• 48:23
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Industrial Marketing Summit, Craig Coffey, B2B marketing, content gating, SEO, AI impact, customer experience, marketing challenges, Eaton, Parker Hannifin, Cleveland Angels, marketing strategy, industrial marketing, networking, public speaking.
SPEAKERS
Craig Coffey, Damon Pistulka, Curt Anderson
Damon Pistulka 00:04
All right, everyone, it is Friday, and you know what that means. It is time for stop being the best kept secret. I’m one of the CO hosts, Damon Pistulka, and today we’re going to be talking about the industrial marketing summit 2026, and we’re going to be previewing this with Craig coffee. Wow, are we excited today. I’m just going to say yes, I’ve had lots of caffeine, but I’m going to turn it over to my friend Kurt Anderson, co host, brother from another mother. Take it away,
Curt Anderson 00:37
man. Pun intended there, right? Lots of coffee, lots of caffeine. So, hey, this is such an honor, such a privilege. Way long overdue. Craig, how are you dude? Happy Friday. Thank you for joining us.
Craig Coffey 00:49
I am good. I am this is, I don’t know, probably my second to last call before I’m on vacation for a week, which
Damon Pistulka 00:56
is always a great place. Nice. So kicking off Friday the right
Curt Anderson 00:59
way. Nice. Excellent. Hey. Are you going anywhere?
Craig Coffey 01:02
Good? No sticking around. We got looking forward to I’m the mashed potato guy for our family Thanksgiving. So there you go. We just found out that that could be 30 pounds of mashed potatoes. I’ve got one nephew who’s a he was a defensive end for the University of Akron, graduated last year. He’s probably good for a good five six pounds, yeah, and we’ll play that out by the 15 or 20 people more barrier. You know, yeah,
Curt Anderson 01:33
that is awesome. You are a critical cog to the Thanksgiving wheel. My
Craig Coffey 01:36
friend myself, year after year, and now they depend on it. So I’m proud to say that they’re rarely leftover mashed potatoes at
Curt Anderson 01:43
the end of thanksgiving. Man, Damon, are you getting hungry? Or it’s lunch, or I’m at so let’s I’m getting a little hungry right now. So, Craig, super excited. You’re at Eaton, we’re going to dive into your marketing acumen, and especially, I had the privilege of catching you live at the industrial marketing summit last year. Dude, you absolutely smashed the ball out of the park. Great session, standing room only, and you’re that you were so overwhelmingly positive you’re coming back next year for round two. But before we go there, my friend, I have a little question for you. Are you ready? Are you sitting down? Are you ready for this? I’m sitting Okay, Craig, when you’re a little guy growing up when you were a little guy growing up, who was your hero? Who did you look up to? Who did you admire? Who showered you with unconditional love? Who was your hero?
Craig Coffey 02:29
Oh, I was going a different direction when you first asked that question. I’ll give you the fun.
Curt Anderson 02:36
Give us the first one, and we’ll give us both.
Craig Coffey 02:39
Well, I’m gonna date myself, the $6 million Man, I couldn’t be the $6 million Man. I don’t know.
Damon Pistulka 02:45
Man, but did you have the doll?
Craig Coffey 02:50
You know it’s action figure. Let’s call him
Curt Anderson 02:53
action Come on, Damon, you gotta be, you gotta be manly
Craig Coffey 02:59
when you’re action figures lasted exactly long, as long as until I discovered fire. Yeah, everything became the Human Torch.
Curt Anderson 03:08
Yeah. Now I was too poor to get the action figure, so I like, I had to go hang out my friend’s house. I had one so, So Craig, so Steve Austin, 6 million. So anybody under the age of what 50 you need a Google $6 million Man with inflation. What would he be today? You guys have any idea what? 60, 60 million?
Craig Coffey 03:29
That’s an insights mortgage these days.
