How Marketing Plays a Vital Role in a Crisis

From political landmines to cyberattacks or a pandemic, B2B marketers are constantly confronted with many challenges in their work. All of a sudden, brand building and generating demand no longer seem to be sufficient to do a modern marketer’s job. What does it take for marketers to be better prepared and equipped to deal with the realities of the contemporary landscape?

Join us in this insightful conversation with seasoned B2B marketing and communications expert Ren Agarwal (CEO, StoryAZ Studio) as he talks about the instrumental role that marketers can play in a global crisis. During our conversation, Ren elaborated on the new skills and approaches marketers need to address expected and unexpected volatility. Ren also defined volatility in the context of modern marketing, how it creates opportunities for marketers, and provided advice on how teams can better prepare their organizations internally to respond to external challenges.

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https://youtu.be/fT-1k7yMYFs

Topics discussed in episode

[3:09] Ren talks about the need for strategic foresight to understand and create opportunities in a volatile environment
[5:33] Ren provides examples of how marketing can take a proactive role in helping companies navigate
[15:42] The importance of strategic and multidimensional thinking, self-education, and understanding market issues
[24:49] An example of how a company has successfully adapted to volatility
[28:05] How you can successfully turn challenges into advantages
[33:57] How marketing differs from crisis communications and PR
[37:06] Ren’s actionable advice: Have a strategic review of relevant topics and prepare to address specific issues in your communications.

Companies and links mentioned

Transcript

SPEAKERS

Christian Klepp, Ren Agarwal

Christian Klepp 00:01

Welcome to this episode of B2B Marketers on a Mission. I’m your host. Christian Klepp, today I’m going to be talking to Ren Agarwal. He’s a trusted executive, entrepreneur and strategic advisor who helps companies and clients refine their business value proposition and accelerate growth. He’s created and executed go-to-market and sales enablement programs at multiple firms that led to successful IPOs, acquisitions and double digit growth. He’s also extremely experienced in the world of B2B copywriting and content marketing. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketer’s mission is. Here we are. Mr. Ren Agarwal, welcome back to the show, I should say, so it’s always a pleasure to have previous guests come back. And I’m really looking forward to this conversation.

Ren Agarwal 00:48

And Christian, thank you so much for having me. I guess we’re recording this in August. So you know, it’s summertime and things are feeling good out there. So.

Christian Klepp 00:59

Yeah, absolutely. And the Paris Olympics just wrapped up too. So…

Ren Agarwal 01:03

And I am a big fan.

Christian Klepp 01:05

I know, I know. That in itself is a separate podcast interview. I think.

Ren Agarwal 01:10

We should definitely do it. I mean, the competition was great this year. The venues were fantastic. It was just all around the great competition.

Christian Klepp 01:17

Absolutely, absolutely. So Ren, we’re gonna just dive right into it. Because while this topic is it’s very, I would say, for lack of a better description, very profound, but also very relevant to B2 marketing today. So what am I talking about? Right? So you’ve built up a lot of expertise and experience in the field of content and communications, but I’m gonna say for this conversation, we’re going to focus on how B2B marketing can play an instrumental role during a global crisis. So I want to kick off the conversation with this question, why do you think the marketing function has to step up even before such a crisis occurs?

Ren Agarwal 01:57

I mean, marketing is essentially the interface between the company and the outside world, and marketing owns how the company is perceived, how the company communicates and so on this topic, you know, it really is the one of the key responsibilities of marketing, to be able to handle it, to understand it, and to shepherd the company forward. There’s no other function in a company that can be responsible for helping a company navigate. You know, in either in a new crisis or an ongoing crisis.

Christian Klepp 02:45

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And that brings me to my next question, right about, well, we’re going to talk about volatility a lot in this conversation I have. I kind of get the feeling, right. So how can marketers adapt and respond to a volatile world? I mean, like, you know, we’ve got so much going on. We’ve just, we’ve just gone come out of a pandemic. And there are a lot of things that happened this year that we’ll probably get into.

Ren Agarwal 03:09

You know, it’s interesting, because this topic actually is about strategic, having strategic foresight. And, you know, we can use the word crisis. I prefer actually, to use the word volatility. You know, anybody that’s been around for a couple of decades will tell you that, you know, the volatility is real and it’s increased. So we know we need to do is kind of look around and we’ll use some examples, right, all of the things that are happening, and understand how your products or services play in that volatile environment, and that creates opportunity.

