Here is a transcript generated by otter.ai of The Content Mix podcast interview with Paula Crespo Grávalos, EMEA marketing & comms manager on inbound marketing strategies:

Carlota Pico 0:13
Hi everyone, I’m Carlota Pico from The Content Mix, and I’m excited to be here today with Paula Crespo Grávalos, who is EMEA marketing and communication manager at PLANASA and has over 15 years of experience in marketing and communications. Welcome, Paula, and thank you so much for joining us today on The Content Mix.

Paula Crespo Grávalos 0:36
Thanks to you, Carlota. I’m very happy to be hear on The Content Mix.

Carlota Pico 0:40
Well, I’m even happier. It’s always a pleasure to have a local Spaniard on the show with me as well.

Paula Crespo Grávalos 0:47
Yes, thanks.

Carlota Pico 0:49
Paula, to start off this interview, I’d love to learn a little bit about your background, a bit about your company and also how you got into your current role.

Paula Crespo Grávalos 0:59
Well, mine is an artwork career because I as I told you, I am a translator and I studied in Granada and then I decided to do journalism, because I love communication. So, I decided to have a more wide profile to say. And so my career started in media and corporate communication departments in different companies. But like 10 years ago, something changed. I met two people and I started studying digital marketing. And these two people were Alejandro Soler, in the first place, and then Carlos Mendiola and this, the latest, was like a real mentor for me. He made me the passionate person that I am right now for marketing and for inbound marketing, and I owe him a lot because he made me grow in the company that I was working, which is Seabery, it’s a company here in Spain… it’s a technological company. Very, very nice working in AR, in augmented reality. And so I, I have to thank him because he opened my mind and I became a marketer because of… because of him. And now I’m in PLANASA as you have said, really well. This is a leading company, in the agri-food sector. So what we do is develop new varieties for berries, garlic and asparagus, but mainly berries. And then we also send the plants to growers, we have growers to be more profitable to say. I mean, we… what we do is give them plants that are better or that produce better fruit.

Carlota Pico 2:47
So how did you go from AR augmented reality to working at an agriculture sector? I mean, the differences are huge.

Paula Crespo Grávalos 2:56
Well, the thing is that our culture here in Huelva, and the berry category specifically, is a very huge field and a huge market and it’s full of opportunities. So when I saw that PLANASA was looking for someone, and at that moment I felt ready to assume this role that I have now…And I didn’t doubt. I mean I love technology and, and that kind of things. But… it was a new sector… It was a place to learn… to start learning again… to start from zero again. So that’s why I changed. And in the middle I also I was also in a technological company in Malaga, which has nothing to do with augmented reality. It was a briefing device that we, that they manufacture. So I love changing from from one field to another because it gives me the opportunity to learn.

Carlota Pico 3:58
Excellent, excellent. Well, I do want to focus on your area of strength which you defined as inbound marketing. For our audience, inbound ,arketing is based on marketing methods that attract leads to a company through material based on their interest. So for example, we’re talking about events, webinars, social media, marketing, etc. Could you walk us through your current inbound marketing activities at PLANASA, please?

Paula Crespo Grávalos 4:25
Yes, well, our strategy in inbound marketing has been the result of a very, very deep analysis of the company and the previous strategies that the company were following, or that the company was following. And what I saw when, I when I came to PLANASA was that they had a website that wasn’t working. It was a very nice website, really, it had a huge level of traffic. But it wasn’t working. It wasn’t generating leads because it wasn’t attracting the people that we need to attract or the companies we need to attract. And the content was also… wasn’t also the best one. So, why? Because they were… their study was wrong. I mean they were trying to address consumers. We are not a b2c company as I’ve said. So I decided to make a huge renovation in their website, in terms of structure, in terms of content and in terms also have a look and feel. Because it was the look and feel it had, it was like very industrial, it was very far from the field. I needed a farmers, growers and… or audiences to feel identifiable with what they were seeing. So not only with the content, but also with look and feel. And since we did that, the opportunity… the sales opportunities have started to grow, because I think that we are addressing the right people, we are attracting the right people. And so we have done this by doing the website, starting posting in our blog and sharing in our social media—I reactivated the social media channels. And we are also testing—testing a lot. So maybe in some time I change the strategy again, because I’m learning on the way who our audiences are, what are their needs, their paid points, and now we’re trying to focus and to address the content more specifically and more accurately, so…

Carlota Pico 6:49
Okay.

