Here is a transcript generated by otter.ai of The Content Mix podcast interview with Michael Lonnon, UK-based master of marketing for Stibo Systems:

Shaheen Samavati 0:13
Hi everyone, I’m Shaheen from The Content Mix, and I’m excited to be here with Michael Lonnon, EMEA marketing director for UK-based master data management company Stibo Systems. Thanks so much for joining us.

Michael Lonnon 0:24
You’re very welcome, pleased to be here.

Shaheen Samavati 0:27
So first, I just wanted to start out by asking you a bit about your background, and how you got into marketing and specifically content marketing.

Michael Lonnon 0:34
So I’ve been in marketing for about 20 years now, and I had a bit of an auspicious start. So when I was at university, I was doing a sports science degree, which I didn’t particularly enjoy. So I dropped out of university and went looking for jobs and thought, well, who has the most money, in IT? So I went and found myself a little, I had an interview for an IT company called Sun Microsystems, who invented Java, for those who are familiar with that. And I didn’t get the job, unfortunately, it was for I think it was a business administration job at the time. But the lady said that I was slightly overqualified, that I would get bored there and leave, and that’s not what she wanted. So what I did, as most sensible people should do, is pick up the phone afterwards, ask her why, what happened, did I interview badly, was there a problem, what other issues? And she quite liked that proactive, call me back in response, so yeah, she invited me back in and she offered me a different job as a marketing assistant. So then began on February 2000 my first job in marketing, as a marketing assistant for Sun Microsystems, and that’s how I got started.

Shaheen Samavati 1:42
I see, so you really kind of fell into it.

Michael Lonnon 1:45
A little bit, yeah. Absolute by luck or chance, and the lady, Fiona Gallagher, was a very sweet lady, and yeah, I guess I should dedicate much of where I am today to her from the start.

Shaheen Samavati 1:57
Yes, she saw your marketing potential, it sounds like.

Michael Lonnon 2:01
There must have been something, must be something there, maybe was what I wrote on the CV, I don’t know.

Shaheen Samavati 2:06
I see, so how did you evolve from there into what you’re doing now? I mean, 20 years so you have to summarize a bit, I suppose.

Michael Lonnon 2:13
Yeah, it’s quite difficult, but I’m quite a tenacious person. So I think largely it was about looking for opportunities and things to get my teeth into. And also I don’t like sitting around, so you know, not when you get bored, but once you feel like you’ve got to a point, you want to move on to another point, you want to another point. And by bugging the hell out of my managers throughout the years as I moved from Sun Microsystems into partner roles into direct marketing roles, and then into Microsoft, to do more things with developers, and then so on and so forth and move through… It was just a case of looking for the opportunities, looking for things where I felt like I could add value. There were gaps in marketing, delivery, whatever it was, it was just looking at them and bugging the hell out my manager. As I say it was kind of the approach that I took each time, and just looking for those opportunities to learn. Because I’m quite a, I read a lot, I look at a lot, and I research a lot, and it’s just about what other skill is going to pick up. And that’s largely where it’s come from.

Shaheen Samavati 2:18
So in your role previous to Stibo, you were really in charge of content marketing, right? And then in your role now, I imagine that’s just one part of what you do as EMEA marketing director.

Michael Lonnon 3:33
Yeah. The company I was at before, a marketing agency where I looked after creative and content for five and a half years, was a fantastic opportunity, because I got to work with so many different companies doing so many different things, different campaigns. And you know, these guys at these companies were operating across different industries, they were approaching different contacts, different personas. So the way that you approach one person in one industry or for one product is different to how you would do it to somebody else, to somebody else, to somebody else. So the approaches you’d have to take would be different. And because, it really helps you cut your teeth, because you’re effectively taking somebody’s money, and helping them quadruple it, taking different approaches to market, you learn a lot, you learn quickly. And, you know, I’m quite a tight person, so I like to make my money stretch. So I was always looking at different ways that I could take that money and spread it as widely as I could. And content is a massive part of anything that you do, it’s the most important part of anything that you do. So I always put that at the center of any campaign that I ran, any event that I did, any creative I created—content always had a fundamental part of it, yeah. So that was a great learning experience.

Shaheen Samavati 4:57
So can you kind of explain what your day-to-day is like now, as EMEA marketing director at Stibo?

