Ben Ard (00:00.244)
that I can only enable once it's recording. And this is really important. All right. So just checking to make sure everything's working. And it looks like we are good. Perfect. OK. If you're ready, I'll kick it off.
Carol (00:21.066)
I guess now or never, I'm ready.
Ben Ard (00:21.39)
Okay. Welcome back to another episode of Content Amplified. Today I'm joined by Carol. Carol, welcome to the show.
Carol (00:30.444)
Thank you very much, Ben. Good to be here.
Ben Ard (00:32.514)
Yeah, Carol, this is going to be a great conversation. I really love your background and story, and I'm excited to dive into your expertise before we dive into the subject for the day. If you don't mind sharing with the audience who you are, what you do, some of your background, I think it would be great for the audience to get to know you.
Carol (00:50.988)
Sure, absolutely. So I'm Carol Wade. I'm the Senior Director of Marketing at Watchfire Signs. We are a manufacturer of LED display systems, primarily known for our work in the sign industry and the out-of-home billboard industry, but we also serve sports and indoor. I have been here for 15 years, and in my background, I have worked in healthcare marketing. I worked for a dot-com in the mid-90s when we talked a little bit ago. Ben, I forgot to even mention that. That was a crazy time.
And then I also got my start in broadcasting, worked in radio as a program director, as a morning co-host, and then a morning host as well early in my career. So kind of bounced around a couple of different industries, but have always in one way or another, everybody's in marketing, whether they realize it or not, but have always sort of been in sales or marketing or advertising.
Ben Ard (01:44.568)
love it. That's amazing. Well, Carol, you definitely know what we're talking about today. And what we're going to focus on is how to build a content engine around real customer voices. So how did you first see the impact of putting customers at the center of the story? Like, where did you first notice that? Where did that come from for you?
Carol (02:05.516)
I'm not sure that I realized it at the time, but that is a cornerstone of the way I handled broadcast. You're hosting a morning show and you want to put people on because the people in your community know who that is. so, Suzy calls in on her way to work and wins the trivia question of the day or whatever. And you want to say, where are you headed this morning? I'm going to work. Do you always listen to XYZ radio station on your way to work? Yes, I do.
Where do you work? I work at such and such office. And so you're giving them a moment of a platform that spreads out from there. We had some big employers in our community and always loved when people from those big employers called in because I, and you're talking early 90s too. I mean, this is, but people are calling in and excited for them. I heard you on the radio this morning.
I stayed in my car until the trivia finished so I could see if you were going to be the winner. And so it wasn't even a conscious thing. was just that's how you engage. And in a community where people know each other, that seems pretty obvious to me. What's really cool is it translates beyond that, beyond that small community and those people who work with that person into other things. I'm a person who also drives to work. I'm a person who also listens to root.
to the radio or whatever it is. And so you find levels to connect with people, even if you don't know them on a personal level. And so I would say it started there. I loved to put listeners on the radio and not everybody at the station that I worked at did that. It takes skill. You've got to be fast. You've got to trust them if you do it live because they can, know, Baba booey could show up at any moment. know, so you saw Howard Stern reference for you there. But, you know, you have to
Be quick if you're going to do it back in the day with, you know, quarter inch tape and a razor blade to cut that together and play it back before the three minute and 30 second song ends. So that's...
Ben Ard (04:09.058)
And I think that's so cool. Like, first of all, I'm craving the 90s again. Like, listening to the radio, all that kind of fun stuff. And I love that it's about community. I love the stories. I also love, like, we're seeing all these trends of people wanting content to be more personalized. It's so prim and proper because we can edit and do all these kinds of things. Like radio bringing on an actual, you know, radio listener live on air.
Like that is where you roll with the punches. That's where you get the authentic material. And honestly, that's probably why people actually wanted to listen. Like for those moments of less than perfection where people were a little, you know, out of sorts or super crazy excited. And I remember those moments. It was always fun to see what personality you would get when they come on.
Carol (04:40.129)
Yeah.
Carol (04:59.372)
Absolutely, you're giving away $500 and it's gonna make somebody's month or maybe their year or their Christmas or whatever. And so you get all the excitement and I did it live quite a bit. I have maybe one or two issues where there's no seven second delay in small town radio. You just kind of do your thing. But yeah, it's really authentic. And I think that's harder to find now, that authentic.
Ben Ard (05:23.107)
Yeah.
Carol (05:28.876)
first reaction that you get when something really cool happens for one of your stakeholders or customers.
