The Manufacturing Marketer

Today, we’re getting a little zany. Since we’re approaching the end of Q4, we wanted to make an episode checking in with you about your budgets for the upcoming year. And what we specifically want to talk about is the role of an experimental line in your marketing budget - why it matters, and how you can use it. Let’s dig in.

Almost everyone's using generative AI, but not in the same ways. And why are the best use cases being gatekept by marketers in the know? Peyton and Allen lead a discussion with other Gorillas to go through the use cases and AI strategy most exciting for industrial marketers today.

Today, we’re talking with Director of Projects here at Gorilla 76, Alex Monroe. Alex has been reshaping the way we do work here at Gorilla from a project management viewpoint, and he has some ideas for industrial marketers broadly on what they can do to manage their workload and deliver results on time. Let’s dig in.

Most manufacturers don’t have a positioning problem. They have an implementation problem. In this episode of IMC Live, Gorilla 76’s Peyton Warren and Allen Fennewald sit down with Brendon Forrest to explore why messaging often falls flat inside manufacturing organizations — and how marketers can finally put their positioning to work. You’ll learn how to spot alignment gaps, build a feedback loop with sales, and turn a dusty one-pager into messaging that actually drives better conversations, better leads and better results. Whether you're updating your homepage, refining your sales deck or trying to get your internal team on the same page, this conversation is packed with practical steps you can use immediately. We cover: 🔸 The alignment gaps that break messaging (and how to fix them) 🔸 How to turn positioning into sales-ready tools (homepage copy, decks, one-sliders) 🔸 Practical ways to test messaging: website behavior, analytics & sales calls 🔸 Why internal marketing matters just as much as external marketing 🔸 Real stories from in-house marketers making positioning stick inside their orgs STAY CONNECTED 🎟 Industrial Marketing Summit — March 3–5, 2026 • Austin, Texas https://industrialmarketingsummit.com/ 💬 Join the Industrial Marketing Collective — a free community for marketers at manufacturing companies https://www.industrialmarketingcollective.com/ 🎧 Manufacturing Marketer Podcast https://www.gorilla76.com/the-manufacturing-marketer/ 🔗 Connect with Brendon Forrest on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendonforrest/ 🦍 Subscribe to Gorilla 76 on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn-g5UzBxZ7_CAknk5HJC_g NEXT IMC LIVE 🗓 December 4, 2025 — “How Gorilla 76 Uses and Thinks About Generative AI” Register here: https://www.gorilla76.com/industrial-marketing-live ABOUT IMC LIVE IMC Live is the interactive webinar series from the Industrial Marketing Collective — created for marketers at manufacturing companies. Each session is designed to help you connect with peers, sharpen your skills, and drive measurable results in your work.

We’ve brought Kelly Battaglini, back from her recent episode on product marketing to dig more into product launches. Connect with Kelly on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kbattaglini/

How industrial marketers can use product marketing to drive real sales momentum. What does great product marketing look like inside a manufacturing organization? And how can small teams adopt enterprise-level tactics to drive results? In this episode, Gorilla 76’s Peyton Warren and Allen Fennewald sit down with Kelly Cicconi Battaglini — a 13-year product marketing leader at Phoenix Contact — to break it down. You’ll learn how to: - Influence sales, even when it feels out of reach - Align marketing and sales through incentives and collaboration - Energize your distributors and channel partners - Craft value propositions that stick - Launch (or relaunch) products that actually move the needle - Manage internal approvals and stakeholders without getting stuck - Adapt big-team strategies for small-team success Whether you’re launching a product, supporting sales or managing distributor relationships, this episode is packed with practical advice you can apply right away. RESOURCES 🎟 Industrial Marketing Summit — March 3–5, 2026 in Austin: https://industrialmarketingsummit.com/ 💬 Join the Industrial Marketing Collective: https://www.industrialmarketingcollective.com/ 🎧 More from the Manufacturing Marketer Podcast: https://www.gorilla76.com/the-manufacturing-marketer-podcast/ 🔗 Connect with Kelly on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kbattaglini/ NEXT IMC LIVE 🗓 November 20, 2025 — “Yep. You have a positioning problem.” Save your seat: https://www.gorilla76.com/industrial-marketing-live ## TAGS industrial product marketing, manufacturing marketing, B2B product marketing, product launch strategy, distributor marketing, channel marketing, value proposition messaging, sales enablement for manufacturers, Phoenix Contact, Gorilla 76, Manufacturing Marketer Podcast, Kelly Cicconi Battaglini

Brendon Forrest, Allen Fennewald and Wes Temple from Gorilla 76 show you how to build marketing budgets leadership will approve. Learn to work backwards from revenue goals, calculate cost-per-lead and balance digital versus traditional spend. We'll cover: - Working backwards from revenue goals to determine actual budget needs - Calculating close rates, SQL conversion and cost-per-lead to justify spend - Balancing brand building with demand capture spend - Using digital-first budgeting to show what works - Avoiding mistakes like building budgets in silos and skipping experimentation funds - Tracking expenses throughout the year to strengthen future planning If you run marketing at a manufacturing company this conversation delivers methods for budget planning backed by real data you can defend. For industrial marketers, manufacturing marketing managers and B2B marketing leaders preparing for 2026.

