How to Bring Your Brand to “Real” Life: Actionable Brand Marketing Tips with Courtney Bills and Katie Snider

from the crossroads of America in the Hoosier State of Indiana this is get in the podcast focused on the unfolding stories and extraordinary Innovations happening right now in the heartland on the show today is Katie Snyder VP and executive creative director of cloud and Industry marketing at Salesforce and Courtney Bill's CEO at tactiv you can have a great logo and a great design itself but if you're not putting it out there in the right way or you're not putting it out there on quality relevant items then you're not relevant Courtney bills is the CEO at tactiv an Indianapolis based tactile marketing company focus on helping marketers develop and deploy tactile marketing that Delights audiences drives leads and delivers rli Katie Snyder is the VP and executive creative director of cloud and Industry marketing at Global CRM Powerhouse Salesforce and in today's show we are going to cover why branding is so important to businesses actionable strategies to build a strong employer brand a strong brand a strong marketing campaign and the importance of marketing no matter what the stage of your company is please help me welcome to the show today Katie and Courtney yeah thank you thanks for having us yeah this is fun we are really excited about this so many things happening right now in the marketing landscape that I'm excited for us to be able to dive into but first wanted to just get a little bit of background on each of you because you have such interesting stories um and Katie I wanted to start with you because you joined a really well-known company at least well known to me and the people in my industry in Tech you joined exact target I think right out of college is that right more or less yeah back before it was Salesforce before it was acquired by Salesforce for 2.

5 something billion dollars yeah one of the biggest if not the biggest exit in the state of Indiana biggest Tech exit at the time how did you find exact target right out of college I am so lucky it's a luck story it's not it is not me being it's more right place at the right time yeah I was actually wanting to pursue agency kind of career for creatives but I had friends and family that had worked into the tech space in the exact target and I got recruited by exact target I think someone found my portfolio or resume and they reached out I had no idea what exact target did but I was fascinated by their story their Vision what their plan was to be really customer-centric focused and yeah the rest is history I started as a designer there and learned a lot about tech along the way I knew nothing about tech at the time and now I love it I feel like it feels like some something that should have always been a part of my career trajectory but was absolutely not on my radar right out of school because prior to that I'd only spend a little stint at Live Nation doing kind of music marketing things so I was very far away from Tech as far as like career pathing goes did you get connected through the Indiana internet so that was one piece I actually I was on the board sorry I was on the board for Indiana internet and I won the intern of the Year Award with exact target actually so yes that was part of the yeah part of the story too I love that I think Indiana internet is now called the work and learn Indiana program thank you right for those who are looking for that it's great it's a great program too oh I totally agree yeah I totally agree it's been around for a long time and really has plugged a lot of people into not just Tech but all kinds of Industries yeah for sure tell me about what you do today what is a creative director at a software company like Salesforce do we do so many things I'm thankful for asking we really focus on looking at our product portfolio and how do we go to market for that product portfolio so pretty much anything that you see touching any of our sales service marketing Commerce platform product suite at Salesforce I have creative directors and creative teams that are doing all the external marketing and across digital experiences events direct mail or tactile marketing end-to-end kind of showcasing the brand of that product Suite so cool yeah that's fun and I know there's a really interesting origin story about Courtney's company and and your own career I'm just going to tease that here because we want to dive into that story here in just a minute yeah figured out first we could talk to Courtney a little bit about what she does now today as CEO at tactiv but first I I want to talk to you about how you first heard about tactiv because I know it wasn't through a CEO role initially I know I was I had a co-worker or a friend that was working there at the time and we had previously worked at my at another job together for about 12 years and I hadn't seen her in a while and their holiday party was at a bar across the street from my house and she's very convenient it's a classic yes that's great yes and so she called me and she said according my my plus one has to stay home with our kids and will you please come out for a drink I went over there and I met first of all they're like who is this person that you brought as your plus one to her and once I got there I felt like I fit right in immediately and after the entire event was over like maybe two days later I sent her a message and I said I was really appreciate that you invited me you work with some great people like they really like each other and they're fun and they're personable and they really welcome me and I just thank you for that I'm happy for you in this in the role that you're in and then she responded back and said well actually that's great they liked you too and at that time we were forming I shouldn't say we print resources at the time was forming a team to be able to support the Salesforce account because that was their largest account at the time and I had about 13 years experience and promotional products and used to do some work heading them and final four account with the NCAA not for the NCAA but that was one of my accounts and so they thought this girl can do that I wonder if she'd be up for sliding over here and helping us with the Salesforce account so that's where I first came in was as a senior account manager senior account manager senior account manager amazing both of you seem obviously have had a huge career trajectory going from more entry level earlier positions up to the highest ranks in both companies what are some of the things that you think that you each did other than amazing work obviously to get you there but what were some of those things that you think helped you along that on your own career path gosh I think for me it's being curious I tell people especially my newer employees and like I spent a full year maybe six months to a year just listening and being a sponge and taking it all in because you don't know