Here is a transcript generated by Otter.ai of The Content Mix podcast interview with VeraContent’s Shaheen Samavati and Sharon Cronin, marketing manager for Schneider Electric Ireland, on the power of localized content:

Shaheen Samavati 0:13
Hi everyone, I’m Shaheen from The Content Mix and I’m excited to be here with Sharon Cronin, who’s marketing manager for Ireland at Schneider Electric. Schneider is a global specialist in energy management and automation. Thanks so much for joining us Sharon.

Sharon Cronin 0:26
Hi Shaheen, thanks for having me.

Shaheen Samavati 0:28
It’s great to have you here. So just to start out, can you just introduce yourself in your own words and tell us a bit more?

Sharon Cronin 0:36
Yeah. My name is Sharon, I’m from Ireland and I’ve been working in marketing for about over 15 years. Primarily within the B2B technology space and I probably have a very strong passion for content, which is what leads me to you, I guess. I’d be a firm believer that content is the driver between all marketing activities.

Shaheen Samavati 1:00
Absolutely, totally agree with that. So could you tell us a bit more about your background? How did you get into marketing in the first place?

Sharon Cronin 1:11
Sure. So I think like most young students coming out of school, I didn’t know initially what I wanted to do. So I went on to do a Bachelor of Arts degree at UCD, University College of Dublin. I guess because I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do, I said right, I’ll just go into the areas that I have interest in. So I loved business and I loved English. So I ended up doing economics and English. You can begin to see where my level of content is coming from, as a child I always love to read, consume content, can’t get enough of it. So I went on to do my degree, trying to figure out what I was going to do after that and I actually attended a conference where they were selling marketing, basically. They were talking about how they want people who are well able to write, who can come up with content easy, but also have a love of business. Suddenly there was a light bulb over my head going, “Oh, this is for me!” So I went on to do a master’s in marketing. I did that in Technological University of Dublin. That was just brilliant for me. I mean, I enjoyed my degree somewhat but once I came to do my master’s in marketing, I just loved every minute of it. I loved the creativity that came from it and I loved the ability of working across all different types of people within a business. So after—actually while I was still doing my master’s—I started an internship with the publishing company called Ashville Media and they had an events arm. So I would have joined with them as an events marketing intern. I ended up staying with them for another two years after that, progressing up through doing marketing and events for them. Well, should I go into my full…?

Shaheen Samavati 2:55
Sure, yeah, well, what’s your kind of area of specialization now and how did you transition towards that?

Sharon Cronin 2:58
So I’ve always been a bit of a general marketer, but very much a business-to-business one. So I’ve worked in several technology companies over the years, it’s always been a business-to-business type scenario until my recent role that I’ve just changed and moved into Schneider there at the end of last year, which is now in energy automation. So it’s a great challenge for something different. But even so, within each technology space, it was always a different area. So the last place I was working for would have been an insurance software solutions. So I love to learn, I love coming across different products and solutions and how we can translate that into what our consumers are looking for. I’d be a firm believer that to drive marketing, we need good content. So whether that’s going out in the blogs and the press releases, it’s in everything that we do. I think for marketing to be successful, we are the influencers. We’re not going to make the sale, that’s what the sales team are there for, we work with the sales team but we’re giving them the content and resources to back up what they’re doing.

Shaheen Samavati 3:04
Okay, so now you’re working for Schneider Electric, which is a really huge company. Could you tell us a bit more about your specific role, what you’re responsible for and what areas you’re working in?

Sharon Cronin 4:16
Yeah. I’m marketing manager for Ireland. So with that I am sitting on the zone marketing leadership team for UK in Ireland, and I would also assist the Irish country management team. So my role within those both internally and externally is to act as the voice of the consumer from the Irish market, to offer our customers and to be continuously trying to localize everything and bring that message to the Irish market. In terms of my day-to-day responsibilities, it’s brilliant. I love working with people so a large part of my role is trying to bring everything together. So Schneider as you can imagine, is huge. We have I think 137,000 employees worldwide, in the UK and Ireland zone alone, we have over 3000 people. Marketing, as any good marketing should do, spans across a whole organization. So I’m dealing with finance and dealing with sales. I’m dealing within the marketing zone, department organization itself. We have segment teams, we have channel teams, we have offer teams, which would be like our product marketing, then our digital marketing teams and our MarCom. My role is trying to bring all that together for Ireland and making sure that we’re gathering all those great resources and localizing that content and making sure that it’s getting out to the Irish consumer. So a lot of my days are meetings, trying to organize all these things and tie it all together. But it’s really enjoyable, it’s something that I’ve really enjoyed so far.

