The following interview is a conversation we had with Martin Kosak, Head of Marketing at Sensoneo, on our podcast Category Visionaries. You can view the full episode here: Sensoneo’s Success at Trade Shows
Brett
This is marketing from the frontlines.io, where we speak with B2B marketers who are in the trenches bringing technology to market. Here’s your host, Brett Stapper, CEO of Front Lines Media
Brett
Hey, everyone, and welcome back. Today I’m speaking with Martin Kozak, head of marketing at Sensonio, a smart waste management platform that’s raised 12.6 million in funding. Martin, how’s it going today?
Martin Kosak
Hey, Brett, thanks. Nice to listen to you. And thanks for invitation to the postcards.
Brett
Yeah, no problem. I’m super excited to chat with you. So because this is the marketing edition of Category Visionaries, we like to begin with the big question, why marketing? What are you doing here?
Martin Kosak
Well, I guess my whole story begins with sports, because when I was 16 years old, I moved to Germany to play handball, almost on a professional level. And for american listeners, handball is something like basketball, where you just need to score by throwing a ball into a goal. He’s a goalkeeper. I was the goalkeeper. It’s very famous in Europe. And you can also see the sports at Olympics, for example. And there in Germany, I also began my studies of sports management and communication. I was always very fascinated about sports marketing and I love the atmosphere of sports events. I still follow NFL and I love their marketing. I was always very creative. That’s what I think. And I love to do presentations at the university or some graphic content.
Martin Kosak
I still remember one project at the university where we should create a full bid or candidature for the organizational Olympics. I was really passionate about that. And after the university even worked in sports marketing for like three years. But life is pretty unpredictable and I ended up in a waste management or technology industry. But I’m really happy with this decision and what, really satisfied with what I do right now. So, yeah, that’s my story.
Brett
Do you still play the sport a lot or what do you do for sports now?
Martin Kosak
Oh, well, I got like surgery on my knee for like three times, so I do it only on a recreational basis right now, but not that professional anymore.
Brett
Got it. Makes sense and understandable. Now let’s talk about brands and marketers that really inspire your approach to marketing. So when I asked that question, you know, who inspires you? Who’s the first name that comes to mind?
Martin Kosak
Well, maybe I will disappoint with this answer, but I don’t really have some kind of famous marketer that I really follow or admire. But my approach to B2B marketing, especially my current position, was greatly inspired by our Co-Founder, Andrea, who is now on maternity leaf. And I really owe her a lot because she really showed me our industry and the best marketing and practices and things that work and things that don’t. And she was with our brand from the very beginning compared to me because I only jumped on a really good train. And she kicked off all the pr and marketing activities really well and moved Sanzo neo from startup to scale up.
Brett
What about books that have really influenced your approach to marketing and how you think about marketing?
Martin Kosak
Also here I don’t have like the perfect marketing Google. I still haven’t found it. Or to be honest, I find some of them pretty boring or complicated. But what I really love are books about big brands and how they started as startups, how they were scaling shoe dog, for example by Phil Knight from Nike. It’s my absolute favorite. I have read it twice and then books about Netflix, Spotify, Pixar, Patagonia. I mean these books are really motivational and inspirational, but it’s also about marketing. Like of course these brands have brilliant marketing right now, but also back then when they started they needed to have some kind of differentiator or extra mile and it was often their marketing department or their marketing guys.
Brett
If you like shoe Dog, I’m guessing you’ve watched or you need to watch the movie air. Have you seen that?
Martin Kosak
Not yet. I have seen it. It was like in the cinema while ago, right?
Brett
Yeah, I think probably about a year ago. But it’s part of the Nike story. But it’s focused on Jordan and it’s a fascinating look behind the scenes at Nike and that whole experience they had of landing Michael Jordan, how it propelled their brand and how it helped them really establish themselves in the world of basketball shoes. It’s really good.
Martin Kosak
I think Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were there, right?
Brett
Yeah, exactly.
Martin Kosak
I’ll take a look. Regarding movie, for example, Moneyball. Yep. Oakland.
Brett
I love Moneyball.
Martin Kosak
That’s a good one.
Brett
Yeah, totally agree. Now let’s switch gears and let’s dive into the rest of our conversation here. And before we kick off, you’re diving into strategies and tactics and best practices. We like to really just start off with understanding what product you’re marketing in the first place. So what is the product that you’re marketing?
