Chris Walker and Megan Bowen of Refine Labs hosted another Demand Gen Live last night. The agenda consisted of: Performance Marketing vs. Brand Marketing, Why You Don't *Need* SEO in 2021, and How Top Marketers Stay Ahead of the Curve. They also answered live questions about ungating content, adjusting your metrics and how that affects things downstream, the iOS 15 update, prioritization based on perceived or measurable impact, and creating content.

Curious how you can win in the dark funnel and get buy-in from leadership to invest in these channels? Chris Walker is delivering a keynote on this topic in a one-off episode of Demand Gen Live on 6/17 at 12pm EDT. Register here for access: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUvcuqqqT4tG9KUwTtuYepZGuzxNHTBaUnX

Chris Walker, CEO at Refine Labs, hosted another small business consulting session where he narrowed in on a company's biggest opportunity to double down their efforts in what he calls the "white space." This is where there's a lot of organic reach and competitors are not executing properly. He also shared his take on their Google Search strategy and how he'd recommend taking their positioning to the next level.

Chris Walker went live yesterday with Dave Gerhardt, CMO at Privy, to have a discussion around the topic of how to prioritize your career path as a marketer. They talked through why it isn't necessary to be an expert at every function within marketing, but to have an understanding of what good looks like in all those functions as well as a broader understanding of how marketing interacts with other departments throughout an organization. Chris and Dave took questions live as they related to working for large corporations vs. startups, imposter syndrome, being a generalist vs. a specialist, and how to gain experience outside of your role.

We host a these Demand Gen Expert Sessions with Dave Gerhardt on the first Thursday of every month where you can ask Chris and Dave marketing-related questions LIVE. To register for future sessions, click here.

Last night on Demand Gen Live, Chris and Megan covered the following topics:

• The truth about influencer marketing that executives need to recognize
• Relationship building is at the core of B2B influencer marketing
• The value of user-generated content
• Great marketing means sales isn’t needed in the same capacity
• What types of content drive the most engagement
• Leveraging trade shows in an unconventional manner
• Sales enablement content
• Ad consumption - is there a negative impact if no action is taken?
• Experiential marketing
• How digital and offline channels intertwine
• Using media to educate and entertain the consumer rather than making them feel like they are just being moved through the funnel

Christine Leonard, Director of Marketing Optimization at Amplify, came onto State of Demand Gen for an episode of Back to Basics about marketing optimization and the buyer experience. They touched on how to avoid a leaky funnel by making sure in ICP buyers are being handled appropriately, and how a phenomenal buyer experience can be a differentiator. Chris and Christine went back and forth on why marketers should be shadowing their sales teams so they understand what happens when a lead is passed over to sales. Chris suggested diving into lead-to-win percentage by source, and they discussed the varying role of RevOps. 

Kathleen Booth, VP of Marketing at clean.io, joined Chris on State of Demand Gen to talk about authenticity in marketing. They discussed how to build leadership's confidence when it comes to experimentation and testing, why a "checking the box" approach to content is a huge missed opportunity, and the nuances between subscription and membership models. Kathleen and Chris shared their thoughts on outdated marketing strategies and how to freshen them up, and why brand marketing for a large corporation looks drastically different than that of a smaller organization.

Gaetano DiNardi (Director of Growth Marketing @ Nextiva) made a surprise appearance on Demand Gen Live with Chris Walker last night. They covered...

• What The Dark Funnel Is and How Marketers Can Use it to Market Better
• Issues with Intent Data
• Marketing Momentum
• The Importance of Consistency
• Creating a top 25 marketing podcast
• Leaning into what you can't measure
• Compounding gains
• Distribution strategies for hard to reach audiences
• Targeted direct mail
• When to outsource expertise
• Getting the most SEO bang for your buck
• How do you know when an experiment is working or not
• The broken SDR model

Nick Bennett (Director of Account-Based & Field Marketing @ Alyce) brought Chris onto his Field Marketing Meetup to talk about the biggest upcoming opportunities in the field marketing space. They broke down the definition of field marketing and how field marketing tactics move across into demand and product marketing. It's important to note that what field marketing is defined as in one organization could be completely different than what it may be in another, but is oftentimes the bridge between sales and marketing.

Chris joined Mark Stouse on the Accelerating Value podcast to talk about the differences between B2C and B2B, specifically in regards to what B2B companies should unlearn from B2C marketing strategies. They talked about disrupting the “agency” world and why if a marketing agency can’t market themselves that should be a red flag. Chris also shared why churn is a business problem, not a customer success problem, and what the leading causes of churn are and how to correct them.

Chris and Megan hosted a special episode of Demand Gen Live last night with the primary focus being career growth and entrepreneurship. Chris kicked off the episode sharing his unconventional career path and how he ended up founding Refine Labs. They followed up with a Q&A where they covered an assortment of topics including:  

• Intent signals
• How do you keep your strategy moving or know when it’s time to move on
• As a marketer your job is to keep moving with your customer
• Following your intuition as a marketer
• The importance of deeply understanding your customer
• How demand gen marketers should structure their relationships with sales leadership
• What conversations with sales should demand gen marketers be involved in?
• The role of empathy in a business setting and in marketing
• The importance of marketing fundamentals
• Is it a content issue or an audience issue?