Shaheen Samavati 5:53
I’m gonna go straight to the question about what’s unique about marketing in Ireland compared to other places?

Sharon Cronin 6:02
Unique about marketing in Ireland? You have to be careful how you do it. I guess in Ireland in particular, they don’t like getting too many newsletters, you can’t flood them with stuff like you can in other markets, I think. The Irish are always quite funny. You might even find it, if you’re ever attending any conferencing or networking events, when it comes to the hour of drinks, or comes to the hour of food or whatever it might be—the Irish don’t like to talk about business. Which, you know, other cultures, I’ve worked a lot with North America—it’s very different. That’s when you do your business. The Irish don’t, they like to talk personally, they like to move away from whatever the event has been. Then in that short span of time, where you have to talk about what you’re trying to decide to sell or buy, that’s when they jump on it. They’ve made the decision at that point and you’ve got to run with it. So the same I would say goes for a lot of marketing communications that come out, they don’t like the hard sell at all. It very much has to be coming from a thought leadership point of view. They want the information, for example, if I’m going out looking for a kitchen, buying a new kitchen, I’m on blogs, I’m on Instagram, I’m trying to find everything about kitchens about what I should do. The kitchen supplier that is giving me all this content in their blog, and their Instagram are the ones I’m going to go to because they’re the ones I trust as being an expert. I think a big part of marketing in Ireland is becoming that trusted leader in whatever area that you are, that people can turn to you for advice because they already know, well these guys know everything there is about this so I think we’re just going to go to them at this point.

Shaheen Samavati 7:41
Yeah, absolutely, totally agree. So could you tell us more about your target audience at Schneider Electric and the channels you use to reach them?

Sharon Cronin 7:50
Yeah, so that’s a very broad answer for that question. To explain a little bit, Schneider Electric, we would often tell people, we don’t make energy, we help you save it. So we are across everything. So whether or not that is your light switch there behind you on the wall, whether it’s the fuse box in your hallway, or whether or not we are in the switch gear and the big wind turbines, we’re a big machinery part of data centers, we’re everywhere. So that in itself means that our audiences are huge and quite diverse. So we would break into looking at different segments. So in Ireland, in particular, our big segments would be the likes of the data centers, it would be life sciences, a lot of the pharmaceuticals, we can help automate their processes. We would have the residential space, we have both things from the electricians putting in light switches and fuses, we also have smart home heating controls that can be done. So it is quite vast. We also have several channel marketing programs that we would run through so we have programs for panel builders with electricians. So there are many, many different avenues to go and I guess that’s what’s made my role so interesting, because it’s very rare that you get a role where you’re able to work across so many different areas, have so many different messages and trying to tie that all together for one country.

Shaheen Samavati 9:22
Okay, so you’re working across all the business lines, and adapting those for Ireland bascially?

Sharon Cronin 9:28
Yeah, exactly.

Shaheen Samavati 9:29
Then the channels that you’re working with, is it mainly online marketing or you’re dealing with others?

Sharon Cronin 9:39
This year in particular, we’re doing a lot of online marketing. So obviously, everything’s gone virtual. So we’re using a lot of online marketing, whether that’s our email campaigns, we’re doing the usual blogs, white papers, research, press releases, but then we’re doing a lot of events as well. Now we are being a little bit more careful about events because there’s absolute fatigue around that area now.

Shaheen Samavati 10:00
Digital events you mean, right?