Curt Anderson 03:32
Yeah, like with inflation, must be 100 100 million. So yeah, yeah, at least. But a zero, right? Who’s number who’s number two? Hero that came
Craig Coffey 03:39
to mind? Oh, geez, God, I’m gonna get sent a lot. So I grew up in foster care. I mentioned that because I’m involved in a foster care charity now called Cleveland angels. And my foster parents, they absolutely saved my life. So nice,
Curt Anderson 03:55
man. God, what are foster parents? What are their names? Please. Tim and Barb. Shout out to Tim and Barb’s shout out to Tim and Barb. God bless him and God and kudos to you. My father is very active with he raised a foster son himself. He couldn’t put up with me, Damon, so we got another one. Yeah, I’m just kissing he Yeah. He’s like, That kid’s a disaster. Let me try this another time. So, but you know, my heart goes out to you, your foster parents, and what great work you’re doing at Cleveland angels. That’s wonderful. So great. Let’s dive in. So you go to, we were geeking out before we went live. You have your graduate of Gannon University, wonderful university. And you got your you find yourself in marketing, particularly, you’re a B to B marketing guru. When you were at Gannon University, were you thinking like, Hey, I’m going to get into this manufacturing industrial space,
Craig Coffey 04:42
really. So I always want to be in advertising. You know? I thought that was the way I wanted to go. Found out that maybe I what? Well, let’s just put it this way. I wallpapered my my my room in college, my last year, room in college with rejection letters from every agency they. Pittsburgh. But like, just for people on the call don’t know, Erie sits 100 miles away from Pittsburgh, Buffalo in Cleveland. So I figured I was going to go one of those three big cities, because there was no opportunities in Erie. And I literally went through yellow pages at a black this is again, Stone Age stuff, pre internet with the library, like, last month that I was graduating, and I wrote introduction letters and sent my my portfolio to every agency in the phone book in a phone book in those in the tri state area, and I literally got no nibbles. So I moved to Cleveland the day I graduated to take a construction job with now one of my best friends, brothers, and learn how to, like my first thing I did out of college was learn how to push a broom correctly and drive it back home. So that kind of set me on the path to in the industrial side of marketing. You know, my very first marketing job was actually started. It was supposed to be a sales job, and I was working for a company called inland waters pollution control. Started out of Samsung supply, Samsung services. That was the company, believe it or not, that cleaned up the Cuyahoga River after it lit on fire in 19 oh, wow, yeah. So that was the outcropping of that business became this pollution control business, and I started in sales there, and then I saw I need to do marketing. And that was my very first marketing job. But that was before, like, anybody really talked about industrial Well, they didn’t call it B to B marketing. We called it industrial marketing. I think there was even industrial marketing major again, but I wasn’t involved in that. I came by way of, like, the the the English department. So I was a professional writing major, which is kind of arrogant in its face to have a right a major that’s professional writing no longer exists now, so, but yeah, so that’s kind of how I got into it. And it wasn’t really, so wasn’t really until I landed at Parker Hannifin, which took a, you know, I was with the inland waters. And then I went for, I worked for a caterpillar dealer, doing marketing for them. Locally. They were the state of Ohio cat dealer. And then I went to Parker Hannifin from there, and that’s when I really, really found my tribe. I went to, it was the the, oh God, it was the Business Marketing Association Summit. They used to take place in Chicago every like was usually the week before Labor Day. Yeah, and that’s the first conference I had ever been to where every speaker, none of the speakers, need to be translated from B to C to B to B. So it was directly relatable to me. I met some people that I still call on and hang out with and see on occasion. And it really opened my eyes to this idea of B to B marketing and as a as a separate and different discipline. And that led to industrial marketing, which led, you know, I’ve kind of stayed in that lane, through through Parker, Lincoln Electric, and now back and now to Eden. So it’s been a long journey. But, yeah, I mean,
Curt Anderson 08:02
so much in there. Gosh, and again, like the who’s who, Parker, hannifin and Kat, and now you’re at Eaton. And you know, how do you did you grab what made you gravitate to? Like these mammoth names, big brands, anything particular is just like where the jobs were,
Craig Coffey 08:18
or when I went from from Ohio cat to Parker. I just kind of wanted to be in the big leagues, you know, like I wanted to play where the and luckily, all these companies basically circle the 271 corridor in Cleveland. So it’s all relatively local to Cleveland, but it gave me an opportunity to kind of flex a different muscle, work in a different environment. And there’s pros and cons to all that. And like looking at, thinking about, like the folks at IMS, I recognize that a lot of the people coming there are, maybe they’re the chief cook and bottle washers of their market departments. And doing it all, I had that experience. It’s so I recognize the challenges of that experience 100% and then going to kind of gradually more sophisticated marketing organizations. You there’s, there’s gives and takes. I mean, you more sophisticated equals more bureaucracy, more red tape. Yeah, you know, less autonomy takes more time, sometimes more process. All for good, all good, good reasons to have that stuff. But sometimes, you know, sometimes you know, sometimes the grass is always greener. Sometimes you think, Boy, if I could just go back to the you know, and be the guy who got to make the decision, execute the decision, and get the and reap the benefits of decision. There’s some value there too. Yeah. So, shout out to the shout out to the guys who’re doing it
Curt Anderson 09:35
all. Yeah. And that’s, and I like what you’re saying, you know, found your crowd, found your peeps. And that’s, you know, and we’re here talking today about the industrial marketing Summit, and that’s a line that people are frequently using, like, Oh, I found my people. And it’s, you know, it’s a little bit we’re being in that B to B space. I don’t say like, we’re kind of like misfit Island or a little bit of oddballs, but it’s not a common theme, if you will. And so having a conference exclusively. For that industrial B to B folks, where typically it’s a solo marketer. They’re by themselves. They’re trying to do everything. Yep, it’s great to come together. So let’s do this. I want to give us a shout out on Eaton. Tell us a little bit about Eaton, and then I’m excited into you’ve got a great jam session coming up at the industrial marketing Summit. But who is Eaton? How do you and your team make the world a better place?
Craig Coffey 10:24
So Eaton is a is a global manufacturing organization. We serve a variety of industries. And people experience us from everywhere. From, you know, I say Eaton to some some crowds. It’s truck transmissions and and, or performance automotive parts. We have a nice play in electric vehicle, both charging infrastructure and on the OEM manufacturing side of things. I’m on the electrical sector of Eaton, which is, you know, from a segment standpoint, I manage the global residential segment marketing. But think about that as utilities, industrial, residential, commercial buildings. What am I missing? We have an aerospace group. I mean, we’re, we are a substantial organization, but, but, but, like a lot of the people go to IMS or recognize we are probably not the first company that comes to mind. We’re, we are a supplier. We’re more of an ingredient brand to a lot of companies, but we’re trying to change that, especially in the residential side of our business, where we we have the opportunity to sell directly through retail in some in some countries, including us, it is data centers. Data centers is huge for us. I can’t believe I almost forgot that. Data Centers and the explosion of AI right now, yeah, is a huge, huge power play for us. We’re very much involved in all the spaces. Look at, you know, rack space, cooling, you know, cooling and heating, energy storage. These are all I’m just kind of like, yeah, we’re, we have a lot going on. We’re the one place we when I was at Parker hannafin, we were competitive in the hydraulic space. And I think it was probably five, six years ago, we divested our hydraulics business and focused more on the electrical industrial sectors, which includes aerospace, but we play in a lot of places. I always tell people, if you go around your homes, specifically, if you go to your electrical breaker box, there’s probably a one in four chance that you’ve got an eating panel breakers in your house, or light switches or or outlets in your house. So, right? That’s the space that I plan. Yeah.