Marketers are asked to build brand and drive results all at once. But doing both well starts with knowing how lead gen and demand gen really work, and how to use them together. Allen talks with Gorilla 76’s Aren Buresh and Peyton Warren about what’s changed in 2025, what still works, and how to tell if your brand is ready. You’ll leave with clear, actionable advice and a smarter way to think about your funnel.

We’ve brought back Josh Rozman from a recent IMC: Live episode on call attribution. And if you’ve listened to that show, you’re probably also aware that Josh’s company, Oberlin Filter, has a pretty cool mascot that Josh has spearheaded. We want to dig further in, and really get to know Josh as a marketer and see how his thinking on marketing intersects with our own.

Today we’re stepping back from some of our more tactical discussions to talk about the industrial world at large. Donald Trump’s presidency has meant a lot of changes for industrial America, and we want to take an episode to talk about how.

In this episode of IMC Live, Peyton and Allen talk with Taylor Corrado, senior director of brand marketing at Wistia, about how modern B2B marketers can get more from their video content. You’ll hear how Wistia repurposes its State of Video report across formats and channels — and how you can apply the same thinking to your own webinars, podcasts and product videos.

Today, we’re talking about the metrics that matter for your marketing strategy, across the entire funnel. What should we be thinking about? And what might be a distraction? Brendon and Nihal dig in.

In this episode of IMC Live, we sit down with Josh Rozman — the one-person marketing team at Oberlin Filter Company — to unpack how creativity and tech are reshaping industrial marketing. Josh shares how he tackled one of manufacturing’s biggest challenges: marketing attribution. From “ghost hunting” lead sources to rolling out call tracking via CallRail, Josh talks us through the tools and tactics helping him earn internal buy-in and optimize spend. But that’s just half the story. We also meet Phil — an AI-powered chatbot and animated brand mascot that handles weekend calls, screens leads and helps humanize Oberlin’s technical offerings. Phil isn’t just a gimmick — he’s a scalable, brand-owned asset helping bridge the gap between web traffic and sales conversations.

In Part 2 of our series of conversations about positioning, Brendon and Nihal talk about how we handle positioning deliverables and what exactly the final product should look like. And, we talk a lot more about B2B marketing guru April Dunford.

Most manufacturers don't know how to quantify marketing success, so they default to asking "What's the ROI?” after three or six months. But when you're selling CapEx equipment through a longer, complex and consultative sales cycle, answering the ROI question can get messy. In this show, we welcome Gorilla 76 co-founder Joe Sullivan to the stage to examine both the leading signals and trailing metrics to know if your marketing program is positioning you for business growth and how to talk to your executive team about its progress.

All about positioning. Podcast co-host Brendon has been doing a lot of work on positioning and how it’s handled at Gorilla over the past couple of months, and co-host Nihal has some questions.

On this episode of IMC Live, Peyton and Allen sit down with Gorillas James Boeckmann, Randall Zaitz, and Jenny Wang. The topic? All about making marketing more fun — and why that’s more than just a nice-to-have. When energy is high, people are engaged and positive, and the work tends to be better. So we’re asking: How do you bring energy to the work, especially when it’s repetitive or feels like a grind?

In this episode, our host Brendon talks with Matthew Sciannella, senior director of demand generation at Refine Labs and former strategy director at Gorilla 76, about how industrial marketers can think differently about building and engaging communities. Along with Peyton, they explore: - What community looks like in a B2B manufacturing context - How webinars have evolved into more interactive, audience-first experiences - The interplay between thought leadership, performance marketing and the Four P’s - Practical takeaways from real marketing efforts — and where we're going next Whether you’re testing new tactics or refining what already works, this conversation offers a grounded look at how community can bolster your brand.

In this special episode, we look back on five years of IMC Live. After 100 shows and nearly $3 million in influenced revenue, Peyton, Allen and Brendon break down what it really takes to build a content program with staying power. You’ll hear what worked, what didn’t and what’s next for the Industrial Marketing Collective.

It's Gorilla Week at Gorilla 76, our annual company-wide get together. To celebrate, Nihal and Brendon wrangle their largest panel to date. Tune in to hear our hosts quiz a handful of strategists, content creators and performance marketers about recent projects they've been tackling for manufacturing clients.