Most companies guard their marketing plans like state secrets. We did a live podcast episode to show you everything. Josh tripled Jess's pipeline goal (classic CEO move), organic search is in chaos, and marketers everywhere are white-knuckling their way through what Josh calls "pipeline anxiety."

So what's Vector doing about it? Ghost tours. Influencer programs. Adding a demand gen hire to the team. And a whole lot of marketing on vibes that's about to get way more measurable. 

In this bonus live episode, Jess and Josh break down their entire 2026 marketing strategy—the three big rocks, the budget, the hires, and yes, the Lexapro-inducing vulnerabilities keeping them up at night. Because if you're gonna build in public, you might as well go all in. 

Get to the good stuff: 
[00:00] Josh opened with a casual pipeline goal update: triple it. Jess pretended to be fine. She wasn't fine. 
[01:22] Marketing to marketers means you're getting paid to have therapy sessions about pipeline with your entire ICP. 
[02:00] Pickleball notepad flashcard game begins. First up: organic search. Pure chaos. SEO-GEO-EIO. 
[04:40] Josh's internal fear: losing organic traffic is scary, but losing visibility and attribution? That's the part nobody's talking about. 
[06:16] Vector's product roadmap includes bot detection for ads—because 10-15% of your ad spend is retargeting Terminator, not humans. [08:23] Paid media still has volatility and black box vibes, but it's making a comeback as cold email implodes. 
[10:00] Cost per ICP click is Vector's killer metric—because cost per click doesn't matter if everyone clicking is garbage. 
[12:32] ABM as a strategy? Love. ABM tools? Not so much. Marketers are finally leaving the legacy platforms. 
[15:37] Consolidation is inevitable, but Josh had thoughts on whether Vector is best-in-breed or all-in-one. (Spoiler: it's the political answer.) [18:00] The major theme for 2026: pipeline anxiety. Every marketer feels it. Lexapro sales are up. 
[23:00] Jess presented her 2026 plan the same way she pitched her budget—with a story, a Jaws gif, and three pictures of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. 
[24:54] Big Rock #1: Be everywhere your audience is and turn it up to 11. Ghost Tour Tour announcement dropped. 
[28:23] Piggybacking events to save budget while traumatizing prospects with haunted walking tours.  
[31:41] Media sponsorships with Exit Five and Demand Collective—distribution plays that don't require a $100k booth. 
[33:42] Influencer program is back and doubled down after turning $12k into $1.1M in pipeline. 
[34:16] Big Rock #2: Be your favorite marketing team's favorite marketing team. Hiring top 1% talent who advocate for their discipline, not just the product. 
[36:32] Department excellence is the mandate—Alex is the best PMM Jess has ever met, and the new demand gen hire is at the same level. 
[37:00] Marketable moments—engineering has an OKR to ship enough that there's something valuable in the Ghost to Market newsletter every week. 
[38:55] Vector on Vector—demand gen marketer will build the ultimate playbook for using Vector at Vector, then share it with customers. 
[39:56] Big Rock #3: Build our own crystal ball. No more marketing on 100% vibes. Time for QBRs, metrics, and knowing the numbers cold. 
[41:13] Positive affirmations break—let's hear it for moments of zen. 
[42:41] Vulnerability Corner debut. Josh was worried about keeping Vector special while scaling, and fears a pipeline system collapse across B2B. 
[46:00] Jess just got promoted to VP of Marketing and is nervous about living up to the title, leading a team, and continuously outdoing themselves. 
[48:00] Q&A: How has your ICP evolved? Answer: sharper and sharper as positioning tightened from sales + marketing to just marketing. 
[50:00] Solo marketer priority? Focus on LLMs, SEO, and GEO—shape the narrative of what AI says about you. 
[51:47] Balancing weirdness with conversion? Be quirky at the top of the funnel, crystal clear at the bottom. Clarity is queen. 

This Meeting Could've Been a Podcast is a Vector production.