Sharon Cronin 10:02
Digital events, sorry. So everything is virtual. I suppose this year is more difficult to plan because I think everyone hoped by the time we got to this point in the year that we’d be able to start planning face-to-face conferences and events. That’s not happening, you know they’re all getting pushed out to later and later in the year. In the meantime, we’re trying to see what can we do in a digital space instead. So it’s tricky to be able to evolve with us.

Shaheen Samavati 10:32
Yeah. So you mentioned, actually earlier in your career you started out with events, what do you think makes a great digital event?

Sharon Cronin 10:45
Yeah, a great digital event is something where they’re giving people space to be interactive. So I think it’s very important that there’s a good panel discussion going on. Obviously, first and foremost, you need good content to get going. But I think you need to really think about what the speakers are discussing whether or not it’s relevant to the market that they’re bringing it up to. But then as well have those questions ready, if you do have another speaker there in case the audience are slow to start going, think what are the things that are going to start the conversation going. In all of our events, we will always have very active chat boxes set up. We would always have someone there ready to answer questions straight away, even if the speaker is speaking so that the conversation continues. Then trying to bring that message over to social media as well, and get people talking and interacting there. It’s definitely more difficult. It’s not the same as face-to-face, you don’t get that same networking, that easy talking. I’ve seen a few different solutions of people trying to set up a virtual networking room, and it doesn’t work as well as it does face-to-face, unfortunately. But it’s something that we need to keep trying to change and evolve and look for those new technologies. See what can we do that’s going to be different and make it a bit more interesting for people.

Shaheen Samavati 11:59
Yeah, definitely. So I wanted to ask, what’s important to keep in mind when it comes to content marketing in your industry in particular. Also, I know you’ve worked in other industries, so I’m just curious how it compares to other industries you worked in?

Sharon Cronin 12:15
Yeah, good content…what is good content, I guess? It’s something that’s got to be relevant to the consumer. A big thing, probably one area where I think you can never go wrong, is when you focus your content on regulation. Again, that’s coming from a B2B point of view. So even in my last role, we would have done an awful lot around regulation and each time that was changing and updating. With UK, they had an awful lot of regulation, whether it was auto-enrollment or different things that were coming in all the time. That was great for us, because it meant we were able to create new, interesting content all the time. People need to know what it is, they need to keep up to date, they don’t have the time to go read the long report. I’ve had to work with a long page report from the government, so it was up to us to give it to them in bite-sized pieces. Again, whether that was an infographic or a short blog, we would have done a lot of work with some trade publications, providing thought leadership pieces with them on a monthly and bi-monthly basis. We would have focused the regulation content, without a doubt it was always the content that scored the most and got us most conversions. Everything else is a little bit of a harder one, but I think you can’t go wrong. If you’re informing and educating, you’re not going to go wrong with your content.

Shaheen Samavati 13:36
Yeah absolutely, is there opportunities for that in what you’re doing now?

Sharon Cronin 13:42
Yes, absolutely. For example, in the electrician space, the electrician standards are very different and that’s something that we have to be careful about when we’re marketing in Ireland versus in the UK. So we would be rolling out different campaigns for electricians in the UK space but the regulations and the standards are different in Ireland than they are to the UK. So that means we have to make sure that the message is different within all. At the moment we have a an e-book for electricians to start to run their own business, and it’s giving them a full run over how to manage their taxes and everything. This is the content which we have to make sure—it’s a brilliant piece of content—but we have to localize it for the Irish market. So that’s everything from making sure the standards that are discussed within that e-book is correct and small things even like public holidays, different things you wouldn’t even think about that would go into this need to be localized when you’re bringing it otherwise, it’s just not relevant to them, and they’re going to lose interest.

Shaheen Samavati 14:40
Yeah, absolutely. It’s actually the endless content possibilities there for companies to operate across Europe and have so many different regulations to deal with in different ways. So I wanted to ask just about an example of a campaign or a piece of content that’s worked really well for you?

