[Top Agency Series] Mastering Engineering-Led Marketing With Ben LeDonni of BNP Engage

Ben LeDonni is the Founder of BNP Engage, a B2B-focused marketing agency specializing in content strategy and marketing automation, and the CMO of BNP Media, a company driving industries forward with authentic content, unique communities, and powerful connections. Known for his concept of “engineering-led marketing,” he is passionate about leveraging technology to enhance marketing efficacy. Ben’s expertise includes aligning growth marketing strategies with custom web design and development to boost brand awareness, conversions, and revenue.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [03:58] Valuable books Ben LeDonni recommends for personal and business growth
• [08:33] Ben provides an overview of what BNP Engage does
• [10:34] The importance of marketing strategy and customer insight for long-term business growth
• [13:01] The evolution of BNP Engage’s services
• [15:19] How BNP Engage acquired its initial clients
• [19:14] Engineering-led marketing and its evolution
• [22:05] The restructuring of marketing teams and the role of strategic planning
• [28:47] How Ben’s role evolved post-acquisition with BNP Media
• [38:35] Key aspects to consider when planning to sell your agency

In this episode…

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, technological advancements are reshaping not only our daily lives, but also the very fabric of business marketing. Companies must adapt to the rapid pace of engineering innovations and emerging technology trends to remain competitive and relevant. How can companies stay ahead of the curve and use these changes to their advantage?

Ben LeDonni, a marketing guru, shares his journey from starting a digital marketing agency to being strategically acquired, highlighting how technology has always been a catalyst for marketing evolution. He stresses the importance of understanding your client’s needs through strategic planning and how he guided his agency through significant industry shifts. Ben introduces the “engineering-led marketing” philosophy, sharing intriguing insights about hiring the right team, prioritizing strategy, and adapting marketing teams to leverage new tools.

In this episode of Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz interviews Ben LeDonni, Founder of BNP Engage, about engineering-led marketing and agency growth. Ben shares an overview of BNP Engage and what it does, the evolution of its services, and the results of its integration with BNP Media.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Ben LeDonni on LinkedIn
• BNP Engage

Special Mention(s):

• The Go-Giver, Expanded Edition: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea by Bob Burg and John David Mann 
• Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes by Morgan Housel
• Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman
• Rocket Fuel: The One Essential Combination That Will Get You More of What You Want from Your Business by Gino Wickman and Mark C. Winters 
• Changing the Game by John O’Sullivan 
• Raising Empowered Athletes: A Youth Sports Parenting Guide for Raising Happy, Brave, and Resilient Kids by Kirsten Jones
• Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss andTahl Raz
• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck
• Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth
• 2Bobs
• Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You by John Warrillow

Related episode(s):

• “[Top Agency Series] Unlocking Sales Potential With Video Case Stories With Ian Garlic” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Sweet Process Series] How to Save Hundreds of Hours a Month Using Top Productivity Tools with Adi Klevit of Business Success Consulting Group” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Top Agency Series] Most Valuable Advice When Selling Your Agency With Todd Taskey of Potomac Business Capital” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “Bob Burg: Transform your business and life by being a Go-Giver? [Sales and Revenue – Author]” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “The Two Leadership Traits To Explode Your Business With Mark C. Winters Author and Founder of RocketFuelNow.com” on the Inspired Insider Podcast 
• “Leading with Passion with Gino Wickman Founder of EOS Worldwide” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “Negotiation Tactics From FBI Agent Christopher Voss, Founder of Black Swan Ltd” on the Inspired Insider Podcast

Quotable Moments:

• “You should be repurposing content and using it to drive connections in ways that didn’t exist before.”
• “In B2B, defining your brand and audience is even more crucial, as it’s been easy to overlook in a traditionally sales-driven environment.”
• “Embrace the changes AI brings to marketing teams; it’s less about creating from scratch and more about strategic repurposing and optimization.”
• “Know your numbers, understand them deeply; because in an acquisition scenario, they are your most powerful communicator.”
• “Never discount the power of strategy — especially in the B2B space, where understanding the customer’s journey is paramount.”