Ben Ard (05:36.11)
Yeah, I love that. So when you are looking for those moments to tell those stories, how do you find them? Where are you looking? How do you know what moments and stories you want to tell? You know, fast forward to 2025 in the world that we live in with video recording, all that. How are you finding good customer stories to tell and how are you doing that?
Carol (05:59.326)
You have to focus on outcomes. think positive outcomes is usually a starting point. And then you work backwards from there. Do I have someone who is willing to go on record and tell this story? That's a bigger issue now than it ever was. People are concerned. This is going to be seen by my peers. This is going to be seen by my employer. We live in a world where every minute is captured. Every second could show up on a pretty large platform.
with or without you knowing it. And so there's often hesitancy to tell a story. I work today with businesses serving business to business needs and we'll bump into people sometimes who have exceptional outcomes. Their business success as a result of their marketing strategy that includes an LED display has been phenomenal. But they'll say, I don't wanna give my competitor the Cliff's Notes. I don't wanna share that. And so you look for ways to bring comfort to them.
that by sharing their story, they can be a thought leader in their industry. They can actually attract even more business because they might have a bigger platform to talk about the great product that they have or the great services that they offer. And so you just kind of work those angles. I it's not 100 % successful, but I think you have to lay it out there and say, you know, this benefits you, this benefits us. We really want it to benefit you in telling your story.
And your way, again, being the thought leader, being someone who is maybe doing things in a slightly non-traditional way gives you a competitive advantage. And I don't think you need to worry about the me-tos that will come along afterwards and say, well, I'm going to do that as well because it was successful for this person. I don't think that takes away from your success.
Ben Ard (07:48.428)
Yeah, I love that. So is there anything in particular that like you're talking about making them feel comfortable? You're talking about the idea of, this is going to benefit your businesses along with ours. Any tips or tricks that you've kind of come up with that like really can help people feel, I mean, cause in radio advertising and all that kind of stuff, like you said, you gave away $500. People are going to want to engage with that. They're outreaching. Like, how do you like.
in today's world really make someone feel comfortable enough to get on a video or do a case study with you.
Carol (08:23.148)
Yeah, I show them examples. I use previous people to sort of tell that story and say, know, hey, here's a business that did this work with us and they were featured in all of these great national publications or they were featured in this way online and it's really well done. think, you know, I've been blessed. The companies I've worked for in my past and currently have always been exceptionally straightforward.
and honest and we're not trying to do something that tricks you. We're not, you know, there's no real ulterior motive here. We want to tell your story of success and want you to have that platform. And it comes from a really honest place. And so I think that's helpful. Now that said, you know, there are other things you can do. I mean, we don't do this, but you can, you know, give them a gift card or whatever, if they tell your story. I mean, there are always things you can do to help people feel.
a little bit better about it. We don't do that here. The other thing is, I think playing to business operators tend to be maybe strong egos. They're big personalities. They've been risk takers in their career and that's brought them the success that they have. And so you can sort of play to that and talk about that and talk about how this fits with the way you have operated in your career or run your business.
I used to work in healthcare marketing and we'd put physicians on the billboard. Why? They like to see their faces there. They like that. And so then you start talking to patients and you say, hey, look, you can be associated with this really excellent outcome. You had your knee replaced and you were back playing tennis in four months or whatever the incredible outcome is. And don't you want others to feel that same success? And so I think approaching that again.
with the outcome as your sort of foreground, the first thing that you start with, and then working backwards to all of the positive points that can come from telling that story.
Ben Ard (10:29.462)
Okay, I love that. That's amazing. So now we know the value of customer stories. We have made our customers comfortable and willing to create content with us. They see the value. We've created the content. Now, obviously that's in like a single format. How are you really amplifying the distribution of that story in different formats, different places, different shapes and sizes?
How are you getting the biggest bang for the buck once you have actual customer stories that you've recorded?
Carol (11:04.054)
We follow the cope method. So that's the create once published everywhere, right? So you get that interview, you get that great photography, that video, you work out, you know, pull quotes, you work out maybe there are some metrics that the customer has shared as part of their success story. And you look for different ways to package that information, short form, long form, video, static, text, printed case study that can be used as a leave behind sales piece, pull quote in an email.
quote and photo in social media, quick video with a comment, video comment from the customer. I think the key is to get what you can get upfront all at once and then look for ways to sort of slice and dice. And I guess maybe that harkens back to the broadcast days, because there was a lot of slice and dice then as well. But you want to pull the pieces that have the most impact.
and place them within our business visuals, everything, you we have a very visual product. And so you want to have those exceptional visuals with a strong pull quote about the benefit, the success, you know, how the business has been impacted or changed because of their decision to work with you or your business. And, you know, you can get a lot of mileage and it's people will say, we use that all the time. That's all we use. We use that same.