Martin Kosak
Right. So I already told you that I’m in the waste management industry. So Sansomio is doing innovative solutions for this industry, both hardware and software. We are basically digitalizing quiz management and bringing the waste data for our customers. We have currently projects in more than 80 countries. Of course some of them are bylaws or proof of concepts. But some of them are really large scale installations. We started already in 2014 with our first product, which were fee level sensors based on ultrasound technology. These are core products. And the sensors, they are measuring the capacity inside of the beans or dumpsters. And based on that, you can pick up the containers or beans more efficiently, because you are not collecting half empty bins or containers. And for example, in Madrid, capital of Spain, we have more than 11,000 of these sensors.
Martin Kosak
And the solution is not only for cities and municipalities, but also for private collection companies or haulers of different waste streams, like used oil, textile, or even paper shedding companies, for example. What is also important to say at displays that we scale through a network of reseller partners and system integrators all over the world. So it’s not like our technicians need to go for a deployment of sensors to New Zealand or Argentina. Then our second pillar, let’s say like that we also have a great waste management solution for factories and facilities. So the same like we do for cities, but on a smaller scale. But like, imagine a very big factory, almost like a city within the city. So they also need somehow to digitize their floor plan and their waste infrastructure. So they get a comprehensive data about always producing their premises.
Martin Kosak
And they can track, for example, the weight of the waste up to every hole or section of the factory, or even container stands. And they can also report a contamination with our solution, and get data about waste diversion rate, and see how good they sort the waste. And they can make some educated decision based on that. And last but not least, we also do the it solution. So, period software for DRS, which means deposit refund system. So very briefly explains, you pay upfront like $0.15 in the retail for plastic bottle or aluminum can with beverage. And then when you return at the collection point, you receive this deposit back. And this way you are collecting a really valuable material. And the wheel of circular economy is rotating. And it really helps in terms of cleaner urban spaces in nature.
Martin Kosak
When I used to study in Germany, and the students were making party out in the streets, they always let the empty bottles outside, because they knew that homeless people will come and collect it. And next morning everything was basically very clean. So, and this is like holy grail of the waste management, because the best what you can do it is on a nationwide level. And since only the sole company, we’re all doing the it system already in five european countries. So that’s a pretty big deal for us.
Brett
And who is the Persona that you’re targeting at these organizations, who is that buyer?
Martin Kosak
Right. Well, these two solutions that I just described are pretty different in terms of who we are targeting. So. So the DRS is more about b. It’s up to our CEO and division director to make a good lobbying. But for me, it’s about big brand awareness and I need to make sure that the players and stakeholders and because the refund system that they know that. Okay, Sensonio is doing such an IT solution for the iris. And regarding the sensors and field level monitoring solution, I mean, it can be from a chief operation officer up to the CEO, depending how big is the waste collection company? With cities and municipalities mostly there is someone responsible for the waste management.
Martin Kosak
And regarding the factories and facilities we often target, like sustainability directors or ESG leaders in their company, they are trying to get some data into what happens with waste inside of their premises.
Brett
And what about your marketing approach and philosophy? So I’m sure there’s detailed strategy. If we had to summarize it, how would you summarize the marketing strategy?
Martin Kosak
Well, my personal approach is pretty simple, and I don’t claim that marketing is some kind of rocket science. Most of the things, it is already well known in our field, what works and whatnot. So I just try to keep our design, content and language that we use very modern and professional, however, while also staying very creative. So trying to find some differentiator that makes us stand out from the crowd and the competitors. And you don’t necessarily have to do things or content that everybody else is doing, but when you already do, at least trying to not make it in some kind of same or boring way and try to create that extra point that makes us better. And I also agree with the statement that 95% of our buyers are just not ready now to buy from us, but one day be ready.
Martin Kosak
And when they will enter the market, we just need to be on top of their minds. So every small step or every activity that we do in order to increase our brand awareness, we cannot be disappointed when it doesn’t show instant or immediate results because know that everything will pay off in the future.
Brett
What’s an example of something that you are doing right now that is helping to drive brand awareness?
