Clarkson’s Farm: B2B Marketing Lessons from Jeremy Clarkson’s New Show with Co-Founder & SVP of GTM Strategy at Passetto, Sidney Waterfall

How much of the realities of your business do you want your audience to see? The truth is, there are benefits to baring it all.

Especially when you’re a startup, showing your trials and tribulations endears your brand to viewers. It feels raw and real and trusting. 

It’s a way to build an audience of dedicated fans. And in this episode, we’re learning about this kind of radical transparency from Jeremy Clarkson.

Known in the car world for his shenanigans and quick wit on the show The Grand Tour, Jeremy Clarkson is now learning how to farm on his new show, Clarkson’s Farm. 

He’s doing what we call “building in public,” and showing viewers what it’s really like to grow a farm from the ground up. 

That’s one of the things we’re talking about this week on Remarkable with the help of our special guest, Co-Founder & SVP of GTM Strategy at Passetto, Sidney Waterfall.

Together, we talk about the benefits of building in public, using comedic tropes to add humor to your marketing, and transitioning your audience to a new POV. 

About our guest, Sidney Waterfall

Sidney Waterfall is the Co-Founder and SVP of GTM Strategy at Passetto. She’s a sales and product-led B2B SaaS Marketer that transitions marketing teams from MQL’s to revenue. Prior to her current role, Sidney served as SVP of Growth at Refine Labs. She has also previously held marketing roles at Ally.io, Trupanion, Simply Measured, Microsoft and Verizon.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Clarkson’s Farm:

• Build in public. Show the real, raw moments with your audience as a way to be transparent and build trust. Sidney says, “Share your experience to connect with your audience and become relatable. [Jeremy Clarkson] was known in the car world. He has a huge audience. He's trying something else. So he's like, ‘I'm just going to show the real raw moments.’ And they do on the show. They show exciting moments, they show frustrating moments. I think that is becoming more popular in the B2B space. People are sharing their journey of building a company or building a product or using a product, and they're being a little bit more transparent with the ups and downs of that, even when they're marketing to a certain ICP.” She adds, “I think that helps content really resonate with people and that helps people build audiences and brands build audiences through that type of strategy.”
• Add humor by using comedic tropes. Sidney says, “Good writing or copy stands out with a bit of humor. And wit is very effective.” Ian adds, “There's a comedic lesson there any time you have a fish out of water. You take someone who knows nothing and put them with a bunch of people who know lots of stuff.” It’s like how Jeremy Clarkson doesn’t know anything about farming and he’s surrounded by farmers trying to help him work his land. Viewers are also learning while watching the show, so it’s a great way to edutain as well.
• You can transition your current audience and acquire new audience members from a new POV or a new niche. Jeremy Clarkson will draw viewers from his previous show, The Grand Tour, to his new one, Clarkson’s Farm, because he’s built a name for himself. And he’ll also gain new viewers who are interested in the concept of his new show. So some will have been interested in cars, some in farming or homesteading, others in Jeremy Clarkson as a personality. Sidney says, “This is applicable to my current situation of going from one brand that was very well known with a huge founder brand, and now standing up another company underneath that same founder.” She says, “We have an incredible audience to use and leverage. So really positioning our founder's brand as multiple businesses. And he’s talking to a different level of audience than he previously was. So from his content strategy, we're changing up who the content is targeted for. And then on the side of that, it's like, ‘Okay, how do we build the brand of Passetto outside of the founder at the same time as we start to scale so that people in the market know the difference between Refine Labs and Passetto?'”

Quotes

 *”One of the things that I thought you did so well at Refine Labs was naming the problem with something specific. To say, ‘Dark social is the thing that is happening. And here is how you go attack it.’That is the part of thought leadership that just frames the audience so quickly into solve and learn mode, and is super important. You have to find the thing that's going to resonate, and be easy to say and easy to understand.” - Ian Faison

*”[Jeremy Clarkson] is definitely the main character, what kind of makes the show. And I relate that to marketing as, like, that's the founder brand, or like, that's like the face of the company or the spokesperson. And he's been able to take his massive audience and transition some of that over, but also acquire a new audience into his brand. But he's still being very true to himself, his personality and his character. It's like rinse and repeat what he was doing over in the automotive space in this new space.” - Sidney Waterfall

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Sidney Waterfall, Co-Founder & SVP of GTM Strategy at Passetto

[2:28] About the Creation of Clarkson's Farm

[4:01] Jeremy Clarkson's Farming Journey

[7:50] Showing the Realities of Farming

[20:39] Marketing Lessons from Clarkson's Farm

[24:12] Using Comedic Tension in B2B Marketing

[25:46 How to Transition Audiences with a New POV

[27:50] Building a Brand Outside the Founder

[28:47] Sidney’s Content Strategy and Execution

[36:00] The Importance of Thought Leadership

[40:40] Sidney’s Favorite Content Projects and How She Proves ROI

[46:51] Sidney’s Advice for Other Marketing Professionals

Links

Connect with Sidney on LinkedIn

Learn more about Passetto

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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