Christian Klepp 03:54

I had a follow up question for you there, like, Why do you think there are so many companies out there that don’t adapt quickly? Is it because they’re their own worst enemy in terms of their just the internal culture, the way the organizations are structured? Or what are your thoughts on that?

Ren Agarwal 04:08

No, I think it really goes out to marketing, not making a convincing case at the leadership level. I think what we need to do is give marketers permission, almost to say, No, get involved. You know, be more active in these conversations. You know, whether you’re the CMO or some other you know position. Understand that this is a part of your portfolio and that you know you need to kind of bring it forward. Now, it doesn’t mean that you know this kind of conversation can’t come from other parts of the company. They certainly can. But if it’s not happening to your question, then it’s because, you know, marketing hasn’t taken the… they haven’t self-authorized themselves to say, you know, we could actually have an important role to play in something that’s happening here. And let’s. So, you know, let’s be proactive.

Christian Klepp 05:02

So it’s almost like they need to take the initiative. I mean, maybe, maybe not, be the gatekeepers, but they need to, they need to get that initiative going, right? Like, if you see, for example, you know, we can use many examples, but like, say there’s a recession on the horizon, right? And do they then take initiative to, like, prepare in case that occurs, and, you know, in terms of the internal and external communicate or something of that effect.

Ren Agarwal 05:33

You know, recession is an interesting example, because you’re really talking about a financial impact, and usually your CFO and your CEO will be kind of thinking about that from a budgetary standpoint, you know, if I could, I want to just present another example. So let’s say, you know, this is actually a very topical example. We know that there’s a lot of waste in clothing manufacturing, incredible amount of waste. Now, if you’re a marketer at a company that manufactures, let’s say, you know, sporting goods and clothing, you know, and you know that this is a criticism out in the market and a legitimate concern that we should all have about the waste stream of clothing manufacturing, or clothing that is no longer used. Well, you could say, well, what could we do about that? You know, so you understand that there’s a strategic opportunity here, because you’re manufacturing clothing and, you know, you’re selling it into a market where people are actually thinking about this question. So as a marketer there, there are steps that you can take to frame this conversation for your company and your brand, and to say, how can we be more thoughtful about this? Is there something that we could do to be relevant to this concern about waste from clothing manufacturing? And there are brands out there that you know are have an active voice to say, send your clothing back to us. We will create a recycled stream where we’ll make it available for sale again, you know. So that’s an example of where you’ve understood very clearly the marketplace, and you’ve understood the environment, and you’ve kind of proactively said, let’s, let’s be a part of the solution. So, you know, it’s created an opportunity, and if you can come up with a solution, it’s going to have significant benefit to your brand.

Christian Klepp 07:40

Absolutely, absolutely. I like the way you said that. You know, it’s a way to frame the conversation, and marketers need to lead that initiative, because I think it was something you mentioned before I hit record. Before waiting for the criticism to come, right? Because, in this sense, the wastage from manufacturing somehow that criticism, one way or another, in some shape or form, it will come. So I guess it’s a question of like, how do you address that? How do you proactively go forth and talk about this issue in a way that you’re showing that you are, in fact, a responsible company, right? You are, you are, do, doing something about it.

Ren Agarwal 08:19

Yes, and it’s, you know, it’s recognizing that you are a manufacturer of clothing. So you’re not changing that fact, but you’re saying, How can we do that in a better way? Can we monitor our supply chain, for example, and can we publish the findings? Can we actively work with our supply chain partners, you know, so marketing can start the conversation, can start to frame this opportunity. And then, of course, there’s multiple departments and functions within a company that will get involved with it. But what we can start to see happen is that marketing, you know, begins to have a positive impact on the operations of the company, even, I would go as far as to say has a positive impact on our world and also, you know, just thinking about the marketing function makes marketing more strategic in terms of The value that it’s actually bringing to the table.

Christian Klepp 09:23

Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, I’m gonna move us on to the next question. Still on the topic of volatility, I think it, it’s probably fair to like, just start with defining volatility in the context of marketing. So how do you define that, and what are some of the key challenges that you see marketers facing in this environment that has become increasingly volatile.