Martin Kosak
Well, I just came back from exhibition in Germany and I think it’s really true that after Covid, people really miss those off site meetings. And we saw that now in Germany, it was like number one even in Europe for the waste management. And we gathered like 250 leads over five days. So, okay, on the one hand it was a straight B2B, marketing and only brand awareness. But on the other hand, it’s something that shows the result. Maybe later, because I’m sure there were many visitors. They saw our presence and how beautiful our stand was. And maybe they even had a conversation with our sales team on the stand. But maybe it was exactly about this brand awareness creation that, okay, they register us, they know we are here. And when they will enter the market, they will come back to us.
Martin Kosak
So event is one of the things. And we also spoke about going to waste Expo in Las Vegas in the next year.
Brett
Nice. How many events do you typically do per year?
Martin Kosak
Well, last year was really crazy and we did like three really big shows with the big stands where we also needed, let’s say, construction company. And then we had like, I don’t know, six or seven smaller events where you just need a really nine square meter space and you’re ready to go. But it was pretty crazy also for the sales team. So this year we decided just to go to this one big event in Germany and really go all in like almost 60. We paid quite a big budget for our presence, but I think it was definitely worth it.
Brett
What’s something that you see people talk about a lot with marketing that you disagree with or think maybe isn’t the case for all companies?
Martin Kosak
Well, I think maybe I will choose the most cliche ones. Now that you probably already heard was, for example, some people claim that newsletter or email marketing is dead. And I totally don’t agree because we have some pretty good leads already now from the emailing campaigns. And our newsletter is also perceived very well. And also me personally, I’m subscribing to some really valuable newsletters with good and educational content. So I would say this statement is pretty wrong. And I think we can also agree that the statement, if your product is good, you don’t need marketing. That’s also pretty false. And especially in B2B, the marketing is often a bit underestimated or undervalued. Two months ago, I attended a marketing festival in Czech Republic. And I really liked one slide in the presentation by Tom Fishburne, who is known as a marketingist.
Martin Kosak
Maybe you know him, creating great cartoons from our field. And he shared a very nice quote by David Picard stating that marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department. I really like that and I think that even my colleagues sometimes don’t get how significant is marketing for our whole company and how the whole brand awareness begins already with other departments like customer support, delivery, product management, or even of course, sales.
Brett
Now, if we look at what’s not working, let’s talk a little bit about that. You talked about events. Sounds like events are a playbook that’s working very effectively for you. What’s something that’s not working? Are there any marketing initiatives that you started, saw that they weren’t working and then pulled back? Or are there any initiatives that you just don’t even bother to waste your time on? Anything like that?
Martin Kosak
Well, we launched several emailing campaigns over the years that I’m already at the company and I would say that definitely not working is the emailing campaigns from which you can smell sales already before you open the email. So you really need to choose the subject very carefully. And also the body of the email should not be very salesy as well. I receive plenty of them inbox as well and it’s just pure ignoring from my side. So we played over the years with how we want to make the emailing campaigns and I think it got better over the years. But also just to tell positive example from the last days, I received a cold mail where the company was suggesting a free audit of our social media ads which they would present during the call. So I jumped on it.
Martin Kosak
Emma said that the call was actually really easy going and also in the audits there were some good ideas. So it’s about creating some valuable content that can be dated or published already in these emails. I think what many, maybe competitors or companies are struggling is that they create really expensive content like, let’s say professional product video, but they don’t perform very well on the distribution part. So it just ends on their YouTube channel or LinkedIn with some hundred views, but that’s it. And they don’t maximize the potential how they could work with such a video after it was already created.
Brett
What about marketing challenges? What are some of the top challenges that you’re experiencing right now and what are you doing to really overcome those challenges?
Martin Kosak
Well, in my opinion nowadays it’s a lot about not losing your focus and getting distracted, not losing the sight of a big picture. If you imagine only how many market tools are out there right now, maybe you saw this landscape of marketing tools, its more than 13,000 and the number increases every day like crazy and theyre still constantly emerging new trends with the AI and its very easy to get sidetracked. So I really think that the challenge right now is to stay consistent and not changing the marketing direction every month or quarter and also be B2B marketing has a really broad scope from digital to outbound socials, events, content marketing. So you simply need to realize that you cannot be everywhere and do everything.
Martin Kosak
So I really prefer, and I think it’s important to do, for example less channels but properly also creating value. That’s what I’m always saying. It’s better than just being everywhere, just for being there and not creating any value.
Brett
What about priorities? What would you say are your top marketing priorities for the next twelve to 24 months?