Michael Lonnon 5:04
Yeah. So I take a lot of what I learnt over the last 20 odd years. And really, I go to trade shows, and I meet different individuals, and I try and influence—that’s a bit of a crap word—I try and influence individuals to listen to our message, to understand what it is that we do, what the value is that we offer, and then come to us when there’s an opportunity for the products that we sell. But a lot of it’s about persuasion, a lot of it is about gaining interest, because if I’m being brutally honest, a lot of the content that our competitors farm out there isn’t very good. So it’s not very difficult to stand out, which is a fantastic place for me to be in. But again, it’s about content and the message that you get out into market. So I do a lot of emails, I do a lot of nurturing, a lot of, as I say, a lot of events or the social media. But all of it, doesn’t matter what it is, whether it’s a wall on a stand at an event, it’s all about the copy. It’s all about the content. It’s about the message. And that’s the most important thing.

Shaheen Samavati 6:10
I noticed that compared to a lot of B2B companies, you guys do a lot of storytelling, I think, in your blog posts, especially the ones written by you; I read your post about the Champs-Élysées.

Michael Lonnon 6:10
Yeah, that was…

Shaheen Samavati 6:20
I could definitely relate to that, living in Madrid, where we have very similar roundabouts. So yeah, just curious how storytelling plays into your content approach.

Michael Lonnon 6:38
Yeah, I think one of the best lessons I’ve picked up over the years, from other people I read, is ultimately you’re writing to individuals. It doesn’t matter if it’s B2B or if it’s B2C, whether it’s anything to anything. You’re writing to an individual who is going to make an emotional decision at some point, and the best way to connect with those individuals is through the stories that you tell, then you become relatable. And again, going back to a lot of the stuff that I see, a lot of it’s fluffy, a lot of its corporate, a lot of it is not very good. Because it just doesn’t, it simply doesn’t relate to the individual. It doesn’t address the “you” in the conversation. And that’s missed a lot of the time. So I always try and make it relate to, in some way, shape or form, even if the experiences that I go through myself as an individual aren’t particularly interesting, but you know, it’s just trying to make it relatable to the reader. That’s what it’s about, I think.

Shaheen Samavati 7:35
So for those who don’t know, can you tell us a little bit about what Stibo Systems does?

Michael Lonnon 7:40
Yeah, so Stibo Systems is a Danish master data management vendor. We’re a foundation, we’ve gone for about 225 years. So I think we’re the oldest computer, or the oldest software company on the planet, which is a bit of an odd statement to make, but it actually is. And what we do is we look after, for example, customer information. So anybody looking to sell more to their customers or to communicate with their customers, or to engage with their customers better, needs a good handle on customer information. And that’s kind of where we help, and also with product information. So for example, if you’re going to a supermarket and you’re looking to buy a bunch of products, you’re going to check the labels out and see what ingredients are on there, what the calorific type of information is on there. The more information you have, the more inclined you are to buy that particular product. So we’re about giving the supermarkets and the manufacturers and the producers that information. In short, that’s what it’s all about.

Shaheen Samavati 8:40
I see. So who is your audience for content marketing?

Michael Lonnon 8:44
My audience in particular is chief data officers or heads of data. So they’re the people who look after the information that businesses take in, and how they then manage it, and how they then use it within their organization. So it’s those people who are setting the strategy and setting—I prefer this actually, it’s more relatable—building a data culture. So it really is about helping those organizations work out what they’re going to do with information they have on customers and products and suppliers and vendors. And so, again, it makes a difference, you know, I’m talking to chief data officers and these guys are sometimes quite technical, a lot of them actually, they’ve got to be a business background. But everything that I try and write to these guys is all about the value, the business value, because master data management is a bit of a dusty topic. And, you know, again, it’s about making the topic relatable. What is the outcome? If you’ve got master data management, what can change for you as a business? What can change for you as an individual? How does it impact your consumers? What do they get out of it as a result? How will their lives be better and will it change? And again, it comes back down to stories a lot of the time, it’s about how you build that story out. You don’t talk about the products, don’t about the fees, don’t talk about the space, don’t talk about master data management—just talk about what it is they’re going to get out of the thing once they’ve got it. What’s the benefit to everybody? This is the most important thing, I think.

Shaheen Samavati 10:16
Yeah, absolutely. Very good point. And then, do you have any examples of like the approach that you take or the types of content you produce that work the best for you?