Curt Anderson 12:25
Lot of, lot of the behind the scenes products that you know, people don’t even know that they’re Yeah,
Damon Pistulka 12:32
yeah, yeah, just having dinner with a friend, was telling me about the stuff, some of the amazing things that they’re putting in the data centers, as far as just the cabling and throughput and the speed and, you know, with the fiber and the things they can do. And I know, you know, Eaton is one of the players, and that
Craig Coffey 12:49
kind of looking at that, it’s on the screen right now. And one of the things that I always think, it’s funny, but it’s always a good story, is golf grips. Why are we in golf grips? Yeah, so we own a company called golf pride. Golf pride is probably the, you know, the best selling golf grip in the world. And the story that I heard test this out to be true. Maybe somebody called BS on this. But the story I heard was we had, when we were in the hydraulics business, we had excess capacity in our in our one of our rubber lines. So somebody said, why don’t we try making golf grips? And it just through our divestiture of the hydraulics business, it kind of hung around for it’s good, and nobody ever knows part of eating but, but you’ll recognize that every time it like, there’s a much higher percentage of you having a golf crank, golf grip in your golf bag, and there’s probably one of our light switches even, yeah, we would have changed that.
Curt Anderson 13:40
So, So Craig for So, for folks out there that smaller manufacturers, they’re like, you know, geez, I’m, I’m doing marketing at a 50 100 person manufacturer. We custom contract manufacturer, or maybe they’re a small OEM, you know, working at a mammoth, mammoth company. Just share a little bit of like, the insight, not necessarily, you know, hey, day to day, but like, what are some of the marketing challenges. What are you tackling? What are you excited about? Cheers a little bit on the inside from your
Craig Coffey 14:05
Yeah, I think some of the challenges are the same. And what, you know, everybody sees Eden as you know, we’re a very large organization, both by employees and by revenue, but we operate Titans, like in groups. We operate in a relatively tight and small and, you know, we’re, again, not autonomous. We can’t just do what we want to do. We have to, you know, the remainder of this year we’re always spending, like, proving business outcome cases for asking for more budget extension. Yeah, this is the kind of fight that we fight every day. Is like, proving me the marketing is working. I think that happens everywhere. That’s universal, yes, prove to me that what you if you spend, if you spend money that will, that will make money, get eyeballs, get leads, whatever we deal with that every day. So that’s, I think that’s common to us, but, but we’re but again, we have the challenges that we’re a relatively siloed, sometimes fractured organization. I work for an organization and for. A boss who has done amazing, amazing things to create an organization that really has value to the senior level of our organization, the executive level organization. This is probably the, I would say without a doubt, this is the first organization I’ve ever worked for where marketing really has a seat at the table, and it’s not just and it’s not just marketing. I always kind of point this out. Usually at most organizations, you got to kind of look at the big S, little m. So sales is generally bigger than marketing, and marketing is kind of subservient, or reporting to sales. We’re on a parallel track with sales, which is great. We get a lot of respect because that we’ve it’s this is always, it’s been a journey, and I’m lucky enough to to benefit from the tail end of the journey, or at least the, you know, from the people who did the hard work to to make that case and make that separation early on. But, you know, and we could go on for an hour, just kind of, you know, how do we, how can we get sales and marketing to get along? I think that’s another place, a lot of small, medium sized marketing organizations struggle with, I mean, you know, I always tell people like, if you are, if, if the chief marketing person in your organization’s title has sales in it, then you’re in a sales organization, not necessarily marketing organization, and there’s And they know that. So, you know, helping people find that, find their way, so that marketing has its own dedicated kind of path to the leadership is really, really important.