what you don't know and I think just like understanding the climate of what you're in and asking hard questions asking questions that folks might not be asking that have been at a company for a multi-year don't ask as frequently so I feel like being curious asking questions being proactive I think are killer things and follow your instincts too if something feels like there's an opportunity to have a problem solved or something where there's a gap like that's where I see people have the most success in their career ultimately yeah those kind of instinctual experiences yes as an account manager early on I agree with that 100 and everything that yeah that Katie just said and the other thing is I always go back and say treat people the way you want to be treated if you're a good person and you treat people well and whatever that doctor trajectory is it'll come back to you and so that's co-workers bosses clients vendors all of that and when you're genuine with other people they genuinely want to see you succeed as well because they see that in you and they know that you're out for the best outcome of the group and not just yourself and that for me is what helped me their step up and having a thought of abundance rather than scarcity that was something that the our Founders Kurt and Tim both have always said to me Courtney think about it as abundance don't be scared and make your plans and then succeed them don't make your plans and be afraid that you're not going to succeed them and that's what tactiv's been doing over the last five years that's really scaled up our growth is that thought of we got this and we're going to keep going and we're going to keep growing and we're going to treat people right and we're going to treat our employees right and it's all going to come back full circle I love that I'm going to brag on you for a second right so I think one thing that totally changed your career trajectory was saying yes a friend or a previous co-worker invites you to a Christmas or a holiday party to hey come across the street to the Dugout and hang out with kind of a competitor and oh yeah like by saying yes to that you're now the CEO of that company yeah like just by it starts it's insane have you said I'm tired I don't want to go I want to watch a Christmas movie snuggle up under a blanket you may not be where you are today yeah if you said no two letters or if I would have said no I'm afraid to go because what if someone sees me here and then it gets back out that when really yeah exactly it's saying yes it's putting yourself out there and not being afraid to take that next chapter Journey or experience I love that I feel like okay fear can stop growth and so many different scenarios and in the case of tactiv the owners I don't know if they were fearful or not I would feel fearful of giving over the CEO title to someone other than myself at my own company I don't want to necessarily say that the founders of tactu felt that way but tell me about the time that the owners came to you and said hey we want you to step up as CEO yeah so they actually prepped me for it about eight or nine months ahead of time and it was they never had a CEO it was just it was curtain time it was the two Founders and they ran the business and the way that they felt best and in order to scale up we realized that we needed to set kind of set set everybody up in an org chart and get ourselves ready for long-term growth and so they had come to me and said hey would you ever consider being the CEO here and what do you think about that I literally thought they were kidding and I was like are you cranking me yeah I was like absolutely when do we start when and and Tim it was Tim and he said that's just something just keep in the back your mind I'm not saying it's going to happen or anything but as we're trying to look at the future of the company or just wanted to see where your thoughts fall on that and it was never brought up again until my next review nine or ten months later and they said this is what we'd like to do do you want to think about it because it's a big undertaking not just for yourself but for your family yeah and it's a lot of time and it's time I love they know know that I love that company like it's my place we want to be able to be scaled up and we think that you're the Right leader we like the way you treat people the way you manage people the way that you treat the vendors the way you treat the clients and that's the image we want to active to to have on an outside yeah so you're living out the core values you saw and you recognize the hard work that you were doing and what a career defining opportunity it really was and I was asked the question what's one of your highlights of your career over time and it was when the two people that founded a company said hey we're looking to make things bigger and we choose you that's a career defining moment right there they could have just said hey it's going to be the two of us and you all are going to listen to the what we think needs to happen but they didn't they said we want you to lead and we want to hear your input we want to implement the things that you think need to happen and that for me was probably the highest honor I've ever received in in my career and clearly changed the trajectory for tattoo yeah and there's a really cool origin story there between both of your companies and Katie I know you're really close to that do you mind telling us a little bit about some of the earlier times even before Courtney was there going this is going back all the way yeah 2009 10 time frame yeah you're right I was I did not have the Good Fortune to be around at the origin of print Resources with the partnership of exact target and print resources that was already a strong partnership at the time that I came into the company back in the day we were doing something that we called big deal desk so we were looking at our top accounts for exact target and how do we make sure that we cultivate a relationship with those top accounts across multi-touch point of the life cycle if they have a personal moment that they're experiencing if someone gets promoted if they close a big deal whatever that looks like we were wanting opportunities to continue to cultivate and build that relationship and tactile marketing happen to be one of the main levers we pulled and I was just a designer at the time where I think we were calling the my title creative developer we were like a creative service that was supporting sales function so it was my kind of 101 into sales and marketing and how those worlds intersect but I just talking about like the startup mentality of exact target and also partnering with a company like print resources I had a desk at print resources like it was like it's just at some point I was like I feel like I'm an honorary employee for Tim and Kurt and their crew truly we would have a moment and then I would go over and I'd buy all the things or I'd get