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Creating content is easy. Creating good content that drives results, that's hard. But with the right framework in place, it doesn't have to be. In this episode, Chris breaks down the 5-step framework we use at Refine Labs to create a content system that allows us to grow rapidly with zero outbound sales effort.

Podcasting is one of our favorite forms of content because it is so versatile. Not only can you publish the long-form audio on all the major podcast platforms, but when you record it with video you can repurpose on YouTube, break it down into smaller LinkedIn video posts, and a whole lot more. Taking full advantage of your podcast is a huge opportunity to generate demand on dark social. In this episode, Chris talks about how we utilize The State of Demand Podcast at Refine Labs to do just that.

Dave Gerhardt, Chief Brand Officer at Drift, joined Chris for another Demand Gen Expert Session, this time on the topic of "Marketing and Sales as One Team." Obviously, Marketing and Sales are quite different. But at the end of the day, their end goal should be revenue. By thinking of the two as working together rather than working towards completely separate goals, both teams are better able to drive results for the business. Dave and Chris discussed this in depth as well as where a Chief Revenue Officer and RevOps come into play. They also hosted a live Q&A, answering questions about SDRs, Customer Success, benchmarks, and KPIs.

Adding "How did you hear about us?" to your demo request form gives huge insights into what channels are working. But, there's a right way and a wrong way. And if you're making these three common mistakes, you could be doing more harm than good. In this episode, Chris goes over the top three mistakes people make and why it's so important to fix them immediately.He also talks about one of the most overlooked ways of increasing your marketing effectiveness—lowering customer acquisition cost (CAC). By making a few simple changes, we've seen company's media budgets drive up to 3x the results.

Marketing is the best tool growth stage companies have, not sales. But how does the founder/CEO play a role in driving marketing performance? The problem with most early-stage B2B SaaS companies is there is a lack of customer understanding leading the product roadmap. For the leadership to positively impact marketing, they need to start by understanding the customer. Segmenting down so much to where your product is so in tune with the customer that you have no competition. In this episode, Chris dives into how he did this at Refine Labs, as well as answers questions from Founders and CEOs looking to level up their marketing-led growth.

When Sydney Sloan walked into Salesloft three years ago they were optimizing for MQLs. Marketing had no efficiency. Salespeople were overwhelmed with low intent leads. Conversions were low. When Sydney took over as CMO, she wasn't interested in the vanity metrics that were being measured up until that point. She wanted to eliminate waste and increase marketing effectiveness at driving pipeline, not MQLs. In this episode, Sydney lays out her playbook on how she took over a struggling marketing team and turned it into a revenue-generating machine.

Marketers love to hate on "vanity" metrics, and rightfully so. But the problem is, they are misdiagnosing vanity metrics and using the real vanity metrics to make strategic decisions. I'm talking about MQLs, eBook downloads, website visits, blog views, etc. These may have been important KPIs back in 2011 when marketing's only goal was to find fit and feed leads to sales. But this isn't 2011. Sales teams can have tools like Zoominfo to find contacts that have fit. Marketing needs to shift their focus to intent. The new goal is to generate demand at the highest level of the funnel—the level you're not even playing in right now. In this episode, Chris talks about what metrics you need to start looking at and how to turn those metrics into revenue.

You don't need more budget. In fact, less budget would probably help you do a lot more with your marketing dollars. The sad truth is that marketing teams across industries almost universally wasting money. Poor strategy and even worse execution can't be helped by more budget. And most marketing teams are converting at less than .1%. In this episode, Chris talks about how to rethink marketing strategies to eliminate waste and drive results. 

If you're in sales you're certainly thinking, "Demos?! Really??" And our answer is a resounding, Yes! But there's a small catch. It's time for marketers to rethink what a demo consists of. In the past (and as we record this podcast), a demo is when you go on a website, fill out a form and request to talk to a salesperson to see it in action. But as a marketer, your goal in 2022 and beyond needs to shift from feeding leads to the sales team and executing sales at scale. Sales shouldn't be responsible for educating the prospect on what their pain points are and how the product can alleviate them. That's marketing's job and it should've been clear long before a demo was requested. So if that task now falls into marketing, the question is, how do you effectively execute demos at scale? Effectively being the keyword there... The answer is to change the way you define a demo. In this episode, Chris talks all about how B2B marketing needs to start getting prospects 95% closed before they even talk to a sales rep.

Positioning is the foundation on which your business is built. But most business leaders don't fully understand what good positioning is, let alone how to execute it successfully. In this episode, Chris talks one-on-one with April Dunford, widely regarded as one of the top minds on the subject matter. April goes through her 5 components of positioning that every organization needs to address including competitive alternatives, differentiated capabilities, value, segmentation, and market category.