Sharon Cronin 14:58
Yes, so probably one of the biggest things that stands out in my mind was when I was working with Exaxe Software Solutions for the insurance industry. We would have done a big piece of work back in 2016, where we decided to reposition the whole company as a SaaS provider. So now allowing our customers to buy our solutions on a subscription service and in the cloud. This was I say, 2016 and you’re gonna go “Oh, I think that’s been around for a while,” but for the life and pensions, this wasn’t where they were, we were very much ahead of the curve for this. So there was a big educational piece that went along with it. We knew it was coming, we knew they were going to have to do it, they were reluctant to do it. So probably in the six months before we made our announcement, we built up a bank of content, educating them and teaching them why going to the cloud can be secure, how we could safeguard their data, how it will make their customer service better by giving them 24 hour access, allowing their customers to become more self sufficient. Bringing the life and pensions to a SaaS solution, or a SaaS offering, which is going to revolutionize them and it’s going to make their business better and more efficient. It’s gonna save them money, it was going to make their customers happy. But there was a reluctance to do it. So we would have built up a bank over six months of different thought leadership pieces, whether or not they were blogs, the trade publications that I mentioned. We did a big white paper around the typical build versus buy scenario, but then showing the results that people are actually getting by going to subscribe on the cloud side. So this content was still built up. So then by the time we finally released some events that we were, in fact, moving all of our solutions to a SaaS offering, we already had a bank of content there. So when people came to us and said, “Oh, they’re doing this!” and if they hadn’t already heard that we’ve been talking about this, there was no bank of information there. So when they finished the press release, at the end of it, it was “Would you also like to download this white paper?” So immediately, we were capturing their details, they were getting their opt ins, once they downloaded that white paper, we were able to go “Oh, well, actually, you might also be interested in this blog, or this industry article we did about the same topic, which I see you’re working for whoever…this is more relevant to you,” and we were able to email it off to them. It was building up that whole customer journey. I think that’s a big part. I’m a firm believer of inbound marketing and the whole idea was building up that journey, so that we were attracting people into our website, whether it was through our social media posts, we’re making sure there was more content there to feed them along the way, until we eventually got there often, they were able to provide them with more content. Then as we’re beginning to see they we’re getting from a warmer, warmer to hotter leave or able to pass it over to the sales team, to take action and go guys, I see you’ve been very active on our website and downloaded all this content. Is this something that I can bring you through personally and talk you through? It was very successful for us, I have to say it got us a lot of coverage and a lot of the new clients as well. So it was great. It was very much a educational piece. Again, I think content should be good education, you can’t go wrong if you’re teaching them or showing them how your business can be even better.

Shaheen Samavati 17:20
Yeah, absolutely. When you first started talking about it, I thought it was for existing clients to educate them on the change, but actually, it was for new clients.

Sharon Cronin 18:28
It was both.

Shaheen Samavati 18:32
Very cool. I wanted to ask, what do you think some companies get wrong when it comes to content marketing?

Sharon Cronin 18:40
They refuse to localize. I’ve seen it happen time and time again, where people feel like it’s coming from a global message and it doesn’t need to be localized. Again, the Irish can be a little bit particular about that. We don’t like getting emails and things with the American spellings, which are different. It’s small, little things, but because Ireland is such a smaller market, it can rub them up the wrong way, because it shouldn’t be that hard to localize it. So, for me, the biggest mistake that companies are making with content is that they don’t localize it fully down to those minute little details, whether or not the footer is showing your Irish office as opposed to your UK office or whatever office it is. It’s making sure all those little details are done.

Shaheen Samavati 19:27
I guess a lot of companies have to prioritize what they localize. What do you think are the aspects that are most important to localize if you have to choose?

Sharon Cronin 19:34
Yeah, I think in terms of websites, I think your website should absolutely be localized to wherever you’re targeting because there’s no point people going to a global site and not seeing content that’s relevant for them. They’re going to come on to it, they’re going to go “Well…”, and I often see it happening in other markets as well, where they come on to us and see a global site going “Oh, that’s great. I could see you’ve done fabulous things over here but you don’t know our market, because I don’t see any evidence of that within your site.” That’s the kind of stuff that needs to change because they want to know that you know the market. Not only do you know your business, but you know, their market, their pain points and their problems.