Michael Lonnon 10:27
Yeah. So when I first joined Stibo Systems three and a half years ago, the biggest problem that I found very quickly was that 80% of the people we were talking to didn’t know who we are, didn’t know what it is that we did, or didn’t really understand the value of the thing that we did. So I created a campaign called “What is master data management and why you need it,” or “What master data management is and why you need it.” And what it did is it created a story, it basically put the reader, I wrote about the reader, what would happen to them if their company had master data management, when they went home? What impacts of having master data management would impact their lives? And what I did is I tried to build content, lots of different social media stuff, lots of different emails, a series of emails, a series of videos that would encapsulate sort of that message. And it was, for example, in the videos, I built these scenarios where people were actually using products that were incorrect. They were wrong. I think one guy was squeezing toothpaste out onto his toothbrush, and it was kind of a mustardy sort of thing rather than the actual product itself, because the information just didn’t exist. So it’s, you know, really extreme examples, but it was just about putting it into the life. It wasn’t about talking about master data management, it really wasn’t—it was just talking about what it meant to have it, ultimately, to those individuals and their consumers. Because although we’re selling to these people, it’s their consumers who are most important to them. So we were almost selling on to that part there. And that worked particularly well. And to be honest, it still works now. I still use it now. I still use the emails, I still use the videos, I still have created a series of white papers and reports which pull people through the experience itself. So if somebody who doesn’t know what master data management, or doesn’t understand the value of it, will soon learn what it is really quickly, really easily. And then they’ll move through this—I hate to use the phrase—”funnel process,” where they move on to different educational pieces. That kind of worked perfectly, and it still does today.

Shaheen Samavati 12:41
Awesome. And being a data company, I imagine data of your content campaigns might be something you look at. I mean, how important is that, and how do you measure whether or not your content is doing well?

Michael Lonnon 12:53
Yeah, so that’s difficult, depending on how big and wide and deep the activities go. And it’s always that challenge. So we use HubSpot to help us, and Salesforce to help us manage our contacts and the engagements that we get. HubSpot in particular we use to, not to create but to manage our content as well. So we can see clickers, openers, people who are engaging. I’ve got things hooked up, so for example, if somebody downloads something, then I get informed, I can then engage with that person to see what it was they were after. So a lot of it is about the tools that you have, but they’re sort of crap, they don’t mean anything, if you haven’t built some level of human understanding of the process people are going through to support those things. So HubSpot on its own is garbage, unless you set it up in the right way. And this is how I tend to build these things. How do I measure it? So it’s the number of qualified opportunities that I get out the back of it. And my old sales director from my previous company would say that if you’re spending 10 pounds, you should get 100 pounds back out of it. So my budget’s always kind of on a 10-to-1 sort of basis. And it’s worked quite well, although I’m not quite sure I’ve answered the question…

Shaheen Samavati 14:18
Yeah, absolutely, I think that makes a lot of sense. I mean, the bottom line is it has to bring you clients. Like all those other numbers in between don’t really matter, right? If you’re getting tons of traffic and downloads and whatever, if they’re not the right people, then it’s not important.

Michael Lonnon 14:31
You’re absolutely right. And still too many of my peers do manage to record these things in isolation: “Oh great, I’ve sent an email, and look, we got 13 clicks, woohoo, we’re at 1%, that’s above industry average.” Or whatever they determine to be industry average, but it doesn’t matter. None of that matters. None of what we do—content creation, email marketing, digital marketing, whatever it is—none of that matters unless you get a sale at the end of the day. Because nothing happens until something is sold. So that’s what it comes down to.

Shaheen Samavati 15:06
Absolutely, totally agree with you. Well, I have to ask you the question about Europe, considering we’re getting close to the end of the time. But one more question and then I’ll go into the recommendations, which I always do at the end. But I wanted to ask you just kind of, as EMEA marketing director, that must mean that you’re working in a bunch of different European markets, right? So how do you manage that, and what are the challenges and opportunities that are there?