Martin Kosak
Mm. Again, I will repeat myself, but I still think it’s about creating a value, especially nowadays when I think good marketers should stop creating content that just doesn’t create value. It’s big differentiator and still the most content is produced solely for the SEO and it can be often very confusing and many companies tend to do it in the very same way, just using AI. So creating value instead, maybe conduct some original research. Take a look what Google’s ee 80 principles are and adjust to them. I can tell some examples from our website regarding the SEO and the value approach that I spoke when we started to do these first implementations of the deposit refund system. We desperately needed brand awareness.
Martin Kosak
So also stakeholders in other countries would know about us and that we are doing such a solution and so we could win new big business opportunities. And we basically cover the whole DRS topic. We took it as a cluster and we wrote articles from very explanatory basic articles, but up to very in house research articles where we gathered, for example the numbers of the collection rates in european countries. And I think it’s really probable that when you right now searching Google for deposit refund system or you put in deposit refund system in european countries, you will probably find our bulk article and a little bit on the higher level and what we do with SEO every three years we create, I think global waste index is a comprehensive ranking of OECD countries regarding how good or bad they manage waste.
Martin Kosak
We have done it in cooperation with professional PR agency from Germany. So this is not, let’s say in house research anymore. And this is something that people are really looking for. And we have really good backlinks on this research. This is actually the most visited page on our website after the homepage. I mean, of course people who are clicking on this article, they will probably not buy a sensor or be interested in the field level monitoring, but it really helps us to reach high positions on Google. So later when people who are looking for sensors can easily find us thanks to that. So yeah, I hope these kind of SEO examples make it more understandable for you what we are doing.
Brett
Yeah, they definitely do. Just to go back, a question as well, you had mentioned AI there. How are you viewing AI? Are there any AI tools outside of chat GPT that you’re really excited about?
Martin Kosak
Well, of course we are experimenting right now with some of them. And next to chgpt I can only mention mid journey. Extremely crazy what it can do. And regarding not only picture content or visual, but also videos, I’m really curious and looking forward, where else can it move and what will happen in the future. And it’s really probable you will not even need filmmakers anymore because you will create content by yourself exactly how you wish to do that. So I think we should not be afraid like marketers of AI, and it offers us a really nice playground where we can improve and how things will be possible that we couldn’t imagine before. And we needed some kind of, let’s say, extra capacities for that. Skilled people or money. Yeah.
Brett
And final question for you. Let’s imagine that you’re sitting down for coffee or a beer with a friend. They’re going to be the head of marketing at a B2B tech company based on everything. You know, what would be the number one piece of advice that you’d have to give them?
Martin Kosak
Well, I hope it’s not a problem, but my first one would be that you should be agile and not be afraid to try things and fail early and often. This can be also considered to the previous question. With AI, the experimentation brings you such a valuable experience and a great insights. I think it will harness everything later. So even when you fail, I think that’s okay. Number two, if you are a startup, you don’t have to seek for perfection with everything. You may have probably limited capacities in terms of people and budget, but many things you will need to do very fast on your own. So not everything will be perfect, but I think continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection. Number three is to be a doer and not a talker. I know many people who are more theoretic.
Martin Kosak
They say we could do this and we should do that, but there are still less people who really roll up their sleeves and start to do things. So personally, I would be super happy if someone would make that research for me or write that article. But we are not the corporate yet, so I prefer to get things done on my own. So this would be like my piece of advice.
Brett
Amazing. I love the advice. All right, Martin, we are up on time, so we’re going to have to wrap here. Before we do, if there’s any founders or any marketers or really just anyone listening in that wants to follow along with you and your journey, where should they go?
Martin Kosak
They can connect with me on LinkedIn on a personal basis. They like what I was saying, that if they would be interested in the sense of neo journey and what we do and how we are scaling, then they can either visit dozens or follow us on LinkedIn.
Brett
Awesome, Martin, thanks so much for taking the time. It’s been a lot of fun.
Martin Kosak
Thanks, Rose. Thank you for the invitation. It was nice talk.
Brett
This episode of Category Visionaries is brought to you by Front Lines Media, Silicon Valley’s leading podcast production studio. If you’re a B2B Founder looking for help launching and growing your own podcast, visit frontlines.io podcast. And for the latest episode, search for Category Visionaries on your podcast platform of choice. Thanks for listening and we’ll catch you on the next episode.
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