And it may feel like that when you work in it, when you're the person slicing and dicing, you know, or you're a stakeholder or salesperson in the company that's like, man, you know, we've really gotten a lot of mileage out of that. But you have to think about, you know, the millions of people that are seeing it for the first time and you're meeting them on the platform that they're on. so, no, they didn't get your email because they're not in your email list, but they did see your social media post, you know, or they didn't see your article in the trade publication.
but they did see the email that you sent. So you have to remember that it does, it may seem fatiguing for you inside the business, but really for the customers and for the greater sort of population, especially in a B2B where you have a huge audience that you're trying to target, it stays fresh. That said, you don't want to use something forever, but I think pushing things out through...
Carol (13:24.062)
a multitude of channels and using them appropriately, short form where short is necessary, longer where you can include a little bit more information. It doesn't tire out as fast as you think it does when you're the person that created it.
Ben Ard (13:38.222)
100%. Yeah. When you've spent 50 hours editing and slicing and dicing and doing this, you're sick of it before you publish it even the first time. And it's something like consumers need to see it 14 or 15 times sometimes before it ever actually sticks. So you're right. Like you need to get the longevity and the mileage out of it. All right, Carol, I'm going to throw you kind of a curve ball. When you have this really good customer story content,
Carol (13:48.256)
Yes.
Carol (13:56.704)
Yeah.
Ben Ard (14:06.766)
What technologies are you using? How does AI play a role, if at all, breaking that down and getting the parts out and publishing that everywhere? Do you mind sharing some of the like tactical ways that you're actually pulling that off?
Carol (14:22.89)
Yeah, so it may start with a phone interview. We may do an interview over Zoom. We've done some of those where we've just recorded a conversation, not unlike the one you and I are having today, and used segments of that. I'm very blessed with our creative team here at Watchfire, where I work today. I've got multimedia designers that are incredibly talented. I've got print art designers that are incredibly talented. so having that access in-house makes a big difference. So we capture what we can capture sort of in the raw form.
have a photographer go out, get shots of the display. If it's something where we are doing a video with the customer, we may have a film crew go out. We don't do as much of that. Your costs go up. A lot of times the customer has got maybe drone footage of the display or something like that that they've already captured. And so if you can work out a deal that they would share some of that with you, that makes a difference. And then from there, it's...
you know, create your deliverables based upon whatever the platform is going to be. So if you want a quick excerpt from the Zoom interview, you know, to be used on social or put on your, know, your Vimeo, put it on your website, whatever that might be, photo gallery in the website or, you know, different places there, and then work with our design team to put together, you know, social media tiles, pull quote a photo, you know, pull quote a quick video of the product in action or whatever.
or work with the multimedia group to do video overlays and things like that. So as far as AI goes, don't, I wouldn't say that it plays a huge role for us right now with this part of our storytelling. We are certainly deploying it in different areas in our marketing sort of tech stack. But at this time, our content storytelling with the customers,
is centered around what the customer said. And so, you might use AI a little bit to push out the social media tiles in the different orientations that they need to come out or whatever. But I really don't want to alter the story too much. I want the customer to tell the story. And I don't want to wrap that in too much. You don't want to slicken that up too much. I think it detracts from it. I really do. I think when it's true and authentic and it's the customer telling the story,
Carol (16:44.556)
It just lands better. It has a better impact with customers out there who find some commonality to identify with that story with their business or their struggle, their pain points in their business.
Ben Ard (16:57.846)
I absolutely love that telling the authentic story, not kind of muddying the waters with all the overproducing and everything. I think that's so cool. Carol, as promised, these episodes go by super quick. have run out of time. Thank you for sharing the insights. This has been amazing. Carol, for anyone listening who wants to reach out and connect with you online, how and where can they find you?
Carol (17:10.837)
Totally.
Carol (17:21.27)
Yeah, absolutely. So I'm on LinkedIn at Carol R. Wade. Simple, easy. My company's website is watchfire.com. And yeah, we'd love to connect and see how we can talk about more content.
Ben Ard (17:37.622)
Love it. And Carol's LinkedIn profile will be in the show notes, regardless of what platform anyone is listening on. Scroll down, look there, click on the link and you can connect with Carol. Carol, thank you, thank you, thank you. Really do appreciate the time and the insights today.
Carol (17:52.629)
And it's been a pleasure.
