Remarkable Content with Ian Faison Moneyball: B2B Marketing Lessons from the Academy Award-Winning Movie with Founder & CMO of Entry Point 1, Tim Hillison
Data is going to help you up your marketing game. We’re showing you how.
Right off the bat, “data analysis” probably doesn’t stir the soul. But it’s how you tune into your target audience so you can tailor your campaigns to them. Your messages will be more relevant, you’ll boost engagement, and not only convert leads but create lasting customer relationships. In other words, it’s by leveraging data that you graduate from bush league to pro. And what better way to show the benefits of leveraging data than talking about how sabermetrics shaped the world of baseball.
So In this episode, we’re talking about the Academy Award-winning movie, Moneyball, with the help of special guest, Founder & CMO of Entry Point 1, Tim Hillison. Together, we chat about tuning into your marketing data, doing market research to understand your ICP, and tying statistics to human stories. So batter up for this episode of Remarkable.
About our guest, Tim Hillison
Tim Hillison is the Founder & CMO of Entry Point 1, a growth advisory consultancy for B2B SaaS & Technology startups and scaleups. He has 25 years of global marketing experience, has led marketing three times on two continents, and has worked for some of the world’s most recognized brands, including Visa, Microsoft, and PayPal. Tim’s expertise spans Fortune 500 enterprises and fast-moving venture-funded technology startups from series A - E.
About Entry Point 1
Entry Point 1 connects marketing strategy to business outcomes across the customer journey. Helping it’s customers build launch, and run efficient marketing programs that transform their organizations and financial results.
About Moneyball
Moneyball is based on a true story about the general manager of the Oakland Athletics trying to assemble a competitive baseball team on a tight budget. This comes after the A’s loss to the Yankees the previous year, in 2001, and as they’re losing their star players. So the GM, Billy Beane, teams up with player analyst and Yale economics grad, Peter Brand, and together they use sabermetrics to evaluate and sign undervalued players.
Sabermetrics are statistics of in-game activity, including batting, pitching and fielding. The term comes from the acronym SABR, for the Society for American Baseball Research. It’s a way to look objectively at player performance. In other words, Peter Brand says it’s a way to “find value in players that nobody else can see. People are overlooked for a variety of biased reasons and perceived flaws. Age, appearance, and personality.”
So the movie is about challenging a traditional value system, where big city teams that have money can afford better players whereas small market teams have to be more strategic about who they sign.
The movie came out in 2011 and is based on a book by author Michael Lewis called Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. It stars Brad Pitt as Billy Beane and Jonah Hill as Peter Brand. It was directed by Bennett Miller and the screenplay is by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin. It was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.
What B2B Companies Can Learn From Moneyball:
- Tune into your marketing data. It will tell you objectively what strategies are most effective. Use that information to dial in your content. You’ll uncover new and overlooked ways of marketing that you wouldn’t have used otherwise. Ian says that It’s like in Moneyball, when “Billy Bean realizes that you can get a player who can't run, can't catch and can't steal bases; They can only hit home runs, but that’s super valuable. And while everyone else sees them as a bad player, you see them as a gem. So what are your marketing versions of that? Is it a channel? Is it a budget item? Is it a way to create something that is consistent and repeatable that won’t be perfect, but it will be consistent?”
- Do market research to understand your ICP. That is, your Ideal Customer Profile. This is how you know your product is meeting an actual need, not a perceived one. Tim says, “You have to do market research for this, to understand where your customers are and where to meet them and what different channels work better for those companies. If you don't spend the time aligning your revenue team to understand that at the beginning, and you just rush right into the tactics, that's where you miss the mark.”
- Tie statistics to human stories. Along with the stats you use to prove value to your audience, tell customer success stories. Because it's those human stories that will seal the deal with your audience. Ian says, “Stats are pretty boring, but stats give you a story that is extremely compelling in which there are human beings at the end of the statistic.” It’s another way to humanize your brand, by sharing stories instead of just numbers.
Quotes
*”[The A’s] lose like 14 games before winning 20 games in a row, which beats the record. This is what B2B marketing is about because there are lead and lag times in marketing. Marketing is not something where you do it and instantly it happens. ” - Tim Hillison
*”In your marketing, you need to find those customer stories where it went above and beyond, where they tell their family and friends about it, where it changed someone's career.” - Ian Faison
*”People buy from others like them. And also we know that B2B buyers are not passive. They're out there scouring the internet to research your brand before sales even calls you. And so those that are authentic and have a strategy, meaning that they're talking with a consistent brand voice using the same story and relevant messaging, and they understand their ICP's frustrations and pain points, that is where you build future relationships.” - Tim Hillison
*”Helping people get to the next level. That's what they want. How is your software or how is your product going to help people achieve their goals? It's that level of authenticity people want to help them get there.” - Tim Hillison
*”Sometimes you try something new and it doesn't work out at first. Then you have to tweak it before it starts getting better and better and better, and then you're on a roll as a team. That energy is electric, and all it does is bring you together as a team. It’s an amazing wave of emotion that’s created in the film, too.”
Time Stamps
[0:55] Meet Tim Hillison, Founder & CMO of Entry Point 1
[2:01] Why are we talking about Moneyball?
[3:26] What does Tim’s work at Entry Point 1 entail?
[3:48] What is Moneyball about?
[11:39] What makes Moneyball remarkable?
[17:53] What marketing lessons can we take from Moneyball?
[42:43] What’s Tim’s content strategy?
[46:58] How does Tim prove the ROI of content?
[49:22] What are some of Tim’s favorite pieces of content or campaigns?
[51:16] What advice would Tim give to marketers today?
Links
Learn more about Entry Point 1
About Remarkable!
Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both non-fiction 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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