Ren Agarwal 09:46

Yes, and if I could let me use some examples to try to define what we what we mean here when we talk about volatility. So we’ve already talked about one, which is our environment that we all have responsibility to take care of and the stream of waste in that environment. So, you know, that’s a volatile topic, because we see what’s happening with climate change and we know things that are kind of contributing to the degradation of the environment.

Let’s use another example cyber attacks. You and I know through our work that this is a very real issue. A recent survey found that over 60% of companies have been impacted in some way by cyber attack. So this has become an unfortunate, permanent part of our technology landscape. You know, in the US, all of us are not familiar with getting emails or getting the dreaded letter that says we’re sorry to inform you, but somebody gained unauthorized access to our systems and your information was compromised. I mean, now we’re receiving that like regularly throughout the year. That’s an example of volatility. It’s happening out there. We don’t always know when it’s going to happen, but it’s happening and you know. And later on, I’ll give you an example of how, you know, you can address something like that. Another example I’ll give, and I really like this example. It’s from, you know, my past. Cyber Monday for two decades was a really big issue. And just to kind of remind everyone that’s listening to this, you know, it was basically the idea that the big shopping season at the end of the year, which was known as a Black Friday because it happened after Thanksgiving, obviously, with the internet, people were now shopping when they got to work, because they had a better Internet connection on Monday. And so Monday became this really big shopping day, and we called it Cyber Monday. And for two decades, we weren’t sure how sites would kind of hold up to that increased traffic. And so sites would go down, there would be all kinds of mayhem that would occur. I worked at a company that said, Hey, this is an opportunity. We know this is going to happen. We don’t know the level of that volatility, but we know it’s going to happen. And the company that I was working for had the ability to monitor the performance of websites. So what we did was we got the company ready on Monday to monitor the top e-commerce websites to see how they’re holding up to the additional traffic from Cyber Monday. And we would be available for reporters to call us and ask us how things were going. And we would be able to say, you know, the following e-commerce sites are really crashing under the additional traffic, and these other sites are doing better. And so we were able to take that volatility and that kind of environmental change or impact. That’s something that everybody was following and using our own products and services, we were actually able to create an opportunity out of that, and there was a terrific PR opportunity for our company. We were regularly quoted in the best and most popular media outlets out there, but we had strategic foresight to say, Hey, this is going to be happening on a regular basis. So how can we help? And so the way, the way we were helping is that those companies would then come to us and say, hey, help us understand what happened and how we could do a better job. So we would provide them with monitoring capability, right? So that volatility, that crisis, created an opportunity where, you know, we could build our brand, but we could also help those companies improve the performance of their websites. So, you know, I hope those examples kind of help to define what we mean when we talk about volatility, whether it’s societal volatility or business volatility or economic volatility, and how we can play a role.

Christian Klepp 14:28

No, absolutely, absolutely. And I think it’s a topic that we’re probably going to discuss later on the conversation. But how do you turn this period of adversity or these challenges into an actual advantage? And I think your story really showcased that, right, how you’re able to do that. And I saw this statistic the other day, and it still blows my mind, and the source evades me at the moment, but in the year 2031, it is estimated that a cyber attack is going to happen every two seconds. Wow. Let that statistic sink in for a second, every two seconds. So that means, like, you know, in this, in these couple of minutes, that you and I are having a conversation, a cyber attack is going to happen somewhere in the world, right? And it’s, it’s absolutely shocking, right? Yeah, all right, moving us on to the next question, which I think is also very important, what new skills and based on what you’ve said, right? Like, what new skills or approaches do you believe are essential for marketers to navigate landscapes that are this unpredictable? And how do these differ from your traditional marketing practices?

