Marketing the Machines w/ Jon Star
What does it take to convince a room full of salespeople who love their paper brochures that marketing can actually drive revenue? For Jon Star, Director of Marketing at Methods Machine Tools, it took hard-won proof points, a five-year plan, and a willingness to speak the sales team’s language: dollars and cents.
In this episode of He Said, She Said: Razor Branding™, Jaci and Michael sit down with Jon Star of Methods Machine Tools, a family-owned importer of premium CNC machinery from Japan, celebrating nearly 70 years in business. Jon walks us through what it took to build a digital marketing engine almost from scratch, how Methods approaches trade shows as a year-long strategic investment rather than a single event, and why earned media and authentic relationships still outperform paid placements in a tight-knit, trust-driven industry.
They also dig into the unique brand architecture challenge of representing global manufacturing partners like Fanuc and Nakamura-Tome under the Methods name, how Jon turns marketing spend into revenue-impact conversations the C-suite actually cares about, and why leaving room for experimentation matters even inside a disciplined, metrics-driven marketing function.
In this conversation, you’ll hear:
- How Jon built a digital marketing engine at Methods almost from the ground up over a five-year plan
- What it actually takes to prep, run, and follow up on a massive trade show like IMTS – a 12-month project that touches half the company
- Why earned media and authentic industry relationships outperform paid placements in manufacturing
- How Methods balances being a “branded house” while representing premium international partners like Fanuc and Nakamura-Tome
- How Jon turned marketing metrics into revenue-impact language that finally got sales team buy-in
- Why leaving 20% of the marketing calendar open for experimentation matters, even in a metrics-driven culture
Listen wherever you get your podcasts or at razorbranding.org