the things that were printed from print resources and we would go assemble it and we put a little assembly line in their conference room and it was very much roll your sleeves up very Scrappy but what I love about that story is it was just like very infancy of what it looks like to start an idea around this like big deal desk right and now people talk about like that kind of model as account based marketing or ABM and the need for doing that at like a one to one one to few one to many scale but we were just calling it something that we saw a need in a gap and hadn't really been established and then what's cool about it too is that as we were acquired with from Salesforce that was something that really didn't exist on the Salesforce side they hadn't thought about account based marketing at the tactile marketing level they had done like very small things but nothing is like a whole program multi-team and we pilot what that looks like what the team could look like how we would Target accounts and tactive at the that was tactic at the time got to help partner that with us so that was great do you have any stories of the early days creating this tactile marketing experience for these these big deals where the feedback you received from a prospect after they received this this physical experience in the mail how to give any good stories of just prospects that really that resonated with yeah I yes I feel like I'm gonna have to take my brain back to the exact target days the biggest one of the biggest accounts that we touched through tactile marketing back in the day was our Gap account it was easily by Far and Away the largest deal we ever closed on the exact target side we did direct mail or tactile marketing so there were times when we even did like a multi-week workshop of solutioning what that partnership would look like for exact targeting Gap and we and I did like tactile marketing deliveries for every single day that they would be in those meetings so it would be like custom notepads or it would be like an interactive display that then had like a tactile marketing kind of companion piece that they could take with them at the end of that day in addition to direct mail so there was multi kind of facets of the tactile marketing pieces that we touched but they really talked endlessly about the investment and detail personalization that they got across the deal life cycle that was ultimately one of the big things that helped close that deal of course the technology and us and the solutioning and all of that too but absolutely absolutely but like those pieces I think really helped push it over the line too I guess we've been using the term tactile marketing but Courtney would you for the listeners that might not know what tactile marketing is you want to Define that for them sure tactile marketing is anything that's a marketing piece that you can physically feel touch as opposed to digital marketing which is out in the tech space in the cloud but tactile marketing might be your a notebook a pen a direct mail piece that lands a kit that lands on your front door that's got your company's logo on it and you open it inside and it's got a personal analyzed message that says hi Susie I'm so glad that you came in last week we really appreciate the partnership here's a little takeaway as a thanks for the work that we do together and there might be personalized items inside of it and it just makes it's something that they can physically feel and touch and hold that puts a tangible item behind sometimes this digital world that we live in yeah kind of like these glass board mugs we got some tactics a quick break from our normal programming I have Erica schweire CEO from Elevate Ventures here in the studio today Erica thanks for being here yeah thanks for having me and you're going to tell us a little bit about this rally Innovation conference that's coming up yep so it's the largest cross-sector Innovation conference in the world we're going to feature six Innovation Studios so think hard tech software Sports Tech Ag and food Healthcare and Entrepreneurship is going to kind of be our catch-all I love that so tell me what is who's it for yeah it's for innovators entrepreneurs investors honestly anybody probably listening to this podcast it's going to be a multi-day thing that's in downtown Indianapolis yep people coming in from all over the country and maybe even all over the world to be here that's our hope yep and the dates are actually August 29th through the 31st perfect and if people want to find out more information about speakers tickets things like that where can they go yeah so they just go to rallyinnovation.

com and sign up for communications they can also get their tickets I love it you heard it here rallyinnovation. com we'll see you there see tactile marketing takeoff during the pandemic oh so put through the pandemic we saw it take off in the work from home everybody left their buildings and then everything went digital and SO meetings that used to happen in place events or in-person events that happened in person were now being held just behind computer screens and so there's these budgets that people have to give a great experience at an event now people are at home so how do you give them an experience other than click join here so you create a package and you invite them or you thank them and or you give them all the materials that they're going to need that they would have received at the event on site you give them to them ahead of time and a personalized letter saying hey sometimes it's I know this is tough and I'm hoping that this is what this will help you get through this next seminar or whatever you're going through and delivering that to their doorstep giving them those materials as well as a marketing piece thanking them a gift a corporate gifts that kind of thing and that was a big shift not just for what we saw with our clients but but the industry that we're in as well and the cool thing is I always say we've been kidding since before kidding was cool yeah so we've been doing Direct Mail kits like this for years so tactic was already set up to be able to flourish through a pivot that was happening in the industry and we saw a lot of the other companies that do what we do start dabbling in it and then it became more much more popular but yeah that's between that and what was really neat about Salesforce and I don't know if people know this but some of the budgets that they had when those events got canceled they took those funds and they turned them into relief projects so there were Frontline workers that were sent for instance hair ties Starbucks gifts gift cards something that they could make at home with their kids anything they took that money instead of just setting it aside for something else they gave it back to the front line workers and they used us for that as well to help gather all those goods kid them up and send them out to these hospitals across the U.

