Digital marketing director Ertan Benzes on demand generation

Carlota Pico recently spoke with Germany-based Ertan Benzes, EMEA and India demand generation and digital marketing director at CHEP. He’s been working at this sustainable pallet and container pooling services company for over 30 years. He shared some of his biggest accomplishments at CHEP—the “invisible backbone of the supply chain”—like creating a marketing automation system and consolidating the brand’s LinkedIn pages (which helped grow its following from 24,000 to 190,000).

Ertan also discussed best practices for conversing on LinkedIn, defined the best channels for B2B marketing, explained how demand generation works, and highlighted the importance of incorporating data into marketing strategy.

You can watch the full conversation in the video above or on YouTube, and listen to the podcast on Apple and Spotify.

People in marketing are in love with what they can analyze: click rates, likes, conversion rates—you name it. But at the end of the day, the key is how you link this data to the financial aspect. Did we get new customers? That’s the core question.

Rapid-fire recs

Source of inspiration: “Simon Sinek is a great author and speaker. I’m also inspired by Bill Gates, Barack Obama and Douglas Adams. Adams’ book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is still an inspirational piece of literature.”

Book or publication: “Thinking, Fast and Slow by Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman is a fantastic book about cognition and how humans make decisions. And Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter is another inspirational book about cognitive science.”

App or tech tip: “One of the Apple Watch’s newest features is a 20-second timer that automatically starts when you’re washing your hands. It’s an amazing combination of science and software.”

Connect with Ertan and Carlota on LinkedIn.

This post was edited by Mary Kresge, a marketing assistant based in Madrid.