Damon Pistulka 16:30
I think that’s really important though, too, because when you try to mix sales and marketing as the organizations get larger, you always have that conflict. Am I? Am I selling? Am I out talking to clients? Am I doing whatever that is, or am I, am I marketing? And when you can get them working together, but with distinct roles, you have a a supporting function with each one of them, they’re supporting each other, but the overall goal is to drive that revenue up by by them working
Craig Coffey 17:01
together? Well, yeah, a couple things come to mind with that. You know. First thing is, everybody thinks marketing is easy, because everybody experiences marketing every day. So, you know, yeah, like, ask any sales guy and they’ll say, marketing has the easiest job ever. Yeah, yeah. Makes a difference. Yeah, right. You know, you’re just out there making brochures. Yeah, yeah. A fair bit more. There’s a fair bit more than that going on out there, I hope. But, yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s my that was kind of the top one of the topics of my talk at IMS last year was like, so I was there when, when content marketing was first coined. You know, I was the first Content Marketing World. I’ve been to every I think I’m one of like five people who’s been to everyone I’ve had a chance to speak at many of them, and what I recognize, first of all, Joe plizzy, the guy who started this whole content marketing craze, was pretty genius in establishing this. But what he did that hurts everybody now is everybody thinks that all marketing is content marketing, and there’s a lot of marketing that is, frankly, it’s collateral. It’s the development of collateral that needs to support the requirements that sales needs to get their job done. But when I think about content marketing, and kind of like stepping into what we’re talking about this year, content marketing is more of a free flow of information in a more ungated way that allows people to that, that is really driven by one thing and one thing only, only creating audience. And that’s not just creating contacts, audiences, somebody who’s actually wants to interact with you. You know, like the thing about audience, when you go to a Bruce Springsteen concert, the audience is singing along for every song. I mean, that is the gold standard. You’re giving yourself. You’re giving your information away in order with the with the bet that the free flow of that information will buy you affinity and buy you opportunity. Yeah, and, you know, that’s that’s a really, really broad brush. But I think that now that the content marketing is so prevalent, everybody thinks that just because there’s a word on a piece of paper, on or on a screen, that it’s content, not that’s not always the case, but that’s, that’s the world we live in. So one of the things we’re approaching this year with IMS is kind of came from God. It was, I think was the final question that I was asked in the Q and A for my session was, what are my thoughts on gating content? And I said, gates are for livestock, which I thought was pretty, you know, gotta you gotta laugh, but it became kind of a controversial thing. After the the event, I got a lot a lot of inquiries, a lot of static. I heard was mentioned a couple other times. I had to leave early, but it was mentioned a few times after that, some of the general sessions. And as I dug into it, I realized what a flippant answer that was. And then I started to have some experiences at my own organization talking about content gating and the why we get content and when we get content. And I realized that it’s there’s not a one size fits all solution, but it’s kind of a thoughtful it’s a considered answer, and it’s based on a bunch of things. So. We’re still going through the I’ll be completely honest, we’re still going through the process to find out, like, what, what approach to getting is right for Eden. And I’m hoping that by the time IMS rolls around, I’ll have some of the results of that, that research and work. But I got some really good advice from folks on LinkedIn. Like, one of the best pieces of advice I came from, I’ll have to, like, remember, who gave this to me? I’ll definitely shout it out at IMS, because I’m going to go back through these, these conversations. But it was, what do you intend to do with the end result? If you get somebody to give your information, you have to be ready. It’s, it’s, you have to be ready to act on it, and you have to be able to be able to give that to sales, and have sales be able to act on it right away. Otherwise, you’re, you shouldn’t be giving it away. Another view on content right or content gating right now is, let’s just talk about the elephant room, AI. I mean, AI is AI and content gates don’t play well together. So if you you want to be seen by by where people are going to find information, you might want to reconsider what your content gating strategy is. Even in my own organization, I have found that there is potentially cultural differences in our coaching gating. I’m personally not a person who wants to fill out forms unless I’m very, very low in the sales funnel that goes back to that. Don’t ask for information unless you’re ready to have unless I’m ready to buy and you’re ready to sell and use that information to that advantage, and then do it quickly. Don’t wait three months. Yeah, three hours is probably what we don’t wait. And the car like, car dealers are like, the worst with that, right? Yeah, as soon as you fill out a form, they are on you, and you’re just trying to build your car online, and just want to get a quote. So, like, but that’s been a scene kind of be an example. But where’s I going with that? Sorry, derailed myself in the train of thought,
Curt Anderson 21:46
yeah, no, dude, this is phenomenal. So just for anybody, if you’re just joining us, we’re here with Craig coffee, and we’re we’re doing a deep dive into multiple things. We’re talking about, gated content, yes or no, is it good or bad? Evil, positive, right? And we’re talking,
Craig Coffey 22:02
the short answer is, it depends. I mean, like is there is a also potentially geographically cultural aspect to getting content in my discussions with some of my peers around the world? There seems to be, we haven’t proven this out yet, but there seems to be a higher predilection in parts of Europe to freely gay content. Which is which to freely get content, to openly gay content, we’re willing to give their information up, which, to me, is counterintuitive, giving all given all the challenges from a, from a, from a What’s the law they passed there?
Damon Pistulka 22:40
Yeah, the regulations of who you can market to in Europe, right and
Craig Coffey 22:45
have the right to be forgotten? Yeah, maybe it’s because they have the ability to be forgotten there that they’re willing to say, for this case, you can look your information, but only for this case. We’re still trying to, trying to scratch that. But the so when we, when I’m at I mess, I hope to be talking more about things to consider, not why you should or shouldn’t because, but mostly, I think that the it’s definitely on us as the marketers to consider the customer experience. With regard to gating. I know a lot of why we get content now came from our earlier conversation about our ability to prove to sales that what we’re doing was working by providing them leads. Right now, are we providing leads or contacts? That’s up for that’s a different conversation, but it was a way to check us and say, Okay, you did a campaign. That campaign produced these results, which turned it into this kind of pipeline which turns on sales that may or may not be like history in terms of how we can want to approach it going forward there, I think there’s lots of ways to measure interaction with our customers. Again, as a pure content marketer who happens to sit in a place where my job is to create affinity and awareness, more than is to create leads and generate pipeline that changes my view of like, why gating is or is not important so. But on the other on balance, if we invested in some kind of a very detailed configurator that a customer will use to put an Eaton product into their data center, for example, then I think it’s certainly viable for us to say, in order for us to give you that data, then we need to have some information about you. Yeah, and in that case, I think there’s fair exchange for value. It’s but when you say that term fair exchange for value, there’s, there’s a couple of variable words in there, what is fair, what is the exchange and what is valued? So those things have to be very clearly defined.