S at the same time when the Hurricanes hit we did a really large Hurricane Relief project where once again they had some funds and they we collected diapers and batteries and wow flashlights and all of this product and shipped it out to Hurricane Relief so that was another big thing for us to be able to get through the pandemic on top of the direct mail that we were also sending out but I don't know if people know that side of Salesforce with how much they gave back to the Frontline workers and like the hurricane relief that's important to know yeah I loved that stuff too and we always try to be really values forward but I feel like a lot of us felt a little rudderless during the pandemic what do we do how do we make an impact what kind of things can we do to move the needle and that felt like it gave us purpose collectively like how can we invest in things so that the marketing feels meaningful and not just for the sake of it and even when it was more a marketing true tactic to an account or a client we you're making it really geared towards their family so we did a lot of decorate your cookies with your kids bring your kids into a moment because we knew people were all at home and their families were at home and so how can we position what we're asking them to do just for their careers but be inclusive of just what their life looked like in that moment in time too it was really important too that they used their some of their clients product so they were also yep investing back into their clients that might have seen a dip in sales they're like okay let's buy their product and put it to send it out so not only were they helping employ our team like we didn't have to furlough anybody we were able to allow people to stay at home and there are five or seven of us that were going crazy making all this stuff happen in the office very safely but they kept a business here in Indianapolis alive and thriving as well as their clients American Eagle I believe we did a large sweatpants campaign yeah their clients and then the front line workers so it really was a give back on multiple levels it seems like brand collaborations like that are such great opportunities to build relationship and you see it even in in subtle ways in a lot of different Industries but I'm curious Katie if there's other brand collaborations you've really enjoyed doing whether that was through dreamforce or through email campaigns or even things like webinars those kinds of brand collaborations I feel like just open a huge opportunity for a lot of people and a lot of businesses yeah I think we have been talking Salesforce is saying they're a customer company for a while and what we mean by that is we really want to be focused on who our customers are what their stories are and make it not really about us but what it is about each of them and how they have found success with it with our technology but also like in their own right what their journey and story is so anytime we can do that and talk about them and not us that's always our move because we just think that's a more compelling story anyhow so I have countless I don't know I don't know if I can it is recently we've been really highlighting our partnership with Crocs they have a really strong sustainability story they're very cool with the kids now I don't know if y'all know this but they're like coming back and I will admit that I was slightly a skeptic from a fashion perspective I was like are they cool I don't know and now they have completely won me over with their mission their values and they're just such a fun brand too I think that's hilarious like Crocs went from being like the shoe that like they're so cool and we did the custom gibbets and I my team's gonna laugh when they hear this because yes the custom gyms I was like I'm all about the gibbets we need a custom Jive it for everything it's so good their brand is awesome and they're comfortable and they give back and they're sustainable so it's like when when across the board another thing that's making a comeback right now is experiential marketing events marketing and I know with dreamforce being just one of the largest if not the largest industry conference in marketing technology being a place where at least a lot of other businesses it's their number one sales Channel and I imagine does close a lot of business for dreamforce what was that like during the pandemic when all of a sudden people couldn't meet up in person and join at a conference and how did you make those pivots it was so hard dreamforce was tough it's also I think a little emotional for Salesforce employees and I'm like OG with my exact target in sales first time I've been there for 14 years to not do a dream Force feels really impactful to us okay what does that mean what does it look like but we were also launching our Salesforce plus suite and like looking to get into kind of episodic content how do we do more storytelling that is repeatable and has a higher frequency and so it was really looking at what does that motion of giving people content in a visual way but then I think companioning like the whole end-to-end experience like Courtney was talking about like we were sending kits of this is your like view from home let's send some blankets let's send our VTO in a box like what how we want in our video is volunteer time off so like your give back moment you can do that in your house what that looks like for you trying to emulate like some of the things that folks love about dreamforce but in your home and also then like online too and pairing that physical and digital experience together there we learned a lot there are things that I'm like gosh I would have done that differently or oh this was a disaster but then we did this and we also have another proprietary event called connections that's more for our b2c audience and we did show format and then similarly also did a direct mail on the front end and on the back end for folks to have the prep for them to watch the show and like the format of how we did the creative for the show but then also what were the kind of deliverables and takeaways and how could they action that with their team after the fact too one of the things I think is interesting about the culture of Salesforce is that it still moves like a startup in a lot of ways yep and a lot of times people think that oh