Differentiating a Brand with Creative Storytelling

Ben Petersen joins Michael for an interview in this episode. Ben is the Head of Marketing at online retailer BladeHQ and has a background in journalism, radio, and film production. Some of the topics discussed today are community building, SEO, digital marketing, and analytics.

We begin with Michael asking Ben what his biggest realizations were when moving from the broadcasting world over to digital marketing. Ben proceeds to talk about how the storytelling skills he learned in broadcasting translated over to marketing nicely. He then speaks to how BladeHQ differentiates itself compared to other competing online retailers and how he approaches creative storytelling for the brand.

Having built a strong community for BladeHQ, Ben shares what his plan of action would entail if he had to do the same thing for a different company. This includes a look at how he would perform research about the company's customer base. We then learn about the key metrics that Ben analyzes daily from BladeHQ's social media channels and he reflects on what he has learned about content that goes viral.

Ben provides an overview of his marketing team and likens it to an in-house marketing agency. Because Michael often gets asked by marketing students about what skills they need to land a job, he invites Ben to talk about his answer to this question.

Ben recalls that the biggest mistake he made when starting in this industry was that he didn’t see digital marketing as being multi-faceted. When we are able to recognize this, Ben says that that's when the magic really happens. We finish by hearing about the additional resources Ben wishes he had available today in his marketing activities.