Damon Pistulka 24:45
Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s great. How you bring up It depends, because I’ve seen a lot of places where you’ll go to a website, and they might have a lot of resources, but every single one’s gated, and then you go to other ones that it’s not gated at all. Right? And, and there really is, as you said, where you’re exchanging that bit of value, maybe even, I don’t know, for lack of a better term, deeper, deeper down the chain, is I want this product information, or I want this specific technical guide for this item, you know, that might be a way where it could be more appropriate
Craig Coffey 25:20
for you? Yeah. And I think a lot of companies, even, even what I call less sophisticated companies, are probably have that information behind some kind of a firewall that we can open up for a single, you know, for a single piece of content information, you know, whether it’s, you know, adding to a CRM so we can see, and there’s definitely trackability and traceability there, I think, on the marketing side of things, so that tends to be like an after sale thing. When you buy our stuff, we’ll let you into this exclusive club of people are allowed to see the content related to the stuff you bought. But if we flip the script on that and say, we’re going to let you in, we’re going to let you in, into the kimono for for our information. But by the way, while you’re when you’re going to that behind the firewall stuff, we’re going to monitor what you’re looking at so we know when to help you and we but it’s up to us to have the communication, not abuse that relationship.
Curt Anderson 26:08
Yeah, super helpful. So I’m going to grab I’m going to prefer friends that are if you’re just, if you’re cutting out, if you have a hard stop, we’re connect with Craig on LinkedIn. You’ll thank us later, and again, stop by the industrial marketing summit now, Craig, check this out if you were to do a Google search for industrial marketing Summit. Guess who comes up? Hey, look at that handsome guy right there. Look at that right there.
Craig Coffey 26:31
That’s, sorry, sorry, industrial marketing Summit. You can do better than that.
Curt Anderson 26:35
That’s so, hey, we got Craig. Craig is coming up right on first page of search. So let’s take a look at the speakers. So Craig, we’ve got you right down here. And so look at this, guys, like all sorts of amazing, incredible topics, great speakers, I tell you, the team true friends at true marketing and gorilla 76 they’ve done an incredible job putting together a who’s who. And hey, here’s this handsome devil right here. So Craig, as you were describing, the topic kind of came about at the end of your, your great session last year. And so let’s dive in. If you I thought you were doing a great job talking about, like, SEO a little bit before we went live. Share a little bit like, for my for our SEO friends out there, about, like, why? Maybe you want to reconsider that gated information from an AI and SEO standpoint,
Craig Coffey 27:21
yeah, we’ve got a we’ve got a close colleague of mine who runs our SEO business on for the electrical sector. And I talk a lot about gating, and it’s funny, you know, we were the guys that have the meeting that’s going on behind the meeting, like we’ll be talking about, and we are, like, he’s my biggest advocate for looking at ways to help people understand that gating is going to hurt them in long run, from an SEO or they’re not even calling it SEO, SEO anymore. It’s, there’s a new word that includes AI that I’ve been introduced to, but not enough to remember it. And it’s just that you’re putting, you’re putting a wall between the crawlers, and I’m using technology and our content when you when we get everything. I mean, again, I’m an advocate of not giving the stuff that that we should be giving away. If we want to, you can’t be, you can’t put be a thought leader if you’re going to get your content. Because who’s going to see your thoughts? Who’s going to come? Yeah, everybody. But for like, if that leads down, you know, here’s I’m going to editorialize, and this is not eatens opinion. This is my opinion. What if there is no such thing as the sales model? What if it’s just the brand that comes top of mind when you’re want, when you want to make a decision that wins? And I was at marketing props B to B summit last year, and I heard a woman who, again, terrible things, but she spoke about that, that concept being true, I mean, but so if, if there is no such thing as a sales funnel, people will just use the information you give them to justify the decision they’ve already made, and unless they and it can’t get knocked off that decision by any of the information that you’re using to justify it, then you basically won the battle. So being top of mind might be more important than having a complete funnels worth of information that addresses, you know, awareness to consideration to blah, blah, blah to purchase. So if you think about that, and again, my business is probably a little closer to B to C than most in Eaton, because I do deal with that residential or, you know, that residential product line, but most people are B to C in their life, and they like it always amazes me when we don’t recognize that people don’t turn off their human nature when they go to the office, and that they still expect that Amazon like experience, or that people like experience when it comes to information and and again. You know, from an SEO standpoint, there’s definitely research that supports the fact that people aren’t even visiting websites anymore because they’re going to the search engines, they’re going to the chat gpts or serving up information they’re finding on these websites. So if you aren’t in that set of in that information that’s getting found, then you’re not going to get served up. People who may never come to your website. So maybe it’s a consideration of like, what if you didn’t have a website, what if you were so and how would you how would you treat content? Then, where would you put it? How would you treat it? Again? Again? I have my opinion on gating, but it’s definitely, I just want to be very clear, it’s definitely relevant or related to my role within our organization. And it’s not for everybody. It depends on where you sit and what your role is, but I think that. And again, I don’t want to give away that my entire presentation. Well, frankly, it hasn’t been done yet. So, yeah, right, I haven’t started it yet, but you know, the seat of the idea is you got to keep the customer experience in mind first, and yeah, and you’re trying to put yourself in the driver’s seat for that customer about how you find information, act on information, when you’re ultimately willing and able to give up your information so that they can contact you or for you to be or are they going to be proactive and just make that purchase without ever contacting sales? Is like, we’re going to more, you know, more direct to consumer mentality. Does sales need to be involved with that? Who we collect? I mean, if you’re collecting information, just so, you can say that I increased the size of our contact database from, you know, by 30% in a year. Is that really and here’s the other I also press again, like, Who amongst us doesn’t have a an email address we use that we know is going to be the slush email, like the Yeah, the Gmail account that we used because you want to get a 20% off offer or something like that. So, so requiring, requiring gate, does that drive? Does drive a negative in terms of data quality from the contacts, potentially,
Damon Pistulka 31:43
yeah, and you said this, the thing that, really, and I was reading something last week about it, is that people don’t even go to websites anymore, and wasn’t it, like someone said a couple of weeks ago, or something, that Like 30% of search has gone away just because, because that, you know, if you got the AI turned on and Google, it’s giving you the answer right there. And I know, in my own work it, I don’t go to nearly as many websites because I asked the question, rather than in its phrase, differently and everything else, because I’m hoping to get that answer up there, and tying that back to gating your content. You want your content to be found all the time, because otherwise you’re not going to be it’s the AI is not going to see it.