Ren Agarwal 15:42

You know, I think that there is a higher premium on strategic and multidisciplinary, even multi-dimensional thinking, you know, So marketers could traditionally get away with kind of understanding your products and services and understanding your customers’ needs, and those are still vital skills to know. But I think now the multi-dimensional thinking here, the strategic thinking, is to say that none of us operates in a vacuum, and how can I understand what’s happening so that I can better position my company to participate in the environment in which we’re operating, and that means familiarizing ourselves, educating ourselves on the issues that are relevant. You know, for example, you know, with Cyber Monday, I had to educate myself to understand, you know, as the head of marketing, what is happening on this day? What magnitude of increase in traffic? What does that increase in traffic actually do to those websites? What does that do to the revenue of those e-commerce companies? Why would they be willing to work with us? So, you know, there was a lot of self-education that’s necessary. If you are in clothing manufacturing. It’s incumbent on you to understand what are the environmental challenges, how much of the waste from the manufacturing process is kind of being diverted into landfill. How is that impacting water quality. How is that impacting communities around the world? So that’s what I mean about the multi-dimensionality and the strategic thinking that has to come forward in order for you to be an effective marketer that really understands the moment and understands how to operate and respond in the moment.

Christian Klepp 18:03

That’s great answer. And now I’m going to ask you a follow up question. And that’s not because I want to play the devil’s advocate. I’m just kind of trying to highlight everybody to the reality that a lot of B2B marketers deal with, because it’s, yes, absolutely, it’s important to have multi-dimensional thinking, strategic thinking and whatnot. But how do you how do you address the issue? And it’s a very real one of companies in the B2B space that don’t believe that it’s marketing’s place to step up and deal with these situations. How can marketers address that kind of pushback?

Ren Agarwal 18:42

Yeah. Um, well, I mean, it’s a very broad objection, isn’t it, to say we don’t believe in XYZ. So it’s hard to, you know, it’s hard to address that specifically, but what I would say is that companies that are going to be around for the long term are going to be successful. Know that they have to speak to their customers and speak to their market. I think what we’re saying in this conversation is that it’s not just about the features and the price of your product. You know, it’s it goes beyond that. You have to do those things, and I spend a lot of time working with clients to help them with the core marketing skills. Content marketing, how do you satisfy the needs of a prospective site visitor, for example, to turn them into customer and client. So those things are still important, but clients are also looking broader, and so an effective company has to be able to understand the tone and the tenor of what customers are looking for, how your own brand is going to be seen out there, because if you are just kind of ignoring the conversation that’s happening out there, you know, you’re going to come across as being tone deaf, and your competition that is really up with what’s happening is going to seize market share, because they’re going to be seen as more responsible. They’re going to be seen as more relevant, and we, we know from data that customers want to see engaged companies that don’t have their head in the sand. But I’ll also say that each one of us has a choice to make. You know, some people will say, look, I want to go work at ethical companies, or I want to go work at companies where I can make an impact. I mean, rarely do you hear somebody that says, I want to go work at a company where I don’t really care if I make an impact or not. In fact, if I found that kind of a person and they were applying in my company, I would say, you know, this is probably not the right fit for you, because we want folks that want to make an impact, want to make a positive impact, right? So, but folks have to, you know, make their own choices when it comes to those, those decisions.

Christian Klepp 21:12

Yeah, no, absolutely. So if I’m hearing you correctly, I think what you’re trying to say is that marketing needs to lead within their organization, by A. being the voice of the customer and also leading with market research. I mean, to your point like, uh, using that manufacturing example, getting that research to understand the reality of the market, the situations out there, and how the companies can adequately address those issues in a responsible manner, right?

Ren Agarwal 21:42

Yeah, absolutely, because we know that you know the next generations really care about these topics. You know, you know your dad or your granddad might not necessarily care that your favorite sporting goods manufacturer, whether they recycle their products or not. But I can assure you that the future generations that means something to them, because they have to live in this world for a long time to come.

Christian Klepp 22:13

Absolutely, absolutely, and like a lot of these documentaries, say they are going to inherit the world that we are living in right now. Yes, right, yeah. And I find that that word is, that’s a very strong word, inherit, because it’s not necessarily something of their own doing, right? But this is the world that they’re, that they’re going to come into, essentially.

Ren Agarwal 22:34

I think you’re exactly right. I mean, they, they’ve inherited something that, you know, they have some challenges, and, you know, they want to be good stewards, and they want to know that the brands that they’re working with are good stewards. You know.

Christian Klepp 22:47

That’s right.

