Ian Faison

Ian Faison, the CEO and Founder of Caspian Studios, dives into the shifting landscape of content marketing. He discusses the move away from outdated strategies towards an Owned Media Portfolio, emphasizing co-creation and diverse formats. Faison shares insights on crafting engaging podcasts and ambitious storytelling projects, or 'moonshots'. He also explores the importance of serialized content in B2B marketing and how to measure ROI effectively, plus how startups can leverage these innovative strategies for greater audience engagement.

Ian Faison is Founder and CEO at Caspian Studios. Caspian Studios manages 60+ podcasts and video series in a variety of industries and Ian hosts Remarkable, Demand Gen Visionaries, Often Imitated, CIO Classified, and Rise of RevOps. He's an Oakland native, former Army Captain, and West Point graduate and Co-founder of Mission.org and co-founder of VETCON. Ian joins Dave to talk about podcasting for B2B. Can it work? How do you think about ROI?Ian also shares some of the behind the scenes from a recent show they created called Murder in HR - a narrative fiction podcast they created for the B2B SaaS brand Gympass - which reached #1 on the fictions charts in Apple podcasts and has over 1M listeners to date. Send guest pitches and ideas to hi@exitfive.comJoin the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterCheck out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership***Today’s episode is brought to you by Walnut.Why are we pouring all this effort into marketing just to push buyers to a “request a demo” or “contact sales” button?Come on, today’s buyers don’t want to talk to sales right away. They want to explore your product themselves, see how it works, and understand its value before booking a meeting.That’s where Walnut comes in.Walnut empowers marketers and GTM teams to create interactive, self-guided product experiences in minutes. Embed these experiences on your site, in emails, or anywhere in your funnel to let buyers engage on their terms, from awareness to close and beyond. That's the beauty of Walnut - you're getting a platform that your sales and CS colleagues can use to showcase the product too.And the best part? You get real intent data—see which features prospects love, where they drop off, and what’s actually driving pipeline. Demo Qualified Leads are the new MQL.Over 500 companies, like Adobe and NetApp, use Walnut to drive 2-3x higher website conversion rates and 7 figures in pipeline on a yearly basis. So do you want to drive more leads, shorten sales cycles, and actually show your product instead of hiding it behind another typical B2B CTA? Go check out Walnut.io. And if you tell them Dave from Exit 5 sent you, they'll build out your first demo for free!

Ian Faison, an expert in the intersection of fiction and B2B marketing, delves into how storytelling can revolutionize marketing strategies. He discusses the concept of edutainment, emphasizing the need for engaging fictional content that resonates with audiences. Faison cites a successful murder mystery podcast as a prime example of captivating storytelling. He also highlights the importance of treating content as a product tailored to audience needs, advocating for a blend of entertaining series and targeted messaging. Humor and personalized content are key themes in modern B2B marketing.