Going Deep Into the Refine Labs Methodology - Sidney Waterfall

Challenging conventions on attribution and funnel tracking and championing new ways of generating demand, this agency has broken pretty much every mold and driven the conversation and debate.

Today we're joined by SVP of Marketing Sidney Waterfall, who produces much of the Refine Labs IP and brings together both deep demand gen and RevOps expertise. In this in-depth discussion we unpack the nitty-gritty of the Refine Labs methodology.

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About Today's Guest

Sidney Waterfall is SVP of Marketing at Refine Labs, with responsibility for GTM strategy, demand generation, product marketing, product strategy, and ultimately driving revenue for Refine Labs services and products.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sidneywaterfall/

Key Topics

[00:00] - Introduction
[01:02] - Sidney's background and how she joined Refine Labs.
[02:25] - Issues in B2B marketing today. Many people still running a lead gen approach. Lack of focus on data structure and operations, although macroeconomic conditions forcing people to become more data driven.
[05:19] - Defining terms - lead gen, demand gen, demand capture, demand conversion.
[07:47] - More companies implementing this approach in recent years. But some still struggle with making the transition. How Refine Labs helps companies make that strategic shift. First step is accepting that buyer behavior has changed. Requires deep alignment at the leadership level. Changing measurement and KPIs, from lead generation to higher intent pipeline. This provokes terror in some. Overcoming objections. Indicators to look at.
[15:22] - What it means to run a demand creation campaign and how to do it. You don't need a huge evangelist in your company. Only 20-25% of Refine Labs clients have that. It starts with the content that's on your high-value product and solutions pages. This gives the campaign strategy or angle. You take that and package it for both paid and organic. This content communicates problem awareness. You can also work with content teams, take assets like blog posts and repackage them for social. Distribute it in a buyer-centric way - un-gated, designed for the platform, unique. You need some offer in the middle, like a podcast or live event series, that people can engage with.
[20:35] - Whether this approach can work for everyone. It requires a basic repeatable sales process and the ability to talk to prospects. If you don't know how to convert a buyer when they are in a sales cycle, you won't know how to create demand.
[22:13] - The role of ops in a demand creation GTM strategy. Ops is pivotal. There's a strategic side and a tactical side. If ops is a strategic function in your org, you will have a powerhouse org. They need to offer not just data but insights - that's the step up there. Justin notes that ops leaders need to be revenue leaders in their own right, not just in service of others.
[28:13] - How to configure systems for attribution. First step is standardized UTM values. Important to track session-based UTMs - so first touch but also tracking UTMs for each session that results in a conversion. A conversion is anytime your sales team is working something. Tracking meetings and sub-stages, opportunities and sub-stages. Definition of HIRO pipeline - opportunity stage that converts at 25% or higher. Source (offer) is what they engaged with - the destination. Campaign is a detail of that. This is more predictive of outcomes than the channel that referred them.
[36:34] - The new Refine Labs funnel model. Traditional demand waterfall is ingrained in everything - an assembly-line approach. This new approach un-blends the funnel into pipeline sources. It's built built around what the customer is doing vs. internal departments. Ability to track how people come in and out of the market at different times. With opportunities, they look at the originating contact as the source. Separating the funnel questions from account journey questions. They are distinct, require different data sets.
[47:07] - Definition of "conversion". Different companies have different thresholds for when leads go to sales. This model enables comparison between different conversion sources to evaluate their effectiveness.
[50:48] - Looking at the account journey. It's about pattern recognition, seeing what things are more common for personas and stages, and using that to optimize in-channel strategy. This is more loose vs. funnel tracking, which should be black and white. Focused heavily on topics, not just formats. There is no perfect, beautiful account journey.
[55:15] - Discussion of The Vault and WatchTower.

Resource Links

Refine Labs - Official site
The Vault - IP database of Refine Labs methodology, including frameworks, experiment reports, playbooks, and community. They have a paid membership, but I highly recommend signing up even for a free account, as there are a lot of valuable resources available to all.
WatchTower - Conversion tracking and hybrid attribution solution built on the Salesforce platform.
Chris Walker on YouTube - Hundreds of hours of educational content and podcasts.

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