marsh (01:20:38.702)
Right. Sorry, makes sense. All right, so I gotta believe after listening to you talk and hearing your approach and your temperament and your company’s ethos that there’s a lot of people that are gonna wanna talk to you. So how do they connect with Terri? How do they learn more? How do they find marketing refresh? Tell us, tell them how to find you.

Terri Hoffman (01:21:05.921)
Okay, so our website address is marketingrefresh .com. And my suggestion for people who do want to connect with me is there’s a, I think a quick audit request button on our website that comes directly to me, right? So that’s the fastest way to get my attention and get some time scheduled to talk to me. Something that’s important to me, especially with this market is that I am very willing to spend 30 minutes just helping somebody do a quick assessment, like where do you stand against your top three competitors? Let’s take a quick look at that. And then, then from there, there’s enough data to say, yeah, I want to talk further about this. This looks like something that we could spend some more time talking about or no, I’m not interested. This is not something I’m ready to take on right now, right? But I think that quick audit conversation is what I would suggest.

Ed Marsh (01:22:00.558)
All right, how about LinkedIn connections? Are you open to that?

Terri Hoffman (01:22:02.081)
Yeah. No, I don’t want any more links. No, I’m just kidding. Yeah, I would love getting, um, so I’m on LinkedIn. If you search for Terri Hoffman, um, you can find me there and I would love to be connected. I’m constantly trying to grow my connections, not for the selfish reasons people might think I am. I want to see what people in this industry are posting about and what they’re interacting with, because it helps me understand how we can better serve that industry and serve this industry. So.

Ed Marsh (01:22:05.71)
Heheheheh Good. All right. So as we kind of get toward the end here, what are your biggest concerns or the biggest concern about marketing in the industrial space these days?

Terri Hoffman (01:22:31.713)
Yeah. Ah, um. The gap between what we know is possible and what our client will understand that means. I think it’s that vocabulary gap. And that I said it earlier, I think the onus is on us to do the majority of the heavy lifting on getting, like bringing those knowledge, closing that knowledge gap. I would love to see more people in leadership roles at manufacturing companies,

Ed Marsh (01:22:55.95)
Okay.

Terri Hoffman (01:23:17.153)
be willing to learn more about digital marketing as well and kind of be ready to embrace that. But I have a podcast for our company. You’ve got this podcast. And I’m sure that both of us have a goal of just making this all sound more approachable and not as scary.

Ed Marsh (01:23:31.886)
And yeah, I agree. And one of my, one of my real compelling initiatives this year is to emphasize the importance of boards of directors for these, of these companies to have a deep understanding of contemporary sales and marketing. They just kind of take it for granted in many cases. They’ve got engineering, they’ve got finance, they’ve got production, they’ve got family, they’ve got investors. They don’t have marketing and sales and it’s critically important. for the board of directors to be able to execute its oversight obligations in order to have enough awareness they know what kinds of questions to be asking of senior management and how to evaluate those answers. So I think you’re absolutely right about that. Now, my guess is that your answer to my question about the biggest concern is also kind of in a sense your answer to my next question. And that is the thing that you wish companies understood most about. .

Terri Hoffman (01:24:26.721)
Hmm. Uh, it’s probably it’s, it’s changed, you know, and it’s, it’s time to catch up. It’s time to catch up. It’s, it’s no longer going to be okay to say, I think we’ll be okay like this. It’s time to embrace it. Be ready to start learning.

Ed Marsh (01:24:38.542)
Right. But what if they’re growing 5 % a year and they’re content with it and they don’t want to scale faster? Why should they be thinking about digital?

Terri Hoffman (01:24:58.433)
So my challenge to that is what if you could grow 10 % a year and it wouldn’t be that big of a lift for you to have that additional increase? Or what if that lift actually led to even more growth than that? Or what if you start like you’re at 5 % now growth year over year, but aren’t you at risk of that possibly changing if you don’t make the way that you do business with your clients more accessible and easy, couldn’t that easily turn into minus five, minus 20, minus 30. That is a risk you’re running by not embracing it.

Ed Marsh (01:25:39.31)
Great point. And the other approach to it is maybe you only add 5 % of revenue, but what if you could add 5 % of profitability on every order while growing at 5 % of revenue? If you’re targeting the right people with the right message and with the right marketing and sales approaches and brand and everything that we’ve talked about in this and doing it well, you’re going to improve your margins.

Terri Hoffman (01:26:01.313)
Yeah, well, yes, absolutely. Yeah.

Ed Marsh (01:26:05.294)
And that’s something everybody, I think, wants.

Terri Hoffman (01:26:07.265)
I think everyone, yeah, I’m like, I need to make note of that. I love that.

Ed Marsh (01:26:10.574)
All right, Terri, this has been fabulous. Wrap it up for us with your meta level thoughts and guidance for industrial manufacturers regarding industrial marketing these days.

Terri Hoffman (01:26:24.769)
Well, I think it does come down to like when you mentioned the board of directors, I love that idea, right? Find someone in your circle who you trust, who can just start opening you up to how digital marketing works and how that may then impact how you’re viewing, how you’re resourcing your sales and marketing teams. There are lots of great books out there. Like Storybrand is one that I recommend a lot. because it helps you start to think about how your brand is perceived. But just if everyone could make the goal of just being willing to talk about it more openly and not feeling like talking about it obligates you to anything, right? It’s just make that part of where you want to grow professionally. And then when you’re at the point where you’re ready to take it on further, get an assessment done.

Ed Marsh (01:27:09.23)
Alright.

Terri Hoffman (01:27:21.281)
See where you stand against your top three competitors. Ask some of your top clients how they feel. What would they think would make their buying experience more successful and help them grow in their revenue relationship with your business? I think those are some steps that people can take to start being more open to embracing it.

Ed Marsh (01:27:41.966)
Great way to wrap it up, great way to encapsulate a lot of the things that we’ve talked about. This has been a fabulous conversation. I’ve got a lot to take away and think about, and I know that everyone listening will as well. So Terri, thank you so much for your time, and thanks for joining me and for your great insights.

Terri Hoffman (01:27:59.585)
Thank you. That was really fun. I appreciate you having me on and, um, I look forward to our next discussion, keeping it going.

Ed Marsh (01:28:05.966)
Great. Yeah, absolutely. So everyone listening, if you’ve enjoyed this as much as I have, if you’ve gotten value from this, then you know the drill. You need to make sure that you give the Industrial Growth Institute podcast some love, share it, like it, offer a review or a comment, and make sure that you pass it along to others who you think will find value in it as well. Thanks so much for joining us.