Live for IMS 2025: Marketing Lessons from SMB to Enterprise

This blog post has been re-posted. See the original article on Manufacturing Happy Hour, here.

Podcast: Industrial Marketing from SMBs to the Enterprise, Live from the 2025 Industrial Marketing Summit in Austin, TX

Manufacturers up and down the country are doing great work and naturally, you want the world to know about it – especially your potential customers. So host Chris Luecke turns the spotlight on marketing in this episode to take a look at the folks who get the name out there for manufacturing companies big and small.

Recorded live from the 2025 Industrial Marketing Summit in Austin, TX, Chris sat down with…

Rachel Cossette, Marketing Manager at Rogers Machinery Company
Jenni Gritti, Senior Marketing Communications Consultant at Caterpillar Inc
Jim Hessin, Regional Sales Manager at CADENAS PARTsolutions
Greg Knox, CEO of Knox Manufacturing Solutions
Steve Lamensdorf, SVP of CX at Icreon
Kerry Nedic, Strategic Marketing Leader (Masoneilan & Consolidated Valves) at Baker Hughes
Rich Ward, Director of Marketing at AcroMat

Rachel, Greg and Rich chat in part one about how to make marketing magic with a small team, with lots of actionable advice on sales-marketing alignment and revising strategies.

Jenni and Kerry give us the enterprise-level view of marketing with a conversation about balancing company policy with creativity, video and social media content, and getting leadership involved.

Finally, in part three, Chris talks to Steve and Jim about the technology we can use to power marketing and why sometimes we need to rip up the playbook and start new things from scratch.

All have slightly different experiences and insights to share from different areas of marketing, so no matter what type of manufacturing organization you’re in, there’s something in here for everyone.

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3 Quick Things from this Episode

Marketing focused on value and education will always outperform simple “buy this, it’s great” messaging.
Sales and marketing need to be on the same page with transparent communication and goal sharing to see the best results.
In marketing, the worst thing you can do is stay the same or remain indecisive. If you do things the same, you’ll get the same results.

Tweetable Quotes

“If you continue to do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got.” – Jim Hessin
“I found a lot of success in giving guys an iPhone, giving them some guardrails, and saying, ‘go!’ And that is the stuff that people really resonate with. It’s incredibly authentic. These people are the experts. They say it in a way that makes sense for the audience.” – Jenni Gritti
”You have to align with your leadership. What you find important and what your boss finds important, you need to know what all those levels are because if it’s something your boss cares about, then you need to care about it.” – Rachel Cossette

Please Scroll Down for Recommended Resources from this Episode

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What Chris Discusses at the Industrial Marketing Summit

How Rich helped to build the marketing strategy for AcroMat from the ground up
How marketing can encourage salespeople to become amplifiers for the company and create content online
What not to do as a B2B marketer and why good marketing is all about show, don’t tell
How sales and marketing have become more aligned today and when marketing became a focus for Greg
How to be effective with a small marketing team by focusing on priorities and boundaries
Why regular communication is the most important way marketing and sales can work together
How to get buy-in from leadership and why marketing can feel like a relay race
Why you need to be a subject matter expert, not just a marketer, to earn respect both externally with customers and internally
How marketers can make things happen in a large enterprise
How to balance company guidelines with creativity in your content
The tools and methods that enterprise marketers need to take more advantage of
Why authentic video content is far more effective than clean and polished content
The challenge of getting leadership willing to create content and share their stories
Advice for marketers in manufacturing to cultivate stories and new ideas
How new technology is empowering today’s marketers
Marketing technology that’s underrated and the challenges of adopting new tech in a disorganized system
Tips for manufacturers to get over the hurdle of adopting new technology
Why staying the same is the worst thing you can do in marketing

Recommended Resources

Industrial Marketing Summit, the premier gathering for industrial marketers — organized for and by the industrial marketing teams at TREW Marketing and Gorilla 76
Lustre Pearl, drinks & snacks in an old, converted home with a jukebox and huge backyard with picnic tables and games in East Austin

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