Gaetano DiNardi, Head of Growth & Demand Gen at Nextiva, joined Chris in the new podcast studio to talk about the State of Demand Gen in 2021. They covered whether B2B demand gen has gotten easier or harder to execute since last year, demand creation vs. demand capturing, why there's a lot more waste now in B2B and what companies can do about it, marketing ops and of course...SEO. Check out the full episode to find out which 4 key places Chris and Gaetano recommend marketers focus for the remainder of 2021.

Chris Walker and Megan Bowen hosted another Demand Gen Live community event this week. They covered three pre-set agenda topics: (1) The Demand Waterfall: Is it time for a new demand model?; (2) The 6 pillars to build your word of mouth strategy; (3) The big problem companies face when only focusing on capturing demand. Chris also opened the stage to a live Q&A and answered questions from the community in regards to quality vs. quantity of leads, content distribution and promotion, creating content at and around conferences and live events, and social listening.

Register for tomorrow's Demand Gen Expert Session here. 

Chris Walker joined Norwest Venture Partners for an event called “The New Rules of Digital Advertising.” He shared insights on the gap between leads and revenue, measuring on pipeline and revenue instead of solely on leads, and why measurement and attribution needs to shift in this new era of marketing. He also talked about reverse engineering how marketing got to where it is today and followed up his keynote with a brief Q&A. 

Chris Walker presented another keynote last week and shared his demand generation framework. Main takeaways: Word of mouth drives most B2B buying decisions today The best way to connect with your buyers is through content that resonates with them Attribution isn't always what it seems Content distribution is just as, if not more important, than creation  The same team should be responsible for both brand AND demand He also answered questions in regards to his demand gen framework, inbound vs. outbound, and how to completely shift your strategy without creating operational inefficiencies based on current org structure and budget allocation and goals. 

Register here for our next live event with Dave Gerhardt, taking place Thursday July 1st at 9am PDT / 12pm EDT.

Chris Walker hosted Demand Gen Live last night with MJ Peters as his co-host. They covered pipeline velocity and how to start incorporating that into your primary marketing metrics, the missing piece of product marketing, and building a community vs. building a following. Chris also answered questions about whether or not brand and demand should be separate functions in an organization, leveraging expertise and gaining trust amongst your audience, and limitations with direct attribution by channel.

Register here for our next live event with Dave Gerhardt, taking place Thursday July 1st at 9am PDT / 12pm EDT.

Christopher Lochhead, Author of Play Bigger and Host of the Lochhead On Marketing Podcast, joined Chris for an episode of State of Demand Gen. They shared insights on category design, what makes a legendary marketer, and why marketing is just sales at scale. Lochhead shared his thoughts and examples on why categories make brands as well as how to understand if a company really gets marketing. 

Disclaimer: This episode contains explicit language.  

Chris Walker hosted a European time zone-friendly episode of Demand Gen Live yesterday where he delivered a keynote on the Dark Funnel. He explained what the Dark Funnel is and what marketers can do to capture the attention of their buyers in the places and ways in which they ACTUALLY buy. He opened up the stage to a live Q&A after the keynote and answered questions about non-conversion-based paid social, whether or not you can measure the impact of marketing in the dark funnel, intent data, how to know if your messaging is resonating, and podcasting.

Register for the Norwest Venture Partners event 'The New Rules of Digital Advertising' featuring our host, Chris Walker, here: https://newrulesofdigitaladvertising.splashthat.com/

Chris Walker hosted this week's Demand Gen Live from his new Boston podcast studio. The agenda consisted of: Why Marketing Teams Should Move to a Holistic Website-Sourced Funnel, Crash course: Revenue Ops for Marketers, and How to Measure the Impact of Brand. He answered questions from the audience in regards to freeing your marketing team from attribution, the dark funnel, pipeline marketing vs. creating demand, the purpose of landing pages, using brand and word of mouth to get in front of your buyers, the role of SDRs, and why not all leads are created equal.

Make sure to register for Chris's keynote on the dark funnel, taking place tomorrow at 9:30am PDT / 12:30pm EDT: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUvcuqqqT4tG9KUwTtuYepZGuzxNHTBaUnX

Tom Wentworth, CMO at Recorded Future, joined Chris for a podcast episode last week. They discussed what happens when marketers make the shift from optimizing for leads to optimizing for pipeline, and Tom shared that getting more leads is not always good for the business. Chris and Tom talked through opportunity costs, the long term implications of optimizing for short-term metrics, the importance of brand in hitting pipeline goals, and why having a loyal audience creates a competitive advantage. They also debated whether a content marketer or journalist makes more sense to hire internally as well as what missed opportunities they are seeing marketers make often.