Craig Coffey 32:35
Yeah, and like, where I use it myself, as you know you hate to follow the trap where, where you think you represent your end user, customer, 100% we got to validate this with, you know, with testing, but make some assumptions. But like, I will go to those websites if I see a link that I think will support either some research or something that I’m doing, and then I’ll decide whether or not that link is that, that that resource is credible based on what I find there. So, but if I’m just looking for the straight up answer to something, yeah, I may not, and if the answer is definitive, I may not ever go to that next step. And that changes your so again, if you’re trying to be a market leader or to or have a first to market product that’s never like, never seen the light of day. And you think that because it’s so cool, you want everybody to sit behind a gate in order to get that information you might never get off the ground. Mm, hmm.
Curt Anderson 33:33
So, yeah, this is alright. So Craig, we so when, when someone drops a bombshell on our show, we could have dropped a mic moment. But then when it, like, when it goes way above the drop the mic, we call it like a moment of silence. Well, the thing is, like, this was like a moment of silence. Like, dude, like, I did this. I’m like, blown away right now, because think about this, and we’re in manufacturing B to B industrial. How many folks you know have neglected, ignored websites, this thing’s a fad, or, like, you know, I was on, I was with a manufacturer call last week, their websites from like, 2005 they’re now almost coming back in vogue. Because, like, you just said, like, what if people aren’t going to the website? Like, what if, what if websites become
Craig Coffey 34:14
irrelevant? Yeah, right. I mean, like, SEO is definitely not my, not my strength. I mean, they’re like we, I rely on much smarter people to help us guide our SEO. Shout out to Todd Roberts, who’s, who’s my guru there. But it’s it just you got it. Like you said, we saw that cliff, that 30% drop off in website traffic, and it happened at about the same time that Google Analytics changed from, I think it was three to four. So, yeah, there are some things we lost there. It’s, but the question becomes, well, how then how? How do we measure that we’re doing the right things? And it’s, I don’t think anybody’s got the answer yet to that, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Curt Anderson 34:57
And you know what’s fascinating. So Wall Street Journal. Just had an article today about how McKinsey is completely changing, like, their their their consulting model, because of AI, how AI’s and it’s more, what are results? And that’s what I love, what you’re saying because, like, even a side the not, I don’t mean say like that. Obviously, a company size have eaten like, you know, every marketer on their plant on the planet, whether you’re at a five person flower shop or you’re at Eaton, needs to justify their existence to the the boss or somebody who’s paying them. Like, you know what? What are you doing over there and Mark, you know you’re Are you playing on Facebook? Are you trying to make me money? You know what? I mean, yeah. And so you’re in the same boat like, Hey, I have to justify my existence. I’m going against AI 30% drop in traffic. So, like, you’re going against the wave, on, on a number of things, just like everybody else from the search. Here’s my question to you, and I guess I’m just kind of being more reactive, is, you know, so say Eaton, or, you know, any company is like, that’s the best fit for me as a searcher. I go to AI, or what have you, I still need to find like that. I knew I need to still find that product, that solution, you know, the golf grips or whatever, right? So I still need to get to that product line, but I need, I might take a different path to get to that product right? That’s what’s happening.
Craig Coffey 36:15
Well, yeah, and I think that you hit on something that I think is important for everybody remember is that people aren’t looking for products or looking for a solution to a problem. It’s like, like, you know, when we’re trying to like, you’re like, it’s the old adage when, when Stanley Black and Decker is trying to sell a drill bit, the person’s just trying to buy a hole, a hole in the wall, right? And then you do that with a nail, a drill bit, a rock. I mean, there’s lots of ways you make a hole in the wall, so don’t think you’re competing against the other drill manufacturers, competing against the other options that are available. So I think framing, framing that like knowing that there’s a broader audience to that, to that solution, is important.