Paula Crespo Grávalos 6:50
But as you havd said, inbound marketing is to attract people to try to build helpful relationships and trustful relationships.

Carlota Pico 7:02
So from what I understand your previous website, although it attracted a high volume of traffic, the traffic that it attracted, wasn’t it quality traffic. So really your strategy moving forward was to attract a lower volume of traffic, but for that volume to actually produce results in sales for your company.

Paula Crespo Grávalos 7:24
Yeah, that’s it, because we have a very high bounce rate. So we have to see what what the problem was. And when you analyze the website and you see that the page that is attracting more traffic has nothing to do with—well, not nothing to do but it’s not what you sell. For example, it was not addressed to the right people…you feel I’m generating? Yes, I’m generating real traffic, but real volumes that I haven’t seen before, but also bounce rates of 80% which for a webpage like ours, it is not matchable. I mean, it’s not real. So not acceptable. So it is, it was a deep research that we did to get to that point and see we need to change—we needed to change the content, the structure because it was very difficult to navigate surface. There were too many menus and a lot of content—and content must be valuable content instead of high volumes of content, and you can say this evaded on me, but content must be valuable and people must find in your website something that helps them. So…

Carlota Pico 8:50
Absolutely. Absolutely. I couldn’t agree with you more, Paula. So from what I understand, now you’re really focused on generating sales through quality content? How are you measuring the impact of your inbound marketing efforts? So are you looking at, for example, what you were previously looking at? Which was viewers were landing on your website, how long they were staying on your website, how long they were engaging with your content? So what type of metrics are you looking at in order to be able to pivot from one strategy to the next or stay on the same page?

Paula Crespo Grávalos 9:25
Well, that what you had said is exactly what we are doing. Well, at the end to the company, the most important KPI is lead generation and conversion, as you know, for PLANASA and for every company in the world. But really, I’m looking to engagement. So as you said, how long did they stay in the website? How many pages do they go through? In social media, how is engagement? Because we have many, many followers as well, but I’m focused on engagement. I want to see how they… how people react and act with our posts. So that’s what I mentioned. In terms of in website, the time, the bounce rate and the pages that they see in one session, okay. And then, in social media, not only followers, which is a very attractive KPI, but engagement.

Carlota Pico 10:28
Okay, that makes complete sense because at the end of the day, what you, what you want to do through your marketing efforts is to have your audience obviously engage with your brand, but not any old audience, the audience that’s going to provide you with the best value to the highest return on your investment because obviously, time is money. And all of these actions require a lot of time on top of additional investments that you may be putting towards your marketing.

Paula Crespo Grávalos 10:58
Yes, also engage people, attract all the people. So it works that way in the digital world, but also in the real world…

Carlota Pico 11:08
Yeah, definitely.

Paula Crespo Grávalos 11:09
…the recommendations, you know, are the base of everything.

Carlota Pico 11:14
This does lead me to my next question. So according to the state of marketing report, almost 70% of businesses are actively investing in content marketing in 2020, which means the majority of brands are publishing content to attract new views to their company just like you are as well, which also means that competition is fierce. Everybody wants a piece of the pie, everybody wants more attention towards their brand. So from your experience, what type of content generates the highest return on investment?