Ren Agarwal 22:48

But also, I mean, there’s a, there’s a tremendous, almost undefinable quality to working at a company that is doing no evil, and in fact, is actively working to do right in the world. And it does, you know, we’ve been talking a lot of environment, let’s leave that aside. You know, it could be just the Cyber Monday example that I gave. Hey, I work for a company that helps other companies improve their web performance, you know. And here’s how we do it, you know. So we’re actively involved with improving the internet. I mean, that’s a really powerful sell to your employees, that you’re looking to hire, your talent, your partners, you know? It’s a fantastic story. As opposed to, yeah, we’re selling web monitoring services. That’s not quite as sexy. And if you look at the companies that have outstanding brands, you know, it’s, it’s about more than just peddling product and service. It has to be, it has to be, you know.

Christian Klepp 23:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because if you’re just focusing on product and service, well, then you’re just going to drown, you know, it’s an overused term, drowning that sea of sameness. You’re just going to be like everybody else.

Ren Agarwal 24:06

You’re exactly right? Then it’s, then it’s just a price war, you know, right? Is your thing… If all you’re selling is price and features, well then, okay, that’s, that’s an easy conversation. Which one’s cheaper. And whether it’s consumer or B2B marketing, it applies because if you’re just going through down a list of features, and there’s nothing else to set your brand apart, you are not going to be as successful as you can be.

Christian Klepp 24:33

Absolutely, absolutely. I know you already mentioned one example, but like, can you give us some more examples of brands or companies that have successfully adapted to volatility, and if you can, what strategies they employ that set them apart.

Ren Agarwal 24:49

Recently, one of one of our clients had a just an advisory that went out, and it came on the heels of the CrowdStrike global impact. So what happened is that the CrowdStrike Falcon sensor product triggered this outage on Windows machines, and it was a really big deal. It was the biggest outage that we’ve ever experienced. No cyber-attack has ever even come close. So what this client of ours did was… said Hey, we can actually address this, because what we help their customers do is assess third party vendor risk. And so if you’re, think of yourself as a company. I mean, say you’re Delta Airlines, and which is a true story, and they are using CrowdStrike. Delta Airlines had half a billion dollar outage, so it really hit their company financially. So if you’re Delta Airlines, CrowdStrike would be a third party provider, or to you potentially, because you may not have had a direct relationship with that so our client, Prevalent, they sent out this great tool that they have to say, hey, we’ve got this vendor risk assessment tool that we’re making available to you that you can use to kind of assess who, which one of your third parties in your kind of IT supply chain, are they doing all the things that can prevent something like this from happening? So they inserted themselves into this conversation about the CrowdStrike Falcon outage in a really smart way, you know, kind of the way we did it years ago in the Cyber Monday example. They said, we’ve got a product or service that can actually help our customers. Let’s make this available to them. And, you know, and I think that that’s going to return to them, you know, really positive things. Now Marketing was involved with that. Say, this thing is happening. What can we do? And very quickly they were able to, kind of get this tool available, put this email together, and kind of send it out to their customer base, almost immediately. And you know, that’s an example of responding to volatility in a really, really smart way,

Christian Klepp 27:24

Yeah, yeah, no, great example, yeah, I almost had a feeling before you mentioned it, I had a feeling that you were talking about Prevalent, right? I don’t suppose they did it through some of the white papers too, right?

Ren Agarwal 27:33

Yes.

Christian Klepp 27:37

Fantastic, fantastic. On that note. I mean, just building on that topic, right? And you’ve given a few, but maybe if you can give us a few more, how can volatility create opportunities for marketers? Because, you know, it’s very easy to look at this and say, oh my gosh, this is like, you know, panic mode, crisis and whatnot. But what are some ways that companies can turn these challenges into actual advantages, right? Because it’s very easy to, like go down. I call it negativity slope, right