Curt Anderson 36:51
Yeah, I’ve been battling a cold this week. I use that I use that line all the week, or all the time. I’m like, you know, I’m not looking for Kleenex. I’m looking to stop my runny nose. You know what I mean. So it’s the problem that we’re trying to solve. Dude. This is absolutely phenomenal. So for anybody out there that is considering going to industrial marketing Summit, it is in first week of March. It’s in Austin, Texas. You get to hear Craig live in person, all sorts of other great, amazing speakers. They’ve got a great keynote Rand Fishkin this year. And we have a little coupon code Damon for three days. What is Do you remember? What is that coupon code? You remember? No, B to B tail. So letter B as in boy number 2b, as in boy tail, just like your dog’s wagging their tail. My dog doesn’t have a tail. It’s a little bulldog. But so B to B, tail.com. You put that in when you go to register, and you’re going to get a little coupon. You’re coupon, you’re going to save a significant amount of money just to get to go see Craig live. Craig, what else? What other takeaways of what were you super excited about from IMS 2025 that you’re super excited about for 26
Craig Coffey 37:54
Yeah, well, first of all, shout out to true marketing grill. 76 those guys put on an amazing event. My understanding is that, because of the size of that last year and their anticipated growth, they’re moving to another, larger venue. Yeah, I think that those guys have their finger on the pulse of something that is becoming a movement. I mean, first of all, it’s just really like we all went through covid. We don’t have to beat the dead horse on that one. But it’s so nice to get together with people who get what your struggles are. What I tell people go to these kinds of events all the time is leave your ego at the door. Everybody has something to share and something to gain when you go to these kinds of events. Yeah, the folks at true I’ve known Wendy Covey since, God, I think I saw her speak first about the research they do consistently on industrial marketing and engineers and specific, specifically and how they search for information. And she’s a clinic herself. I mean, she’s great, no lack of fun to be had. First of all, I’m sure there’ll be karaoke. I will embarrass myself, as I typically do, with some rendition of some terrible song that I don’t know all the words to So, so check your ear at the door. Bring bring your fun. Get ready to learn. And here’s the thing I like, anytime you get to be in front of people who are your peers, or sat where you sat, there’s in events like this, you make friends that you’ll have for your entire career and sometimes your entire life outside of your profession. This is the network that will help you get to your next level, if that’s where you want to go. I always tell people too, there’s no I wish I would have started looking for opportunities to speak at events like like IMS, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, because there’s always some knowledge that you can drop, that you’ve learned. Don’t be afraid to do that. Look for opportunities to stand out in a crowd. They’re there. Austin’s gorgeous. I mean, I can’t go, I can go on and on.
Curt Anderson 39:53
So, yeah, yep, it’s all the cool kids are going to be there. So you don’t want to miss out if you if you’re thinking, gee. I might have FOMO. Yes, you are going to have
Craig Coffey 40:04
FOMO day early, and I had FOMO. So I
Curt Anderson 40:05
was like, yeah, yeah, exactly. So it’s I’d say. And so Craig, what we’re doing is we’re shamelessly, I think almost every speaker is going to be coming on our show, just kind of giving a little sneak preview. So it’s great for Damon. I then, like a perfect example, we just get a free little masterclass friend Craig. And so Craig, first off, we’re going to start winding down. I want to give a huge, massive thank you to you. But before, I’ve got a couple more questions, before we wind down, close out, there we go. So number one, what I love to ask, dude, you’ve had an amazing, incredible career and and also, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say this, and I know you’re a very modest guy, and I started saying this earlier. You are an amazing, incredible public speaker. I was at your session last year, and Damon, I’m telling you, and everybody out there, he just commands a room. There’s a little bit of, like, technical difficulties. He handled it so seamlessly. And he’s funny, he’s hysterical. And just, I loved every bit of it. And of course, I love all the speakers, but, you know, we won’t say which one was our favorite, Craig, but you were, but I’m just so but it was, again, you want to catch Craig, and you do. You really handled you interact with the room, which kind of puts you in a voteable situation. If you get the goofball that wants to kind of, you know, be the heckler, if you will. And I thought you handled the room with grace, poise, humor, and just do an amazing job. As we wind down, I love to ask folks best business advice. What’s the best business advice that you recall? Maybe your days at Gannon or through your career or mentor? What would you like to pass along?
Craig Coffey 41:34
Yeah, this is, this is, I hate to say this. It’s just kind of a sad state of affair, but I can say this because I’m late in my career now, and I don’t plan to leave Eaton, but sometimes you got to move out to move up. Yeah, place you’re gonna be recognized for the things you do well are going to be recognized by your next employer, not your current employer, yep. So that’s a tough for a lot of people, maybe generation generationally. That’s not as big of a deal. But I’ve got a lot of companies my resume because each one represented an opportunity to move up in my career, either to gain more knowledge, to gain more responsibility, to broaden my horizons. So I would tell anybody who’s young in their career that they should, they should look that, look at that way. Yeah, my horizon is not long, so I’m, I love where I’m at right now, and don’t anticipate, God forbid, moving, moving out of eating, but, but that’s a that’s one I think that everybody should recognize. Great. Don’t be afraid of the void. Hey, dude, you got another
Curt Anderson 42:27
2025, years ahead, right? So Damon takeaways, thoughts, what were, what really, uh, hit you hard today with the conversation.
