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 He discusses the move away from outdated strategies towards an Owned Media Portfolio, emphasizing co-creation and diverse formats.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 Zuddl.We’re halfway through 2025, and one thing’s clear: events continue to be one of the highest performing marketing channels. Niche meetups, conferences, curated dinners, networking - you name it. Everyone’s leaning in.Events are a core part of our playbook this year at Exit Five. So far, we’ve hosted two virtual sessions each month, one large virtual event, one in-person meetup, and we’re deep in the weeds planning our Drive conference coming back to Vermont this September.Zuddl helps us run a smarter event strategy - from driving registrations, managing invites, automating comms, reminders, analytics, tracking. Their Salesforce integration also makes it simple to report on pipeline and revenue from events without pulling in ops.On top of that, the differentiator with Zuddl is how their team is insanely good at supporting us. They always go above and beyond for us - and that’s how we’ve been able to keep the momentum going with 12+ events already this year, with plenty more to come.If events are part of your marketing strategy, you need to look at Zuddl to see how companies like Zillow, CrowdStrike, and Iterable are using the top event platform for Business events in 2025. Head over to zuddl.com/exitfive to learn more. 

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.