When We Were Young Festival: B2B Marketing Lessons from the Festival to Remember with Head of Content Marketing at CoreWeave, Brooke Gocklin

Morrissey, Taking Back Sunday, Alkaline Trio, Streetlight Manifesto…

For dedicated fans, these are bands that bring back memories of checkered Vans shoes, studded belts, and paper wrist bands from each show.

But some of them haven’t toured in years.

So to see them all on one festival poster 20 years after their heyday made fans think it was too good to be true. It wasn’t, and it lived up to the hype.

So in this episode, we’re talking about all the good - and questionable - marketing that went into the When We Were Young Festival.

With the help of our special guest, Head of Content Marketing at CoreWeave, Brooke Gocklin, we’re talking about painting the picture, building a community of advocates, and delivering on the hype.

About our guest, Brooke Gocklin

Brooke Gocklin is the Head of Content Marketing at CoreWeave. Prior to joining the company in July 2024, she was the Editor-in-Chief at Contently, where she led content strategy and editorial direction for The Content Strategist and The Freelance Creative. Brooke is a recognized expert in content marketing, with a particular focus on the evolving role of AI in business. At Persado, an AI-language generation company, Brooke honed her skills in content creation for AI-driven solutions. Her deep understanding of technical products positioned her as a subject matter expert in the evolving AI space. Her work, featured in Adweek and Content Marketing Institute, reflects her deep understanding of how to craft impactful content strategies and engaging narratives that resonate with target audiences.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From the When We Were Young Festival:

• Paint the picture. Show your audience what doing business with you would look like. When they’re able to visualize the tangible benefits of becoming a customer, it makes it that much easier for them to sign on the dotted line. For the When We Were Young Festival, the organizers made a poster with album covers of all of the bands who would be performing. Ian says, “[It’s] brilliant, right? You have to show people what it would look like. I have found over the years that if you can mock something up, it’s so much easier, right? It's much harder to get an idea of something in a Google doc.” So paint the picture. Mock up an idea of what your product looks like for your audience.
• Build a community of advocates. Bands like Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance and Taking Back Sunday have created communities of fiercely loyal fans. Brooke says, “And so that means that when you see all of these bands coming together, the reaction is, is this even real? But two, it gives you a sense of like, ‘Oh my gosh, I have to be there. And I have to tell my friends about this.’ And so I think that for B2B marketers, you know, really leveraging customer advocates or people who are just really excited about your product or service to amplify your message builds trust in a wider audience. So choose customers who love you, who love your product, who love your service and leverage them to tell others about you.”
• Deliver on the hype. You can tease about a product or service as much as you want, as long as it delivers what it promises. Brooke says, “When We Were Young created a massive buzz with a huge lineup. They also did a lot of teasers, but most importantly, they really backed it up with a well organized incredible event. Credibility is so important. So you can't just hype something up whether that's your product or service. And not have it live up to expectations. So as marketers, I think it's really crucial when you're thinking about B2B, to build trust and credibility from the get go. So whether that means that you're creating content that is factually accurate and all of the products and features, functionalities live up to what you're selling them as. That is important, right? So you need to establish your brand as a go-to resource, but you do that by being credible.”

Quotes

*”As far as how I think about content, it's really like connective tissue. I think it's at the core and at the center of a brand story. So, you need content to be able to bring people into the funnel. You need content as they're exploring, getting to know you. You need content when they're at that purchasing stage, or even after they become a customer, you still need them to engage with you. And you need to be putting out ideas that provoke some sort of thought and that's valuable to them.”

*”Really good content marketing is about creating value for your audience and really helping them solve their problems. So my approach has always been: start with the audience. What do they care about? What are their challenges? And then craft content that speaks directly to those needs. I think that that is a key differentiator when it comes to content strategy.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Brooke Gocklin, Head of Content Marketing at CoreWeave

[3:10] When We Were Young Festival's Unique Marketing Tactics

[8:11] Nostalgia and Community Building

[19:39] Marketing Lessons for B2B

[22:31] The Power of Loyal Fan Bases

[23:14] Leveraging Customer Advocates in B2B Marketing

[24:09] Building Online Communities

[26:54] Activating a Community

[29:43] Delivering on the Hype

[31:40] Content Strategy and Its Importance

[34:11] Successful Content Campaigns

[37:16] Measuring Content ROI

[39:38] Exciting New Projects at CoreWeave

[41:06] Advice for New Heads of Content

Links

Connect with Brooke on LinkedIn

Learn more about CoreWeave

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. 

In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

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