Shaheen Samavati 20:16
Yeah, absolutely. So switching gears a little bit, what’s your favorite content or social media channel?

Sharon Cronin 20:28
Probably LinkedIn to be honest with you. I think it’s just great for a variety of different reasons, through networking, through sharing content. I guess, because I’m always coming from a B2B space, primarily, that has always been most successful for me. I think LinkedIn has great features to it, whether or not you’re doing your paid media campaigns, whether or not it’s just organic sharing during our social media, and then reaching out through emails to different people it’s always quite effective.

Shaheen Samavati 21:01
Absolutely, totally agree, big LinkedIn fan as well. What skills do you think are most important for marketers these days?

Sharon Cronin 21:11
I guess the ability to be always learning, that’s not a specific skill and I say that because the landscape is changing constantly. From when I first started in marketing it has completely changed. Everything has gone digital. I remember when I first started, kind of going “Oh wouldn’t it be nice if we had a website for this event!” and now you couldn’t have an event without having a website and that was learning those skills through that. So I think marketing has always evolved and changed as I go and now we’ve gone to remote working. Selling remotely, marketing remotely. I think you have to be willing to change and learn constantly and never think that you have authority, because when you do, you’ve lost. You need to keep learning and evolving all the time.

Shaheen Samavati 21:59
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that kind of speaks to my next question about what advice would you give to someone starting out now? Learn and evolve I suppose, anything to add to that?

Sharon Cronin 22:10
Be willing to change and learn that things can change at the drop of a hat, because I don’t think any of us would have foreseen what the last year has been like.

Shaheen Samavati 22:19
Yeah absolutely. So next, I just wanted to ask you about your best productivity hack or tip that you can share?

Sharon Cronin 22:30
Sure, I have a few. One would be I always have a to do list, I have a notebook there on hand at all times, for my to do list. I have a small one for my to do list and then I’ll have my regular note taking. I also try to adopt the two minute rule. So it’s very easy to get distracted when different messages are being pinged in through, whether they’re through emails, or Teams, or whatever it is. But I look at it, can I do it in two minutes? Yes? Then I’ll do it. If I can’t, it goes on the to do list. Other things, I’m a big advocate of walking meetings, now especially. It would have been something that we would have done with an ex-colleague of mine, back in the olden days, whenever we got the opportunity, and the weather was nice. Now I think especially when everyone’s working remotely, I think you need to be able to go for those walking meetings, particularly when you’re trying to brainstorm anything or just have team updates, because it forces you to step away from the computer, but you’re not getting distracted by all those little emails and messages that are coming in, but also for your well being, it brightens up your day, it gets you thinking again, it gets the blood moving. So I think brainstorming ideas can be way better to help people bond as well. It’s the closest thing you can get to feeling a bit normal in this unusual world that we’re living in at the moment.

Shaheen Samavati 23:57
So do you tell everyone this is going to be a walking meeting and then everyone walks?

Sharon Cronin 24:01
Yeah. Well it doesn’t always work, because people have kids at home and stuff, so it doesn’t always work, but I let them know that it’s optional. So we would have a meeting, a bi-weekly meeting that we have that’s an optional walking meeting. So not if it’s raining, but if it works for you and you’re able to do it then do it. Then all we do is we simply if there’s any slides or anything that needs to be done, we send it out before or after the meeting. So everyone has it. But if it works for you, get out and do it. For me, it works.

Shaheen Samavati 24:32
Yeah, that’s a good idea. I’m gonna steal that one. So do you have a professional role model or a source of inspiration?