failing only happens at startups but you mentioned a couple of things that maybe didn't go as well as you thought but I imagine there were some insights that came out of that and things that you learned that made the experience better over time do you have an example that you'd be willing to share just to tell people hey failure does happen but it's the mining that failure yeah we absolutely still try to have a startup mentality and that will that serves us well almost all the time but also can nip Us in the butt because of how the scale of our company and how many people we're trying to get to do the same thing or move in the same direction so it's always that double-edged coin for us I think on the dreamforce side some of the tech infrastructure stuff was harder for us to figure out we had never with Salesforce plus we'd never done anything with streaming and we had always done what we called Salesforce live where we would do like live broadcast of all of our events but making them on demand the tech infrastructure to set that up and the way that we would like it was hard it's a lot harder than we thought it would be and also something that we had to do right we had to plan months and months in advance not like three months and sometimes we'll give ourselves a very short Runway to see a really big action or success and I think that was a lesson learned it's like we need to have what are the quick wins like things that we can be very agile and move very quickly and have the Motions for launches or roadmap moments that follow that trajectory but then what are those long-term scale planning projects and that fits a different timeline know to do those kind of in parallel versus trying to fit everything in the truncated timeline and so we're getting better I think we have still a lot to learn but that was something that came out of that okay trying to do things fast does not always mean that's the right way to do it too yeah yeah and that's it's just nice to hear that it's not only startups or smaller companies that are failing along the way and it's cool to hear that you're still moving like a startup even though it's Fortune 500 company yeah and thinking about the dream Force experience I imagine tactiv was pretty impacted by that as well considering that you're making these view from home kits the VTO kits what were some of those things that your team learned and adapted to on that side of the Fulfillment design all the things that go into it so the great thing is that Salesforce has a great internal team creative team that works on those particular projects and a little too to Ashley Davis because I just love her design work but they created what was called dreamforce to you is what they called it and df2u is what we always had our stuff written up as and for us where it was difficult was it became a large push in a short period of time with limited staff and so we were like she said roll your sleeves up everybody's coming in and we're building these kits and my husband came in and the owners came in and people's Partners came in my son was in at one point don't worry he's old enough but yeah actually bagging the American Eagle it's nice I love it yeah so we had to call in on all of our resources at that point and because it was new for them they didn't know is this going to be do we need 2 000 of these or do we need 3 000 do we need 7 000 do we need 11 000 and every day the number kept jumping and the time period kept getting smaller and smaller and in this kind of Amazon world where I think people are used to just snapping their fingers and something shows up on their doorstep the next day when you're creating something from scratch you have to remember there's an entire production team behind that and there's physical work that has to be done to make these things come alive and so we also had our own failures at that point in time stuff that we had committed to that we thought we yeah we can get this done for you in time and then when the time came it took a lot more labor hours than we ever expected it and as those numbers continued to increase we would have to come back and say I know this is what you really want but we're out of time like the daylight savings is done here yeah and can you bear with us and Salesforce was extremely generous to to and they did in us in a good way they pushed back and they said no this is really important we can't change this but we can give you some Grace on this and um we had our own internal failures that hopefully you don't let people see as Kurt says how the sausage was made yeah but in the end the goal was to get their name in front of their customers that were bringing dream Force to them or dream Force follow-up as a thank you so that it it represents their and the quality is at the level that they deserve yeah and I think a lot of people with with tactile marketing they maybe just think oh branded t-shirt or oh branded mug those things are tactile marketing but the way that tactiv does that to your point is of a certain quality and I have one of the kits here that I'd love to just bring on camera and for those who are just listening I'll be as descriptive as they possibly can as I possibly can what I've got here is one of tactiv's branded kits it says greetings from tactiv and there's a die cut tactiv it's not the logo but it's tactive all caps in front and you can see through so when you open the box and in the whole box feels like something that you would take on vacation with you which is really cool and then as you unfold it you literally are getting branded messaging so you see the back of a bus driving down a road on the first kind of fold this is not your Amazon Prime box it just has The Marvelous Mrs Mabel advertising on it this is something that is all branded towards a company and so a Salesforce version of this would have all of salesperson's branding messaging this one with tacto says bring your brand to and in parentheses live something you can touch exactly and then when you open the box it's so cool because you literally have the back of the van but it's a letter that's from the tactiv team that has all of your messaging in it and then within it everything's branded like a road trip it is yeah so I love that tell me about the process that goes through the internal team side as you think about how do we Design This how do we get a USA road map and tips to add in this and it's a journey road trip blog book in here and you've even got a camera camera instamatic camera this is so cool this is so cool and then and then of course you have T-shirts and keychains and sunglasses and snacks and gummy bears I I love it gummy bears were a big theme on our last podcast episode we recorded yeah so we wanted our clients this was an internal Sun that we sent out at the beginning of the year to let our customers know hey we appreciate you and be come on a journey with us with your brand and we're going to show you all the things we can do for you so the really cool thing about that box which I'm imagining people might not realize harder that let me go back part of the reason that active rebranded was because we were print resources and it pigeonholed us into just being a printing company when at that time we were doing printing promotional products Direct Mail these what we call 3D DM kits and we kept being told oh I didn't know you did that I didn't know you do that I didn't know you do that and so we hired an agency and did a bunch of Discovery and rebranded as tactive and what's cool about tactiv is it's not really a word because that was the trend at the time like nobody's name no company names especially in the tech industry which is where the most and most of our clients are words that are actual words so we were like cool tactile and active tactive that's where that that came together but if you when you open that box you'll see that there's a journal that's in there that was printed on on our presses in-house everything that's in there except one of the maps we used a partner to help us with one of the maps because it's so big was presented was printed made in-house and designed and so our marketing team internally Robin Lanning and her team came up with the entire feel behind the kit itself and said let me take you on a journey through tactiv and so you can see there's we screen print in-house now that's a new a new category for us to after an acquisition that we've brought in we're trying to bring as much production in-house as we possibly can so that we can have control over it for when those time periods continue to get smaller we can actually say hey yeah let's run a second shift we're doing this we're not relying but the box was printed in-house the on our large Fuji print and cut on our zund and then the rep letter was printed in-house the assembly team put the entire kit together the T-shirt was screen printed in-house the like I said the road trip map the stickers all of that was produced in-house the keychain was not because that's more of an attribute to our promotional products portion of the company and then we wanted to appeal to people's senses and everybody likes snacks yeah absolutely and yes and so what could you take on a road trip Albanese is an indiana-based company so we're always looking to include I love that and then we talked about companies online we had to check their bellies for A's yeah they're made here it's true yeah and we wanted people to see that hey especially in that large map now like I said that's that wasn't made in house we we but it was something we wanted to do and that's what we tell our customers if you want to do it even if we're not the producers we have plenty of trade Partners here because there's plenty of work to go around in Indianapolis and in the midwest that we have really great relationships we don't compete against we work with and so we used excuse me a printer here in in town to print that huge road map however all the design work was done in-house by our marketing team and and that was going to be my next question is why is design so important when you're talking about brand when you're talking about marketing and I know I'm talking to a design-centric CEO and someone who started their career as a designer or what was it tells you exactly what I did exactly I'm just curious what your take is on design and the importance of that in bringing a brand to life so you can have a great logo and a great design itself but if you're not putting it out there in the right way or you're not putting it out there on quality relevant items then you're not relevant and what we find and yeah I don't mean that in a rude Way by any means but some people have amazing logos behind there or design teams that help them come up with this concept of this is your brand but if you don't do anything with it or if you decide to always go with how much can I get for the least amount of money that's an extension of yourself your brand is yourself putting out there in a tangible way especially when you're doing it through a physical marketing piece just as much as it's important to have a creative element in your email campaigns and your ad campaigns and television spots and all of that you have to be just as creative with the physical things that you give people if you hand somebody something that's going to fall apart in two days they're gonna think you're going to fall apart yeah oh like really or that they're not worth maybe and not everybody has massive budgets but when you get the right people they can show you how to maximize and get you the most that you can out of the money that you have and drive you down that that path so that when somebody comes and sees you they say oh wow like you give them something maybe it's a mug for instance you give them something and it's and they'll they know you're a startup they know you don't have tons and tons of money but instead of buying a hundred mugs at two dollars a piece that are gonna break in two days you're giving you're buying 50 mugs at ten dollars five dollar ten dollars sorry I lost my math on that and give me something more quality that shows you're more quality like it's more intentional that way yeah I think the intentional word is key like one of the values I have my team talk about for everything that we make is intentional Innovation creatives have this tendency to like I just want to make the things it's so cool and it looks awesome but if it's not intentional and it's not reinforcing the brand then what are we doing and so with everything that we're sending a brand is like the sum of the conversations had about that brand right and so tactile marketing can really help with that and if you're not reinforcing the story or