A.I. Digital Marketing for Manufacturers: How to Create a Marketing Plan for Manufacturers

Are you a manufacturer wondering how to finally crack the code on marketing in the digital age? 

Join us for this episode of Stop Being the Best Kept Secret with Paola Santana, Founder of The Collaborate Virtual Assistant, as we explore A.I. Digital Marketing for Manufacturers: How to Create a Marketing Plan for Manufacturers. 

A creative force and strategic partner, Paola helps business owners bring their stories to life through smart video editing, motion design, and digital content strategies. With a background in communications and years of experience supporting manufacturing and industrial businesses, Paola combines her passion for storytelling with deep industry understanding.  

 

She is led d content efforts for manufacturers who want to connect with their audience, simplify their message, and boost their visibility online, without overwhelm or wasted time. 

This conversation is all about helping you create a digital marketing plan that actually works. Paola shared simple steps manufacturers can take to use video, A.I. tools, and content strategies that attract soulmate customers and support sales growth. 

 

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Exit Your Way® provides a structured process and skilled resources to grow business value and allow business owners to leave with 2X+ more money when they are ready.

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• 12:53

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

AI digital marketing, marketing plan, manufacturers, customer segmentation, buyer persona, ChatGPT, digital game plan, social media trends, business foundation, strategic partner, customer questions, content creation, business growth, AI efficiency, human input.

SPEAKERS

Damon Pistulka, Paola Santana

 

Damon Pistulka  00:02

All right, everyone, it is Friday, and you know what that means. It is time for stop being the best kept secret. I am one of the CO hosts, Damon Pistulka here today, and I just want to say that is not Kurt Anderson over there. I have hair, yeah, yes, but we’ve got the wonderful Paula with us. Today. She’s going to be helping us talk about the the AI digital marketing for manufacturers, and how to create a marketing plan for manufacturers, something we talk about a lot, something you know, Kurt is doing every day. I help with you. Help with we. Our team is, is helping manufacturers do this. Paula, thanks for being here today. Yeah,

 

Paola Santana  00:47

well, thanks for having me here. And, yeah, it’s not Kurt. It’s a little bit different. I’m not as chatty or as fun as he is, but we’ll, we’ll do the best we can, right?

 

Damon Pistulka  00:58

Oh, yeah, we’re gonna have a good time. Kurtz off Kurt’s office in his his daughter newly into college this week. So that’s awesome. But I think Paula, we were talking about this before we got on, you know, creating a marketing plan. What are some of the fundamentals you think? Where do you start when you’re sitting here? I got a blank page in front of me. Where do you really start with a marketing plan?

 

Paola Santana  01:23

Well, after you wipe your tears and you focus, yeah, you are. You basically sit down in how I would view it is just you figure out what you do, who you’re doing it for, and what problem you’re solving for that person that is going to be the foundation of any business, right? Like, what is it you do? Who are you doing it for? Why are you doing it? What problem are you really solving for your buyer, your audience member? That’s where I would start. And yeah,

 

Damon Pistulka  01:56

that I agree 100% because, you know, as as Kurt’s been doing this before you and I, and as we’ve come into it and been working with it with him, you know, there, there are just, there’s just steps to the process, right? There’s steps in the process, like you said, figuring out who we’re helping, how we’re helping them, and what questions they have. And that really is the the basis of a of a decent marketing plan. The in your experience. Paula, what are some of the things that people miss or rush to before they do the the foundational work?

 

Paola Santana  02:32

I think they have the what is it? The shiny object syndrome, they want to do what everyone else is doing, and then you start to do it. So whether it’s like getting onto a social media trend, starting with your website, things like that, things that are not they’re necessary eventually, to help support your business, but they’re not the first things you need to focus you know, I’m the type of person who loves to do that. I have a plan. I want to do it, but I also have this idea for a great social post, or I have a great idea for a website that I want to do, but then you find myself actually doing it, and I’ve not worked on my actual business, and so I think just focusing first on those key questions about your business is really going to help you stop from making those first mistakes. And making mistakes is actually really great, because you learn what’s going to work in your business and what isn’t working your business and what it works, what works for your your soulmate, what doesn’t work for your soulmate. But you have to know what you’re doing first before you start to tackle every piece of the business. And so it starts really good thing to do is start with those what we just talked about originally.

 

Damon Pistulka  03:35

Yes, yes. So Kurt has has a a way that he’s been doing it for a lot of years, and we’ve been revising it. And I just want to show that real briefly, because, you know, we started out many years ago doing this. We in a digital game plan format where we’re we’re doing the soul versus so what, being your strengths and opportunities, and then customer segmentation, buyer persona, you know, and then then looking into other things down the road, and kind of just showing the history of of how we help when we’re working with manufacturers do this, and then when we when we’ve been doing this for a while now, we’ve actually started and developed A SAS product. Now that helps us do this, you know, because we evolved from, we have to sit there and meet with the customer many times, lots of diligence, the, you know, discussions, learning all kinds of things to being able to go now use chat GPT, because this is AI digital marketing for manufacturers. Are talking today, right? So we, we started using chat GPT, and we noticed that, wow, this, this, if we, if we help it, ask the right questions and do things, it gives us really good information. So the same thing that we were doing before was taking us a ton of time, a ton of expert. Ease is now much more streamlined and allows us to get through those questions like you were talking about Paula. That is, is really Who are we serving? What? How are we doing that? What are our what is our customer really looking for from us? And then, how do we generate our marketing that really helps them around that,

 