Sharon Cronin 24:42
Yeah, one that I’ve cited recently actually elsewhere was Anne O’Leary, the CEO of Vodafone. I would have gotten to know Anne through the Parana Triathlon Club in Dublin. What I’ve always admired about Anne is issues I’ve seen in such a mega mega role, being CEO for Vodafone Ireland, but she always makes time for exercise. I guess this kind of ties in a little bit with the walking piece as well. She’s a firm believer of having that work life balance and realizing that getting in exercise throughout your day will benefit your work because it’s going to help alleviate any stress, get that out and balance you out a little bit so that you have a time of day, which again is difficult at the moment when we’re contactable 24 hours a day at this point. But a time of the day that’s yours and yours alone to get out there and clear your head. It’s been fascinating to watch her career progress. She’s managed to do all this and continue doing triathlons and Ironmans and different things like that. So I’ve always found that very inspiring. No matter what, I could see her in the swimming pool at 6am in the morning, having known that she’s doing a press release with the local government body later that day. So it’s quite enjoyable to see firsthand from that perspective. Kelly Becker, our new zone president would also be very much a inspiration to me, I wouldn’t have known Kelly before she joined here but it’s been fascinating. getting to know her, see how her career has progressed, how she’s took a chance and moved from the States over to Ireland to take over as country president. She’s done so well there that now she’s she’s stepped up again to the zone president of UK and Ireland. So I think having these female role models in my life has been really excellent to see and how they managed to balance and juggle it all. It’s been great.

Shaheen Samavati 26:39
Yeah, awesome. Those are great examples. I’m definitely interested to learn more about them. Next, I just wanted to ask you about any resources you recommend for marketers, maybe to keep up to date on trends or to continue learning?

Sharon Cronin 26:58
Yeah, I mean recently, last year I would have taken part with the product marketing alliance and I have done a product marketing certificate. I just was blown away by the content that they have, they’re unbelievable. The course itself was excellent but then their continuous learning is absolutely excellent as well. Again, big fan of HubSpot obviously because inbound marketing is one of the things I really care about. So their blogs and white papers have always been really good and quite up to date. I’ve always leaned towards more of those blogs rather than books. Often, a lot of time, the books are almost out of date by the time they get published and distributed. Then of course yourselves, The Content Mix, has been brilliant, I’ve been watching it and seeing the different people on it. It’s been brilliant to see how people from different industries and different careers can bring something else to the table, it’s great. I think it’s always a learning experience to learn from other people and what they’ve done in the past.

Shaheen Samavati 27:54
Awesome. Thanks so much for the shout out. Also, when I asked you before about this, you mentioned Econsultancy, I don’t know if that’s something to mention?

Sharon Cronin 28:06
Yes, sorry. So that’s another one and LinkedIn Learning as well is another one. So I have subscriptions to both. They both run excellent courses as well. So just quick courses that you could do, whether it’s a little mini course in SEO, or whether it’s something in account based marketing, they have lots of different courses that are easy and quick because when you’re working full time, it can be difficult to take on big courses. So it’s nice to get a couple of snippets to try and range yourself out a little bit more.

Shaheen Samavati 28:38
Yeah, absolutely. Well, those are some great recommendations. So we’re reaching the end of the interview. So at this point, I just wanted to ask if you have any parting advice for other marketers in Europe, or any final takeaways?

Sharon Cronin 28:53
Just be prepared to change I think this year has shown us. I think this is the first year that we can’t plan out, before and back in the good old days, or maybe not the good old days, you were able to plan out your whole marketing plan from month to month to month. That’s not happening now. Now we have to be able to roll with the changes. So yes, you can make out your plan on a quarterly basis. But this is going to evolve and change and you have to keep monitoring that budget, keep monitoring the campaigns, what’s being effective and what’s not and be willing to change it if it’s not working.

Shaheen Samavati 29:28
Yeah, absolutely. No, that’s a good point to end on. Also, just before we finish, I wanted to ask if anyone wants to learn more about you or get in touch what’s the best way?

Sharon Cronin 29:42
LinkedIn, I’m fairly active on LinkedIn. If you’re looking up Sharon Cronin, Schneider Electric you should find me.

Shaheen Samavati 29:49
Okay, great. We’ll definitely include the link in the blog post that goes along with this article as well. So thank you so much, Sharon, for sharing your insights with us today.

Sharon Cronin 29:59
Thank you for having me.

Shaheen Samavati 30:00
Yeah, thank you. It’s been great. Thank you to everybody for listening in. For more perspectives on content marketing in Europe, check out VeraContent.com/mix and keep tuning into the podcast for more interviews with content experts. See you next time. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai