NAED Adventure Conference a mix of tradition and innovation

Last week I attended NAED’s Adventure Conference and had the privilege of hosting the Best of the Best Panel Discussion of past award winners. The panel recognized the industry's Best of the Best Marketing Awards, a 53-year tradition of marketing excellence founded by tED magazine. Panelists included Atlantic Coast Electric Supply Marketing Manager Hillary Doherty, Atkore Senior Marketing Communications Manager Maureen Siegfried, Intermatic Vice President of Marketing Jeanne Stark, and Springfield Electric Supply (A Sonepar Company) Vice President of Marketing & Digital Strategies Susan Mason.

Panel members shared the strategy behind their winning entries and answered questions from the audience about trends in digital marketing, artificial intelligence (AI), CRM, marketing automation and much more. I was stumped by an excellent question about my favorite entry over 19 years of judging, but I’ll address that in a future article.

What impressed me most was attendees’ enthusiasm and expertise with regards to technology trends and their application to electrical distribution and marketing. For example, I realize CRMs are not at all new, but getting buy-in at all levels and integrating them with existing systems remains a challenge.

I attended a CRM roundtable discussion and, although I’ve researched, written about, and even worked on some of these projects, I was reminded of several key points:

• You get out of a CRM what you put into it or “garbage in, garbage out.” Whether you’re using Salesforce, HubSpot, INFOR, or some other platform, you need to start with a clean, current data set and a plan to keep it fresh.
• Everyone in the organization – sales, marketing, office staff – must commit to using it (or be required to use it) in order for CRM implementation to be successful. This is applicable only if an entire organization is utilizing the CRM (which is ideal).
• It's important that the value of a CRM be shared as a tool and opportunity rather than “big brother” or something they’re being force to do.
• Ideally, your CRM should be integrated with your ERP and your email and/or marketing automation software so everyone is working from and updating the same “single source of truth” so you have a holistic view of every customer. There are tools and integrators who can help you achieve this. But certainly, a CRM and marketing automation tool together, which are widely available "out of the box" can immediately and easily personalize customer experiences. For example, a drip campaign can be set to trigger anytime a customer doesn't purchase in six consecutive months.
• The CRM, and marketing for that matter, is not an expense, it’s an investment in maintaining valuable data about your customers and prospects that can be used to identify sales opportunities, unprofitable accounts, underperforming accounts, growable accounts, marketing opportunities and so much more. ?
• Sales and marketing must work together to identify and take advantage of these opportunities.
• Company leadership (e.g. CEO, president, VP of sales, VP of marketing, etc. must fully support the CRM and lead by example, demonstrating a desire to work together to successfully utilize a CRM that supports activities that increase sales and profits.

Becky Starkey, Marketing Director for United Electric Supply Company, Inc. in New Castle, DE has had success working with Salesforce and Pardot, and HubSpot (sales & marketing hub). Her advice to anyone struggling with how to get started or what to do next is, “Start by identifying how you can help your company, support your marketing goals, or streamline processes. Listen to the sales team and others in the organization to understand their challenges and ask yourself if a tool like marketing automation or CRM could help.”

Consider attending conferences or webinars, joining user groups, or reaching out to associates or your LinkedIn network to find others who are facing similar changes. Share your experiences, challenges, failures, and successes to discern what works.

Other hot topics at the NAED Adventure Conference included the role of AI apps like ChatGTP for generating social media posts and other digital content. Note: for fun I tried writing panel member bios based on their LinkedIn profiles using ChatGTP. One panel member became a psychologist and another a computer programmer. Artificial Intelligence has its limitations, but it’s a great tool for writing summaries, conducting research, generating ideas, and writing headlines, among many other uses. We’re still learning how to write prompts and pose questions to get the results we want. The more we learn, the more accurate and productive tools like ChatGTP will be. Remember, garbage in, garbage out.

Overall, Adventure was a good, well-run event with a nice mix of foundational marketing sessions and opportunities for learning about and discussing innovative strategies and technologies.?

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Katrina Olson brings 35 years’ experience and a passion for marketing to her work as a consultant, speaker/trainer, coach and writer for B2B industries. She is a columnist for several industry trade publications, shares articles on LinkedIn, and is a frequent speaker and panel moderator.

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She enjoys helping nimble, entrepreneurial organizations succeed and grow through effective marketing which has garnered more than 50 national and regional marketing and advertising awards for client work in the financial, healthcare, and distribution industries, among others.

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Katrina taught marketing, PR, and PR/advertising writing for 10 years at the University of Illinois?where she piloted a capstone class for students to work on projects with local non-profits and was instrumental in developing the PR Certificate program. She holds a Master’s in Media Communication from Webster University and a Certificate in Marketing Excellence from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Reach her at [email protected].