Ren Agarwal 28:05

Yeah, well, I think it comes from a strategic review. So you know, if you’re kind of heading up marketing, or you have people in your team that you’re assigning this to, I think the question to begin to ask is, what’s happening in the markets that we play in. So identifying those, those vertical markets, if you’re in B2B, and if you’re in B2C, identifying your personas and understanding, hey, let’s do an audit and understand what are the hot topics of conversation. Now, going back to your earlier question around kind of skills that marketers need. Well, you need the ability to very quickly pick up signals from the market. You know, what are the markets saying in these verticals that are important to us? And whether you do that through social, whether you do that through survey instruments, whether you do that through other means. You know, it becomes a skill to be able to understand how to pick up those signals. So that’s the first thing you have to do. You have to do an audit. You have to take a look at what the environment looks like, what’s trending, what are the hot topics in the verticals that you play in, or in the personas that that are important to your business. Once you understand that, then you want to review your own operations. It comes down to reviewing your products and services. It comes down to reviewing your own supply chain and seeing whether you yourself are doing things that kind of contribute to that volatility. So that’s A. B. If there are things that you can do to manage that volatility through your products and services. So if you’re doing something to kind of cause it and contribute to it, well, that’s the conversation that you can bring, you know, to the executive conversation and say, hey, you know, this is a really hot issue. Let’s go back to clothing manufacturing. In our space, we need to have a position on this. And I can assure you that every executive roundtable across the world that is involved with you know, clothing manufacturing cares about this topic, you know, and they want to do something about it, you know, if they want to stay relevant and they want to have a future. So now, you know, let’s say that you’re not contributing to it, but you could do your products and services do something to help your customers, maybe manage that volatility. Well, then you need to kind of dive deep and understand, hey, how can we be relevant, just the way that, you know, we did back on Cyber Monday. How can we be relevant in this conversation? You know? Well, we can be relevant by monitoring these websites on Cyber Monday and publicizing so that everybody can share in the insights on what companies can do to improve their website performance. That’s going to help everyone across the board. So, you know, though, that’s A and B. Those are, those are two ways in which you can begin to create, you know, tactical agility, after you’ve had the strategic foresight to understand where the volatility coming from.

Christian Klepp 31:31

Absolutely, absolutely. Well, there’s some great advice. I mean, you know, keeping your finger on the pulse of the market, understanding what you’re doing an audit, I guess, of what your your current assets and resources are, and also like, you know, having that ability to manage that volatility, right? It brings me back to something that was, you know, back in the days when I was still in advertising, and it was during the time that Barack Obama became president, and unfortunately, he inherited what then became the massive financial crisis of 2008 if memory serves me well, yeah. And almost I would say one to two weeks after that announcement right, that the markets were the markets were going haywire, we were officially in a recession, or what have you, this big advertising agency called Ogilvy and Mather, right? So O&M, one of the big four A’s, they came out with these series, the series of eBooks called marketing in a recession, right? Because at the end of the day, yes, there is a recession, yes, budgets are being cut, yes, you’re cutting back on a lot of costs, but if you completely switch the marketing engine off, you’re going to be in a lot of trouble. So these eBooks were basically meant to guide people through. Okay, there are, there are some budget cuts, right? You’re not, you’re you don’t have as much budget you know to use as you did before, but you can still do marketing, and this is how you can do it, right? So basically, yeah, you can say that they were reacting to the situation, but they were also using it as an opportunity to educate people. Okay, so now that you no longer have these resources at your disposal, it’s not all hopeless, right? It’s not all doom and gloom. There are options, there are solutions, there are alternatives.

Ren Agarwal 33:24

And they stepped into maybe a really quiet period where nobody’s reacting, and they say, Hey, let’s react to this, because we have something to say that can help contribute in a positive way.

Christian Klepp 33:40

Absolutely, absolutely. We brought this up in a previous conversation, but I’d like to go back to it like, so all these things that you’ve been talking about, right? And marketers reacting to all this volatility, how is this different as compared to, like, crisis communications and PR.

Ren Agarwal 33:57

Yeah, it’s a great question, and we should clarify it, because people sometimes get confused, right? You know, PR corporate communications is within the marketing function. What you want your PR, your crisis communications people to be really effective at is dealing with the media and dealing with the press. So that’s number one. Number two, they’re responsible for dealing with things that specifically impact the company and the brand, and so they have to be ready and prepared to be able to handle that. Now you can see, we haven’t said anything about customers. We haven’t said anything about being proactive. So and what happens is that marketers sometimes think, well, that PR has got that it’s volatility, it’s crisis. That sounds like PR, but in the conversation you and I have been having, I’m hoping that we’ve shown how there’s actually this incredible area that’s being completely unaddressed today, because PR is not doing it, because they’re saying, Hey, I’m dealing with the media, and I’m responsible for the company’s reputation, and marketing hasn’t picked it up and understood that, oh, there’s tremendous marketing opportunity here for us that we can actually step into. Have some strategic foresight, do that audit and then come back with tactical ways in which we can address it? Does that make sense?