Paula Crespo Grávalos 11:49
What I see every day in our field, in our sector, growers and farmers love to show the products. So, all the visual content, yeah! They like to show because, you know, in a picture you can see size, you can see color of fruits, of plants, you can see the if plants are healthy or no. So audio-visual content for us works really, really well. And when you talk about one variety, the growers that work with us, they want to share also how the variety that these plants are performing in their fields. So it’s it’s quite nice and quite, quite…how can I say it? Grateful to see them also sharing content with us on how our products are performing. And so videos… harvesting videos, videos of people collecting the food, everything. That works really, really well for us. And I think, well, if I say video is is the king I’m not saying anything new. Everybody wants, everybody knows that we have no time to read many many things, so video is a good way to show people things, to make people learn today. So video for us is very important and then content related to people. That is, our own growers, or own team. That is really engaging for for people. We have noticed that in… during the, this Coronavirus situation we’re undergoing and we have shared and we have expressed our gratitude to growers for being in the farms, for not stopping working and our own colleagues, our own staff. We have staff that works in the field. They haven’t stopped a day. So we have shared our gratitude with them. And this is something that all the companies and our own workers have received really, really well.

Carlota Pico 14:09
I think you touched upon two extremely important elements, which the first one would be to really know the business that you’re in. You’re in a very visual business. So visual content, visual assets are extremely important, because people also will have a better engagement with your products because it’s easier to or easier, it’s more pleasant to show a photo or show a video than to write about a product like yourself, and then you touched upon emotions, the importance of generating emotions through your content, which obviously during Corona times, I do want to give a shout out to all the people who kept on working despite very difficult, difficult situations, the health pandemic, the fears the uncertainty and they kept on pushing and kept on delivering for the well being of everyone. So let’s take this opportunity to show our gratitude to everyone out there who just really gave 100% of their time and always did it in favor of the well being of everybody.

Paula Crespo Grávalos 15:20
Yes, thanks very much. We cannot compare to health people, to people working in health, but certainly growers have contributed to, to have, to us having you know, food in our houses everyday. So thanks for that to them.

Carlota Pico 15:41
I mean, I think it’s completely comparable because health takers, are health caretakers are those people who have been taking care of the ill, but at the same time, the ill and everybody needs to eat and that comes from people who are still on the field, working despite very difficult situations. That’s incredible. It’s an incredible situation…

Paula Crespo Grávalos 16:04
Yes and what can I say? Berries during Coronavirus have acquired a great… they have been main characters of the, of the Coronavirus because there have been many researches stating that they are good to prevent coronavirus and to have you know, for the well being of people, so…

Carlota Pico 16:33
Hey! So, as an apple normally the same would be applied for apples. But I guess in this situation we can say eat your berries a day and keep the doctor away.

Paula Crespo Grávalos 16:46
Yes, eating blueberries, strawberries, blackberries and raspberries for your health are really really good, especially blueberries.

Carlota Pico 16:57
Very interesting! Okay, getting back into marketing. I think it’s incredible how you used…you turned a very difficult situation around by using emotions to attract the right audience to your brand. And also to emphasize with your audience and to show your human side… show the human side of PLANASA, which is something brands are constantly trying to do because it’s extremely challenging to define a brand or promote a brand according to human values. Because at the end the day it’s a company, but every companies are run—every company is run by humans. So it’s very important to also connect to the humans on the other side of the screen. Despite being a business to business, obviously, company.

Paula Crespo Grávalos 17:44
That’s it.

Carlota Pico 17:45
Okay. HubSpot says that it can take about six months to see substantial results from inbound marketing efforts, which is a pretty long term play. With that in mind, why bet on inbound marketing? So, what makes it more powerful than paid advertisements?

Paula Crespo Grávalos 18:05
Well, a company that invests in inbound marketing is already sending a message, which is I don’t want only to sell, I want to help. I want to help my customers, I want to build trustful and long lasting relationships. And that takes time. That takes time. And this is a very strong and engaging statement. If we turn our vision, our philosophy, from just selling at all costs to ‘I’m going to help’ and how I’m going to help. I’m going to offer my product but also, or first, I’m going to offer valuable content, to help these customers decide. Maybe they don’t decide. It’s risky, because maybe they don’t decide—they don’t choose you. They chose the competitors. But you’re starting with the right feet. I mean, and you’re sending that message that you don’t want to sell only, you want to help and then you can sell and that is something that is going to last a lot. So yeah, it takes a lot to have results. But these results are going to last in time because inbound marketing doesn’t end in the purchase. Then you have to take care of the customer until they become your advocates really. So I wouldn’t say this is better than the other, but seems advertisements, you know, have like a bad reputation. And I wouldn’t exclude it from the marketing mix. What I would say is, you have to first set your goal. And second, see where your audience is to decide which channels and which strategies you are going to use. You don’t say no, like every… like everyone is doing paid advertising, I’m going to do that—no. Or like everyone’s doing inbound advertising, let’s do that! But really, the first investment in inbound marketing is really lower than in paid advertising. So in terms of investment, it’s best, and in terms of results, it takes more. It takes more time.