Damon Pistulka 42:35
Oh, man, I just it. So if someone is contemplating going to the industrial marketing summit next March. I just go get signed up for it. You can use the B to B TAIL code, get some get a good discount on it and be able to go to it. But there are a ton of speakers, Craig being one of them. And like I said, Craig’s our favorite today. No, no. I mean because, you, I mean, you are in that world, and you really understand what’s going on. And not just from being at Eaton, but your wide variety of experience from back when you’re, you know, a local kind of place, or a caterpillar dealership, or the different things that you talked about, and through Parker Hannifin and different kinds of product, wow, being able to and just thanks so much for being here today. And I just can only imagine what being able to interact with you at the industrial marketing summit next year really is just such a such a gift.
Craig Coffey 43:32
Well, I do appreciate that. And one thing I just want to say, I’m there to learn too. I mean, like, yeah, not incapable of that, and old dogs and new tricks and things like that. But I’ll give you an example. I think it was Dale Bertrand that after the IMS summit, I started following some of this stuff. He was saying he does a lot more public speaking than I do. But one of the best pieces of advice I got, and I use it to this day, is most of the time when you’re doing the speaking engagement, you sit in the front of the room nervously waiting for everybody to kind of come and take their seats, and that’s when you start getting the sweaty, sweaty armpits and palms, and, you know, hoping that that everything, that your PowerPoint actually works. And his advice was, go to where people walk it in and introduce yourself to people on the way in. And it creates a sense of familiarity. Calm yourself so easy. But like, why didn’t I think of that? There’s 1000 like, Duh, moments like that, that you that it’ll pull out of IMS if you pay attention. And that’s the kind of, that’s the kind of stuff that really, really, that excites me about going to these events.
Curt Anderson 44:33
Awesome, brilliant, brilliant advice. And Dale does a wonderful, great, gifted public speaker. And What? What? Great advice to greet the people on your way in the room. So Craig, as we wind down close out, I do have one question left for you. You mentioned now Cleveland, and I just drove by Parker. Hennepin the other day I was I was visiting my daughter in college, and I just drove by Parks. Do. Go streaks, dude, go. I got my go. I got my ghost streaks shirt over there. So now, are you a guardians fan? Are you baseball fan? By any chance?
Craig Coffey 45:07
I’ve got I’ve been lucky enough to go to a few games this year. We had a nice run into the end of the when they we kind of when we didn’t do it against against Toronto,
Curt Anderson 45:18
right? Well, hey, great. Damon. Damon, yeah, Cleveland has a phenomenal baseball field to Jake, and wonderful stadium been yourself calling it the Jake, yeah, I know that’s that’s still now, the member of the municipal stadium that was, I remember going to the Cleveland stadium in the 70s, right?
Craig Coffey 45:36
Yeah, like half the seats were restricted to like, because they’re behind huge pillars and they’re playing
Curt Anderson 45:41
nothing better, right? I remember getting, like, a free baseball
Craig Coffey 45:45
bat, so you’re gonna ask me a bronze question. Are you? What’s that you’re gonna ask me a bronze question? Are you?
Curt Anderson 45:50
I’m not. I’m gonna add, we’re gonna do a little baseball, little baseball trivia. You ready? All right, I’ll try. Okay, the guardians are playing the dreaded, hated Yankees. Okay, it’s a bottom of the ninth two outs. There’s one guy on second base, tie score. Bottom of ninth two outs. Manager turns down the bench and says, Hey, coffee, grab your helmet. Grab your bat, get up to the plate hit in the winning run so we can beat those dreaded Yankees. So you grab your helmet, you grab your bat on the way to the plate to go hit in the winning run. What’s your walk up song? Oh, man, I thought you’re
Craig Coffey 46:29
going a different direction with this. What is my walk up song I’m going to go because the first thing that came to mind Hell’s Bells by ACDC
Curt Anderson 46:38
bells by Damon. I don’t think so we’ve been asking that question for years. I don’t think we’ve ever had housing. And it
Craig Coffey 46:45
just it’s got that, yeah, I think that would have to be it.
Curt Anderson 46:48
Wait, I think I can hear it. Damon, so Craig, for the record. Damon, we’re playing our eight track player right now, right? Damon, yeah,
Damon Pistulka 46:59
I got the eight track. I had to kick it through a couple
Curt Anderson 47:02
Yeah, I had, I had AC DC, back in black on eight track that is, oh yeah. Anyway, all right, Craig, as we close out, dude, thank you. We appreciate you. We wish you and your family just a wonderful, spectacular Thanksgiving holiday next week, any last parting thoughts, words of wisdom that you want to share as we
Craig Coffey 47:20
close out. No, just have a have a really, really safe and happy Thanksgiving and holiday season. Come back refreshed, and you’ll be amazed how quickly it goes from December to March. And we’ll see you guys all in Austin.
Curt Anderson 47:31
Yeah, absolutely, guys. Again, industrial marketing Summit. Google it. Check it out. Go on chat. GBT. And again, we’ve got a little coupon code for you guys, B to B TAIL. Check that out. You’re going to save a couple dollars. You get to see Craig live. So Craig, hang out with us for one second, and we’re going to take it away. And Damon, like we always like to say before we close out, man, just go out there and be someone’s inspiration, just like our dear friend Craig, and have a big round of applause for everybody here. Big round of applause for Craig for just giving us a masterclass. Yes. Versus gated. Damon closes out, dude,
Damon Pistulka 48:02
yes, yes. Thanks so much for being here today. Craig, I want to thank everyone else out there today. Got Marisol, we got Fahad, and I know there were a lot of other people I could see that were listening out there but didn’t comment. We appreciate you being here, and we’re out for now, and we’ll be back next week. Have a great weekend. Everyone. You.