the intent of the send with the gifts that are included the caliber and the quality of the printing and the gifts and all of those things than it is that representation of your brand and to Courtney's point that can not always mirror with what you're intending so I think conceptual storytelling is key and we start there with everything that we make what is the story we're telling how to be and be intentional to every single intersection point with that on unboxing experience how does it connect physical to digital like we have some checklist questions that we always ask because otherwise people can equate it with just oh I'm just going to send a stress ball and like something on a piece of paper and I think they're in the past tactile marketing has had a potentially bad rap because people get a lot of tactile marketing so you really have to be able to stand out in that space and I think that we've really been able to do that in this partnership yeah I love that I'd love to dive just a little bit deeper there real quick let's marketing leaders that are listening out there that maybe more on like they don't think through tactile marketing they think through swag maybe they're just like we have stuff that's branded yeah what are like first steps that a marketing leader can take to shift from where we have swag to we have a tactile marketing experience that they could put into action in the next week month quarter yeah I think you need both like everyone needs the swag too right and you're gonna need your swag store or you're gonna have to take it to events or however you're getting your brand out there so that's part of it too I think it does have to start with what's the what is your brand promise like you got to go more of the strategy level if your promise is all around for Salesforce it's all about the customer so like any story We Tell always has to be about the customer first and we take that approach with everything we deliver which like when Courtney was talking about us using American Eagle or Starbucks or like we are putting our customer first in those experiences and trying to in every moment I would recommend that marketers are thinking about their brand promise for their company what's the swag that emulates that brand promise and then what our tactile experiences that will help reinforce that brand promise across every single touch point that they would like to have whether that's an investor or a prospect or a customer so that when someone thinks about their brands they're thinking about that brand promise and it can be reinforced towards that like unaided awareness outside of your own company brands who are some of your favorite Brands and why what is it that their brand does and the way they debate their brand that resonates with you no wrong answers here such a good question it's a good one it has a amazing give back they're all about the environment the sustainability their footprint here on the world and what's really cool is they went from everybody the fat or patagon everyone just wanted it because it was super cool but when you really like deeply dive into what their company is about you'll see that it's about sustainability and it's about leaving as small of a footprint as we we can this Earth in a negative way footprint but they they pulled out of the corporate markets for a while because they didn't like the fact that if somebody had a Patagonia jacket on per se and it had a corporate logo on it and then they moved on to another job that they would just get rid of that jacket they want people to keep things that they buy they might be a little bit more expensive to start but they want you to keep it for a long time it's the longevity behind it and they'll fix it yeah I'd sit my Patagonia jacket in over the over last the fall so get ready for winter and it came back like there was a little hole in it and they stitched it all up and it came back and it was like five bucks yes yeah and so they pulled out of the corporate markets meaning allowing them to be branded for that reason that they found that people were just discarding the goods and they're like that's not what we stand for that's not what we don't want that to happen and they just recently came back out now and said hey we've found a way to remove corporate logos we found a way so that you the rest of you can still have a Patagonia brand with your logo on it we can remove it if you don't want to have it on there in the end and then send it back to you and keep the longevity of the piece going allowing it to come back into the corporate markets because I'm pretty sure they probably got a lot of feedback from companies that were like I'm sure yeah because they do have a really good story and people do want to be aligned with them so when they put their logo on something they want it to be once again and that's a key piece before we go on to the next one how you just said they want companies want their brand to be aligned with Patagonia and talking through just like we talked about like she breaks in two days that's what you're aligning your brand with with these physical products like I think that that's something to really think about for marketing leaders is you might spend that extra money to align yourself with a brand like Patagonia even if you're a small company like you can be aligned with a awesome B Corp like Patagonia by using their promotional products in your tactile marketing initiatives I think Patagonia 2 just to love on Patagonia a little bit more their brand is also their employer brand just like any company their brand is their employer brand it's how people perceive them as a good place to work and the founders book is literally called let my people go surfing and that is part of their culture as well is it's it's not all about business it's actually about life first and I think that's just a great example too of how an overall brand of sustainability extends into sure you're messaging to your team to potential recruits who you want to have come align with your business and your values yeah not to keep piling on the Patagonia but to keep piling up we also love Patagonia at Salesforce I love them personally but we're really big on talking about what cyber week looks like and talking about how salesforce's data can help with extending all of the retail and holiday season and what that