Paola Santana  05:20

yeah, it creates that roadmap for you, and it helps you, like, start to kind of focus on, you know, making sure the anything that you build from your business starts at this point, it’s all relevant and applicable. You’re not jumping into things that have nothing to do with your business, or maybe not actually where your audience is or not, you know, content that they actually don’t need, because that’s not what they’re looking for. So, yeah, so this is a really great place. I love how it’s coming out from the typical spreadsheet. I know it’s really hard to let go of your spreadsheets, because everyone knows exactly what they’re doing with them, but it just, I think this is a really great way to just simplify it and using the power of AI. You know, I, I’m not a huge fan of AI for a number of reasons, but I do love how is a great place to just when, especially if you’re a team of one, and you’re just starting out your business, and you need a business part, like an idea person, to bounce off ideas from, and a strategic partner, almost without having to go out there and find one, or have the resources, financial resources, to hire one. It really serves as a good place to give you those that that place to sound off your ideas, to kind of what’s the word I’m looking for, really just finesse your your process, and with AI and the beat and the digital game plan, it’s really going to be even more powerful, because now it’s giving you a place to start from, and then that you get to just get your hands on it, and now your actual Okay, yeah, I love this, but we need to punch it up a little bit more, or this isn’t exactly what I need, or this is not what I do, And it really gives you a visual board of your business. It lets you get intimate on a different level that we’ve never been able to do without. Like you said earlier, spending 1000s of time, hours of talking to clients, talking to potential clients, talking to friends and family, you know, having mentors. I think those are all still relevant and necessary that doesn’t this does not replace that, but it helps give you a running start versus a crawl.

 

Damon Pistulka  07:27

There you go. Then I think that’s the real thing that AI can help us to do in our marketing efforts is really to get us organized and get us off the blank sheet faster and in our digital game plan, one of the things that we really love about the AI is it does. It goes from zero to maybe 50, and then with refinements user input and everything else, we get to 100 but that first 50 goes so fast now it’s literally in minutes where it was weeks or months before. So we’re we get to the point to being able to generate good, valuable information for our potential customers much, much faster,

 

Paola Santana  08:07

and also brings up things that you may not have thought to think about, like, oh my gosh, I didn’t even think about that. Yes,

 

Damon Pistulka  08:15

and that’s, that’s a great point. And as we go through, like, with the digital game plan here, like we did in the old spreadsheet, you know, we do customer segmentation, we do the ICP that we’re developing, we do the buyer journey and and go into those things, and then we go into the the keywords, and then the questions. And I really get jacked on the questions, because, as I do this with with manufacturers and we’re going through this, these questions that come up are really great to be able to talk about in your content, because if your your ICP, your ideal customers, the potential customers are asking these questions and you’re not answering them, you’re missing out. Because if other people are, they’re going to go to them for the information,

 

Paola Santana  09:03

right? And especially now, how everything is changing with searching, a lot of people are now starting to lean towards just doing their Google searches within a chat, you know, robot, or a chat box or source, then this is really going to be highly key to your marketing plan is, what questions do we need to be asking? What questions do we need to be answering? What questions, What haven’t we thought of that we need to be asking? And how do we start addressing those? So really, when it comes to making your plan, you got to get intimate with your business. First off, like, that’s key, yes. And then you start to build out your plan from there, and AI is going to help you build that out a little bit faster. Yes, but definitely don’t, don’t, you know, don’t, don’t, not talk to a human. Don’t not get their input, right?

 

Damon Pistulka  09:55

Yes, yes. You still want to get the input. You still want to use it. The AI will get you started. Started, and you need to refine the questions. You need to refine the things it’s going to give you ideas. You build on that to get the ultimate end point,

 

Paola Santana  10:08

yeah. And when you’re done building out your plan, like, bounce it off of real human like, Does this sound like something that you are interested in? You know, talk to a potential customer. Talk to your if you have a customer already, ask them about it. Like, yeah, this is what we’re the information we’re giving out there. A lot of times we may just fail to, like, you’re always looking for answers, or you’re looking for some type of strategy. Sometimes the best thing you can do is just ask who the people you’re serving. Ask them directly, go to the source.

 

Damon Pistulka  10:37

Yes, that’s great. That’s great. Well, Paula, we have, we have, mahaba, I’m sorry if I mispronounced your name. The discussion on AI digital marketing for manufacturers in is fantastic. Thanks for stopping by and dropping a comment. I appreciate you stopping by so much, filling in as a guest co host with me today, and again, we were talking about AI digital marketing for manufacturers, and how to create a marketing plan for manufacturers. Paula, what final thoughts would you want to leave with the people listening today? Oh, shoot, man, I should have come

 

Paola Santana  11:15

prepared for that. Um, I think no matter what you do, it’s okay that you have a little grace for yourself, because it’s no first plan is ever going to be right from the beginning, and so you just, just keep working at it, keep finessing it. What works today may actually evolve next year or in 10 years. I mean, look at us. I don’t think any of us thought we would be at this moment right now, I feel like we’re living a movie, right? Like, oh my gosh, terminators around the corner, right? Judgment Day is coming, right? But I think it’s just have grace for yourself. Get intimate with your your business. Really dive into it, what you’re doing, what we talked about earlier, and go from there. Believe room for you to have some grace for yourself, because you are going to make mistakes no matter how good your map is, and sometimes you find a detour you want to take. So be okay, be open to that.

 

Damon Pistulka  12:10

Yes, I agree. That’s great advice, Paula, and thank you for being here today, Paula, appreciate you for having me. Yeah, appreciate your insights. So great, so great to be able to work with you. I want to thank all the listeners today, because we’re going to we we love that you’re here every week. We love that you’re listening. We love that we see the comments. Thank you for the comments. Thank you for the views. Thank you for all the inspiration you give us. So we’re going to be out for now. Paul and I are going to continue on with our day. Everyone else, have a great weekend. Fantastic. The US have a great holiday weekend. Thanks. Everyone. You.

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