Christian Klepp 35:21

Absolutely, absolutely. It’s that, you know, that ability to draw the line in the sand between, okay, so this is, this is not what this is not what crisis comms and PR should be handling. And, right?

Ren Agarwal 35:35

And they work together. I mean, there has to be partnership, you know, there has to be partnership. But the head of marketing is really the person responsible for taking a look at this topic, this volatility, and saying, You know what, we need to kind of step up and have some positions. We need to have some capability to be able to participate in this conversation. What ends up happening is that when you don’t have an approach and you haven’t thought through these issues, that’s when your brand can get snared. When volatility shows or crisis shows that directly impacts you, because you’re caught flat footed, as opposed to your proactive. You have position statements, you have products and services that can address the issue. You are educating your customers. You are vocal on these points in these conversations, so people clearly understand where you stand, and the absence of that is where you can get caught flat footed. And you know, then you need your crisis communications people to step up.

Christian Klepp 36:42

Yeah, that’s absolutely right. That’s absolutely right. Ren, you’ve given us a lot of like, actionable tips, I’m gonna say during this conversation, but I like to ask you for a little bit more, right? So the question is, what advice would you have for marketers on preparing their organizations internally to respond to external challenges. So how can they ensure their teams are ready to act quickly and effectively?

Ren Agarwal 37:06

Yeah, well, I think it comes from that, you know, that kind of strategic review that we talked about, because you can only be ready when you thought about the topic at hand, right? And so you need to have a part of your marketing plan, your marketing strategy that takes a look at these issues, and we identified that earlier, right looking at the verticals in which you operate, and looking at the personas that you are actively marketing to, and being really familiar with the topics that are hot button issues in those in those situations, it’s only when you’ve gone through that then you can then sit down and say, Okay, here’s how we’re going to prepare for it. And then you can have messaging platforms that say, here’s how we are actively, proactively addressing these specific issues, and that messaging platform can then help you get those key messages into your product pages, into your services pages, into your customer communications, into your employee communications, into your partner communications, right, your website, your newsletters, your collateral, your presentations. That’s the way it happens, because somebody sat down, thought about it, put that messaging platform together, and then over time, actively worked to get it into those other channels.

Christian Klepp 38:37

Absolutely, absolutely. You know, that’s fantastic advice. All right, Ren, I’ve got two more questions before I let you go, right. So here comes the bonus question. So rumor has it, or I should say, let me rephrase that, the word on the street is that you dabble in playwriting, or writing scripts for theatrical performances. So the question is, if you had the opportunity to stage one of your plays anywhere in the world, where would it be? And why?

Ren Agarwal 39:10

Oh, boy, that’s a terrific question. So since I’m based in San Francisco, I’d love for my play to be set to be produced in San Francisco, because then I can invite my family, my friends and my business colleagues, and also, San Francisco is just a wonderful place, you know, for people to visit, if they want to come visit. And there’s great energy here as well. So I’d love for that to see, to see a play produced here.

Christian Klepp 39:41

Fantastic, fantastic. Yeah, somehow I kind of felt that you were going to be more inclined to say something like La Scala in Milan or Covent Garden or something like that.

Ren Agarwal 39:51

Well, you know, maybe the play will be so successful that it’ll travel the globe, and I’ll travel the globe with it,

Christian Klepp 39:57

Maybe, maybe. But you know what, San Francisco’s a great start. Right, yeah, right, if ever. Ren, once again, thank you so much for coming on the show again, and you know, for sharing your experience and expertise with the listeners. So please quick intro to yourself and how people out there can get in touch with you.

Ren Agarwal 40:12

Sure. So I can be reached at Rena@StoryAZ.studio. We have a content marketing agency where we help our clients develop all manner of content, which is really core to what marketing does today. People can visit our website. Then, you know, they can. They can reach me directly. We’d love to talk to folks, and if they’re looking for consultation or just some strategy or some thoughts, happy to do that. If they’re looking for help with their content marketing, of course, we can go into that conversation as well.

Christian Klepp 40:54

Fantastic, fantastic once again. Ren, thanks for coming to the show. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon,

Ren Agarwal 41:01

Christian, thank you. Hope you have a great rest of your summer. All right.

Christian Klepp 41:04

Thanks bye for now. Welcome.

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