Michael Lonnon 15:35
Yeah, it’s an interesting one, actually. Because different countries have different cultures, the people you deal with, although they’re similarly titled, chief data officers for example, heads of data, the actual, the way they engage with you is very, very different. For example, those in the Nordic countries are brilliant to work with. They’re very abrupt, very blunt. They’re very truthful. And so you’ve got to make your messaging, your content, fit to that purpose. You can’t… I’ve got a great example actually. I used to work in France as well, and I used to take what I did in English, translate it into French and send those things out, and I got pulled up on it by one of my colleagues once. And he said, “No, no, no, you can’t do it like this, you have to do it…” (that’s terrible, that’s not a French accent). But what he did is he took one of my paragraphs of an email that I’d written, and he wrote it out literally in the French way. And it was about two paragraphs longer, it was massive, and he called it flowering it up. So in France, the content becomes much longer. But in Nordic countries, for example, it has to be much shorter, much more concise, get to the point much faster. Whereas in the UK, you can be a little bit more descriptive, you can go into a little bit more detail and people will still understand the message you’re trying to get across. So from that point of view, it’s a brilliant exercise, but ultimately still dealing with individuals, still dealing with personalities, they still have an emotional connection to the things you’re saying. So from that point of view, everything’s still emotive. It’s just about who it is you’re talking to and kind of the cultural background. So make sure you do your research and understand a little bit more about the audiences you’re talking to.

Shaheen Samavati 17:16
Absolutely. Okay, so I’ll go into the recommendation questions. So what is an app or a tool that you can’t work without?

Michael Lonnon 17:25
That’s got to be, I would say that’s HubSpot. Yeah. It’s got to be HubSpot. Yeah. That thing is so wired into my daily existence at the moment that I can’t do without it.

Shaheen Samavati 17:35
Okay, and yeah, we got that from before, kind of it’s your central marketing automation platform to keep track of how everything is going in your campaigns, right?

Michael Lonnon 17:44
Exactly, yeah.

Shaheen Samavati 17:45
And then, any marketing influencer, preferably in Europe, who you follow?

Michael Lonnon 17:52
I would say my biggest, the person I follow most is a guy called Drayton Bird. He is a 80-odd-year-old copywriter, used to work with David Ogilvy at Ogilvy & Mather, if anyone is familiar with them, and he is bloody brilliant. The things he says, often outrageous but very on point, and the lessons you can pick up from him are fantastic. And one lesson that I pick up from him, and I try and convince my children this is what matters, is that good writing starts with good reading. You know, that’s the key message. You cannot hope to influence people, you cannot hope to persuade, you cannot hope to get a message across if you’ve not read enough to understand about how copy works to persuade people to do things. So I read tons. And he also recommends other people to read on as well. So for example, I’m reading at the moment “One + One = Three: A Masterclass in Creative Thinking” by Dave Trott. Amazing, amazing, so get on that. There’s lots of different books as well, but Drayton Bird: fantastic.

Shaheen Samavati 19:06
Okay, sounds like a great recommendation, I’ll have to check him out. And then any valuable European group or event that you’re a part of?

Michael Lonnon 19:15
Yeah so, I’d always say to somebody in whatever it is that they’re doing, get yourself entrenched in what it is that you’re doing. So for me, I work with chief data officers of large enterprise organizations. So I spend a lot of my time at a group called CDO Exchange, where these guys go, where they talk, they networ, it’s peer-to-peer relationships. And by being there, I get to understand what pain it is that they’re going through, so I can sort of address my messages to fit. And also my face gets known, as well. So it becomes much easier to have conversations with these individuals when it comes to buying decisions. So CDO Exchange for me is a big one for myself. Yeah, that’s where I sit.

Shaheen Samavati 20:04
Okay, great. And do you have any parting words or final advice you’d give to people looking to advance in their content careers?

Michael Lonnon 20:12
I think the two messages I’ve said here resonate massively; think about those. But I’ll add in a third one. So the first one is, nothing happens till something gets sold. So make sure you track and measure absolutely everything that you do back into the sales results. The second thing I mentioned is good reading, good writing starts with good reading. Read as much as you can, but make it as varied as you can. The more experiences you can put into your writing, the better it will come across and the better stories you can tell. But a third thing, which again, as I say, a lot of my peers, a lot of people at other organizations like Stibo Systems miss, is they’re writing to “you.” You know, they’re writing to the individual. Stop talking about yourself, and that drives me nuts. I read a lot of content where there isn’t one mention of the word “you,” the most important word in copy, the most important word in content: “you.” So make sure you get that in there as often as you can. Write to the individual. Those are my three tips.

Shaheen Samavati 21:07
Absolutely, excellent advice. Well, thank you so much Michael, for sharing your insights with us.

Michael Lonnon 21:14
You’re very welcome. It was a pleasure.

Shaheen Samavati 21:16
And thanks everybody for joining in. For more perspectives on the content marketing industry in Europe, check out TheContentMix.com, and we’ll be releasing a lot more interviews like these every day on our podcast, so keep tuning in. Thanks. Bye!

Transcribed by https://otter.ai