Action Steps:

1. Leverage AI tools for content creation: By training AI tools with customer-specific data, businesses can generate precise and relevant content quickly.
2. Prioritize strategy and planning: Establishing a strong strategic foundation allows businesses to effectively choose the right tools and tactics, addressing the challenge of navigating the vast options available in digital marketing.
3. Utilize segmentation for communication: Ensure that messaging is tailored to the appropriate audience, enhancing the impact of outreach efforts.
4. Adopt engineering-led marketing practices: Stay ahead of technological changes and improve operational efficiency, adapting to continuously evolving digital tools.
5. Strengthen relationship building: Fostering strong, trust-based relationships both internally and with partners is crucial for long-term success and can provide resilience against market shifts and challenges.

Episode Transcript

Intro  0:01

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr Jeremy Weisz.

Jeremy Weisz  0:22

Dr Jeremy Weisz here, founder of inspiredinsider.com where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders today, is no different, I have Ben LeDonni. You can check out the website, at bnpengage.com and Ben before I formally introduce you. I always like to point out other episodes of the podcast people should check out. Since this is part of the top agency series, a couple fan favorites, Ian Garlic, who big shout-out, because he introduced Ben and I. Ian had an interview. He talks about his Video Case Story business, where he highlights case stories to help build people’s businesses those Video Case Stories. And he told a really interesting story, because he comes from an entrepreneur household. His dad was an entrepreneur, and it got the creative juices flowing, Ben for me, because he said his dad had a restaurant with live dolphins in it, okay? And that would be weird in general, okay, and he’s in Orlando now, but the restaurant was in Wisconsin, which makes it even stranger. So listen to an episode. It definitely has some interesting stories in it.

Another one was Adi Klevit. Adi Klevit helps businesses. She’s a done-for-you agency for businesses to create SOPs, right? So that was interesting. And people will hire them to do smooth out their onboarding client process or onboarding staff process. And we geeked out on our favorite software and productivity tools. So that was a really interesting episode. And then Todd Taskey was another one. He’s got the Second Bite Podcast, and he helps pair agencies with private equity and second bite, because sometimes private equity, when they sell again, they make more on the second bite than they do on the first. And so that was a great episode on valuation space, agency space and just business in general. Check those out on inspiredinsider.com. We’re gonna talk about Ben and his transition after selling two but this episode is brought to you by Rise25.

At Rise25 we help businesses give to and connect to their dream relationships and partnerships. And how do we do that? We do that by helping you run your podcast. We’re an easy button for a company to launch and run a podcast, and we do the strategy, the accountability and the full execution. So Ben, we call ourselves the magic elves that run in the background and make a little bit easy for the host so they can create amazing content, amazing relationships. Most importantly, run their business. For me, the number one thing in my life is relationships. I’m always looking at ways to give to my best relationships, and I found no better way, over the past decade, to profile the people and companies I most admire and share with the world what they’re working on. So if you’ve thought about podcasting, you should, if you have questions, go to rise25.com or email us at [email protected].

I’m excited to introduce Ben LeDonni, he’s CMO of BNP Media after his agency was acquired, and they are a data driven B2B digital marketing agency, and their growth marketing strategies are combined with custom website design development, and that all helps increase awareness, conversions and sales and revenue. He has an interesting background, a graduate of Villanova University in a BS and masters in computer science. And we’ll talk about what he’s going to coin engineering led marketing at some point. So you heard here first when he comes out the book engineering led marketing. Ben, thanks for joining me.

Ben LeDonni  3:58

Thank you very much for having me. Dr Jeremy, I appreciate it, and I definitely share the sentiment on being a Go-Giver. That’s my attitude too. It’s one of the books that’s up here, right here, as far as being able to help people and have them give back. So I really appreciate you having me on.

Jeremy Weisz  4:11

Awesome. Yeah. Bob Berg, I had him on twice. Go-Giver. I’m gonna have you talk about engage in what you do, but talk about some of the books above you and some of your favorites now that you pointed that out.

Ben LeDonni  4:22

Oh, man. Well, so the one that I just read is this one here, Same as Ever. Loved it. I mean, Same as Ever. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Great book. Really, kind of principles of things that just never change, that people in human behavior throughout history is always about the same. And he cites a whole bunch of examples and how the wind can blow a certain direction and change the course of history. Yet the decisions that we make are always rooted in a couple of key things that we all have as humans, some of them good, some of them bad. So anyway, just a really cool one. What else would I call out Traction at EOS, running the business. The way I did, I used the concepts and Traction and Rocketfuel to really help that. Let’s see. What else do I have here that I would probably call out, and there’s so many.

Jeremy Weisz  5:10

Yeah, as you’re looking there, I did have Mark Winters and Gino Wickman on the podcast, Rocketfuel and Traction, both awesome books. What else?

Ben LeDonni  5:22

Yeah, I’ll give you another one that’s up there. It’s called Changing the Game, and it is not a business oriented book. And I feel like a lot of the people here would appreciate it, though, because it’s for somebody that’s raising kids that are in sports and how to not go crazy, like all these parents are these days about all the sports training and all sorts of passion that we have as adults. So the author’s name is John O’Sullivan, and he does a good TED Talk. Was an easy way to catch some of the cliff notes. But basically, like, you wouldn’t want your son standing behind you when you’re swinging a golf club and telling you you’re doing it wrong. So don’t tell them they’re playing basketball incorrectly when they get out of practice, like, just let them play and have fun. So I love that book.

Jeremy Weisz  6:08

I just listened to Raising Empowered Athletes by Kiersten Jones, which was also really good about, how do you raise kids and not helicopter them. And so that was a good one too.

Ben LeDonni  6:25

I’ll have to check that out. Sounds awesome.

Jeremy Weisz  6:27

Any others behind you that we should check out? And as you’re looking there. Also, one of my favorites is Never Split the Difference, which is by Chris Voss, ex FBI hostage negotiator. And most people get it for business. I got it from a like you were mentioning Ben from a parenting perspective, because I’m like, Listen, if this guy can deal with terrorists and negotiating, then maybe it helped me negotiate with my kids.

Ben LeDonni  6:56

That’s awesome, negotiate with the kids. I have a friend that recommended that book to me. I actually have to, that’s on my list. I got to get to that one.

Jeremy Weisz  7:02

It’s fantastic. There’s an hour interview if you want to hear the Cliff Notes version that I did with Chris on the podcast. So, yeah, it’s a good one.

Ben LeDonni  7:09

Oh man, I have to check that out. Yeah, that’s really cool. Well, the other one I mentioned Mindset, Carol Dweck, Carol Dewick. I mean that in terms of, there’s another one that’s similar to that, which is Grit. I think it’s just called Grit. They’re really similar. The author that wrote Grit, I’m blanking on her name, but she was at UPenn.

Jeremy Weisz  7:32

I think it’s Angela Ducksworth. That’s coming to mind.

Ben LeDonni  7:37

Ducksworth, yeah, that sounds right. So, sorry I forgot her name, obviously. Like, you should just remember both great principles for business and family. I mean, like raising kids that have a growth mindset around you make a mistake, It’s a lesson learned. You know, take something from it and then being gritty about speed and direction, like you pick a direction, go in that direction full speed. And every time you get distracted you go somewhere else. You’re actually not working towards your main goal. So those two books hand in hand, I must have read them together, because they felt really similar.

Jeremy Weisz  8:07

I had to revisit that one. I think it’s been a while. So thanks for the reminder on that Grit. So let’s talk about Engage for a second. Thanks for your rundown there that helps. I love resources, especially getting into your mind a little bit. And we’re looking at the website here, if people want to check out the video portion, bnpengage.com and talk a little bit about what you do as a company.

Ben LeDonni  8:33

Yeah. So, I mean, your intro is spot on. Dr Jeremy, the whole like, data driven, yes, for sure. But just at the core of it, we see so many businesses, especially in the B2B space, they’re trying to grow. They know they need to do it through sales and marketing, but they’ve never actually charted that course. So we just talked about Grit and speed and direction. The first step is, where do you want to go? What’s the direction you need to go? And so we start with strategy and planning. Plan out things like, who’s your main audience, what makes them tick at night, that help them call you, and who’s your best customers. We were just on site with a customer yesterday, which I’m sure I’ll tell you more about them, but we were talking about who their best customers are. Why do they like them?

The reasons they lost deals, and what happened as a result? And all that stuff is strategy that once you outline the direction that you want to go in, we start talking about the speed and the things that we need to do to get there. And so we start what we call that production, where that could be producing content, design, development. A lot of times it’s a heavy website or CRM, email, things like that that drive results. And then marketing and optimization for us is very data driven. What’s working out of the production stuff we just created? Where are we trying to deploy advertising? Be it on some publication, type of advertising website, some event that we go to, some email like, you name all the channels that you might want to go through to advertise a business. We’ll make sure that we put the plan together. So we’re working within a budget that the company wants to work within, and then measure and optimize as we go.

And so we create relationships with that where we’ll start off. I mean, we have companies that we worked with for seven, eight, nine years now that we started with strategy, and we’ve revisited their strategy, but we just helped them to keep pace and keep working forward in a very gritty fashion.

Jeremy Weisz  10:21

We’re looking at here the approach for a second. And I know that’s where kind of the foundation starts with the strategy. Can you talk a little bit about what we’re looking at in your approach when you start working with someone?

Ben LeDonni  10:34

Yeah, so we are big believers in the basics and one on ones in marketing, like define the audience. Know your audience, KYA, for all the marketers like you have to do that, and it’s just, you know, I think in B2C, a lot of times, people have no choice but to really define their brand and their audience. And in B2B, it’s kind of like, Hey, we got by without doing this for so long. We shouldn’t have to do it. We’re fine. And so we’re a little different that we’ll force people to sit down and think through. No, we need to know your personas before we start doing anything. We need to make sure we understand your customer’s journey. What are the questions that they ask as they go through a sales process? And it’s great. I mean, when you think about B2B sales, a lot of times, the sales cycle might be six months a year, and in that time period, there are two or three decision makers.

There are countless questions that get asked if you never really sat down and thought about that as a business owner, a marketing leader, even a CEO like you, really are missing some key points that help drive growth in a business. And so our approach is to really extract that out. We do it through workshops, which is kind of a smaller type of engagement could take easily, like four weeks, and that’s it. Do a workshop, define it, make sure we get our road map in place and then execute on that road map. Or in a bigger picture, it’s handful of stakeholders, maybe up to six, where we’re interviewing them, getting all the key details about what makes a company tick and how we can help drive growth, and then outlining that into personas, customer journey, strategic marketing plan, and then also a content calendar and content plan as far as what they need to do to reach their audience. So all those things come together, and that makes a big road map, right?

We talked about grit already, so there’s direction, and then the speed at which we go, or the steps that you need to do, to get that direction and accomplish that mission is really just a road map that we execute on. And we go month over month, producing content, updating, revising websites, building things, revising the CRM, emailing people, whatever it takes to get the apps, the output that we’re looking for.

Jeremy Weisz  12:35

Ben, at some point, you have to make sure we talk about engineer led marketing, which kind of goes into your background before you started the agency, but talk about the evolution of the niche when you first started your agency, before getting acquired. Way back when, what was the original kind of idea and niche you were going after at the time?

Ben LeDonni  13:01

So, man, I learned a lot in the time period that I’ve run the business, and I was very ignorant to niche early on. I mean, I did anything and everything from a technical perspective, from servers on-site at somebody’s location, to website, work, B2C, B2B startup, you name. It didn’t really matter. It was like somebody that needed my help. I was willing to help them, if I could help them gradually over time.

Jeremy Weisz  13:29

Remember your first customer, client, and what you did for them? What was it?

Ben LeDonni  13:35

It was a tile company. They imported tile from Italy. It was a friend of mine from Villanova college, and he ends up, he basically like his family business. This was 2002 at the time, maybe 2001 and his dad was like, I want to get online, on the internet, put all of our tile up online.

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