Carlota Pico 20:37
I completely agree with you. I would also add that inbound marketing or content marketing allows the company to position itself as an expert on the topic…

Paula Crespo Grávalos 20:53
Yeah, that’s it.

Carlota Pico 20:52
…and offering expertise—making your audience feel comfortable, and also have them trust your brand as an expert is extremely valuable and very powerful because trust is essential in any relationship. If you don’t trust who you’re working with you’re never going to work with the m well. Moving into the last part of our interview, which is a set of rapid fire questions, this will be your recommendations to our audience. To get the section started off, I’d love to learn about your source of inspiration. So for example, an influencer or a professional role model?

Paula Crespo Grávalos 21:37
Well I use a lot LinkedIn and I see the companies that I like, not only in the in the field that PLANASA is, but in different fields like…I love, for example, their marketing strategy of Correos, Spanish company, or Banco Santander and then I see of course I see my competitors because always you always learn something from them. So what I recommend is using LinkedIn just to search for profiles, for marketing profiles, and see who are sharing interesting content. So that make you feel, that make you learn or make you feel sure that it will help you. And from that, from that recommendations, for example, I follow Elena Alti which works for or Banco Santander, and I saw that she recommended Blue Ocean Strategy, which is a book that I think every marketer should read. From other people, international people, I saw the recommendation that I’m making right now, which is Making Websites Win, which is a book that everyone in digital marketing should read because inbound or not inbound the website is the principal tool, the main tool, that we need to use and take care of for building a good marketing strategy. So that will be my… and a book that I love is Delivering Happiness from the CEO of Zappos. Totally recommendable.

Carlota Pico 23:21
Paula, I love your response because you’re actually one step ahead of me. My next question was going to be your favorite book, but I think we’ve already covered that. So we are going to finish this section off and also our interview with an event or a hashtag that you would like to recommend to our audience.

Paula Crespo Grávalos 23:38
Okay, so we recommend the inbound marketing hashtag, okay, and to follow HubSpot, which are the creators of this concept and of this strategy really. So every event from HubSpot is very recommendable to follow their blog and read their posts carefully because they talk about content marketing, they talk about inbound marketing, and they cover many, many aspects that are very useful for marketers, and also to go to obtain their certifications, because you learn a lot through the process, not only to have it through the process.

Carlota Pico 24:20
Paula, I love your tip because I’m also a big fan of HubSpot. And I was actually based in Boston in 2015, and that’s when I first became aware of all the tools that HubSpot offers to marketers from around the world, whether it be through paid advertisement, inbound marketing, ABM, etc, etc. There’s always something on HubSpot that we can all learn from.

Paula Crespo Grávalos 24:45
Thank you.

Carlota Pico 24:46
And to, and to everyone listening in today, those tips from Paula were fantastic. Paula, thank you again for joining us on The Content Mix. I can’t wait to follow you across your different social channels and to also learn from your experience as our relationship keeps on growing.

Paula Crespo Grávalos 25:08
Thank you, Carlota. I will do the same with you because you’re a very interesting person as well. And thanks to The Content Mix for this opportunity, which I think that what you’re doing guys is really, really useful and helping for marketers.

Carlota Pico 25:25
Thank you so much, Paula, for those very kind words and also for your time and generosity with us today. And to everyone listening in, thank you again for joining us on The Content Mix. For more perspectives on the content marketing industry in Europe, check out The Content Mix. We’ll be releasing interviews just like this one, so keep on tuning in. Stay well, have a great weekend and see you next time. Bye!

Transcribed by https://otter.ai