looks like all year round but what I think is super awesome about Patagonia is they have like actively pulled out of like Cyber Monday and Black Friday like they don't just don't participate they don't give deals they just don't get into the hype and I think that's such a commemorable it's just such a noteworthy thing to do right because they don't need to and it makes such an impact I think to focus on Family Focus on the values that are that they care about and they're showing it in their marketing tactics and I'm I haven't seen their numbers but I'm sure it does not it's not impacting them in a negative way they're not going out of business I think they're doing just fine and I think it then reinforces why people want to be interacting or intersecting with their brand um do you have another brand Crush I love Cotopaxi too they're so good they like create things from all of their reusable materials no one piece looks the same because they are pulling from all of those reusable materials and I have had I try to squeeze that into any of our tactile Marty Courtney is smiling because she knows I'm like oh we should use codopaxi for this or this and I just think that they are really memorable Brands they're sustainable Brands they align with our values so they have a really similar I have a similar love for them as I do Patagonia yeah and I think each of their pieces are like slightly different exactly they're all made through the scrap material yeah I went to the Cotopaxi store out in Salt Lake and was just like whoa everything so cool like what you can get it's awesome and they're it's a vibrant brand it's just yes it's just a fun fun brand with a great Mission too I love that those are two great Brands it is now time for my favorite part of the show and it's time for the lightning round oh my gosh oh so I have three questions to ask each of you but it's quick hitters right so it's as quick as you can answer what the first thing that comes to your mind all right so Courtney we're gonna start with you okay all right all right so is it same questions yeah same question so why don't we do it first on this one oh we're gonna keep it there yeah yeah okay great that's a good call all right so Courtney outside of the amazing entrepreneurial ecosystem what is Indiana known for racing racing this is we're not we're still a couple days out of May but it is it is racing I love that all right Katie what about you who's your hospitality oh I love that one that's good okay Katie back to you okay what is a Hidden Gem in Indiana my gosh that's such a hard question I think our state parks maybe they're not hidden I don't know I feel like state parks are great our money there's so many of them there's so many of them and I have not hit them all so and it's on my list it's like I'm hyper focused my family yeah I love Turkey Run um yeah Brown County yeah I don't know yeah all right Courtney what about you that was really really cool I was like I don't know in Indianapolis if anyone doesn't know this we have next to Washington DC the largest number of monuments around in downtown yeah yeah so there's a lot of really cool Capitol Buildings and monuments all over Indianapolis second to Washington wow I did not know that yeah that's great favorite Monument [Laughter] okay Courtney who is someone that we need to keep on our radar someone who is doing something big oh my God I love it yes he is a local artist here in Indianapolis and he's been featured in Cambridge field house he's up on the walls up there he was in in the IMs artist last year so you can find his artwork around the motor speedway what's his name JD bills JD bills and what kind of art is it 2D 3D it is murals and like painting he also teaches at Ivy Tech but yes somebody once told me like man he's everywhere now so I would watch out for him yes from the art the art world out there he's pretty awesome and we can just keep seeing him pop up he's doing a launch with Modelo right now and it's all just based on his own physical drawing versus nothing wrong with graphic design by any means but he does it all by hand that's awesome yeah Leslie Bailey I think is somebody to watch just someone already said that you guys are taking on the show of course she has a great answer though I love her for those who are listening and haven't listened to that episode go check out Leslie's episode of get in it is a great she's amazing Andy May Andy maven's amazing so go check out what she's doing with any Maven and Maven space is in the old sales force it is space I know no I have no ties yeah there's no Salesforce ties no it is in our gips in the Gibson space and she's amazing and doing a lot of amazing things for women in Indy I love that totally great answer thank you both so much for being on the show today and sharing so much about your own backstories the stories of both tactiv and Salesforce and giving us a little bit of look under the hood of marketing and how marketing is working today and how it's going to continue to work in the future we're really lucky to have both of you here in Indiana and just as marketers doing great marketing yeah thanks so much fun this has been get in a powder kick production in partnership with Elevate Ventures and we want to hear from you if you have suggestions for a guest or a segment reach out to Matt or Nate on LinkedIn or on email to discover top tier tech companies outside of Silicon Valley in hubs like Indiana check out our newsletter at powderkeg.

com newsletter and to apply for membership to the powder cake executive Community Check out powdercake. com premium we'll catch you next time and next week as we continue to help the world get in since you just listened to this podcast you might be thinking about starting one for your company lucky for you our partners over at cassid have you covered cassid is the first and only podcast and video marketing platform made specifically for B2B Brands I love this about them the platform makes it possible to publish Syndicate amplify and measure the value of your podcast and video content in fact we use it for our podcast here at Powder Keg and if you're a startup you should listen up because cassid for startups is definitely for you they are offering exclusive deep discounts of up to 82 percent off retail price for qualifying startups connect with casted casted. us slash powderkeg