Chris Walker presented a keynote on Dark Social at this year's Traffic & Conversion Summit in San Diego, CA. We've discussed dark social on the podcast before, but as a reminder - dark social consists of the places where B2B buyers are discovering new products. Places where attribution is not available, like communities, organic social, groups, content platforms, meetups and internal comms. Chris not only discussed WHAT dark social is, but HOW marketers can allocate resources to make sure th...
Sep 17, 2021•43 min
On last night's Demand Gen Live, Chris Walker signed on from San Diego, CA and covered the following agenda: Why the B2B agency model needs a complete overhaul, The truth about Marketing to the enterprise, and How “data-driven” companies lie to themselves about being data-driven. He also opened the stage to a live Q&A where he answered questions about the things companies decide to continue doing that they can measure vs. what they don't do because they can't, how marketers need to keep up w...
Sep 15, 2021•1 hr 11 min
Chris Walker joined the Alphov & Lopez Podcast for a full 90 minutes to chat through attribution, high intent vs. low intent, and overall marketing strategy. Chris was asked what would happen if marketers forgot about leads and demo requests and instead focused solely on qualified pipeline and revenue. He also shared his thoughts on how ABM is nothing new, and how he'd recommend it be implemented today in an organization especially given the common disconnect between marketing and sales targ...
Sep 13, 2021•1 hr 12 min
Chris presented a keynote on the topic of ABM. He was able to clarify his thoughts through sharing his experience with ABM at previous businesses, for current clients, and internally at Refine Labs. “ABM is marketing fundamentals which were around way before the technology existed.”
Sep 11, 2021•54 min
Chris Walker and Megan Bowen brought the Demand Gen Live community back last night to discuss where marketers get their information and the harm of over-relying on technology and ditching the fundamentals. The community members came on the show live to share where they get their information about marketing strategy and tactics, as well as reputable vendors. Chris dove into why marketers don't always need more budget, but instead need to often reevaluate and reallocate. They talked through word-o...
Sep 08, 2021•1 hr 35 min
Dark Social consists of the places where B2B buyers are discovering new products where attribution is not available. Places like communities, organic social, groups, content platforms, meetups and internal comms. Why's dark social important to marketers? Because as Chris Walker says, "if you’re waiting on intent signals, you’re way too late." Dave Gerhardt, now Chief Brand Officer at Drift, joined Chris for a Demand Gen Expert Session to share insights into how to properly allocate resources to ...
Sep 03, 2021•56 min
Chris Walker and Megan Bowen hosted another Demand Gen Live installment last night with a heavy focus on marketing in organic channels that can't be tracked easily, if at all. Chris built off of the Dark Funnel topic and introduced Dark Social, where most of B2B buying decisions are made. He commented that "if you're waiting on intent data, you're way too late." They also answered questions about determining which channels you should be focusing on as well as how to market to non-marketers, and ...
Sep 01, 2021•1 hr 5 min
Allison Munro, CMO at Vena Solutions, joined Chris to talk about a topic we’ve never covered on the State of Demand Gen: how to present to the board to build credibility and trust, and what level of information you should provide. Allison shares what the recipe is for a successful board deck, as well as how to outline the work and results marketing is driving for the business as a whole, instead of siloing the marketing team. She details the importance of knowing your audience and creating the a...
Aug 29, 2021•30 min
Chris Walker presented a MUST listen keynote on marketing strategy & innovation yesterday. He talked about how marketers often are fed the wrong information which leads to poor strategy decisions, and how they can change that and position themselves to be ready for opportunities they can capitalize on. He stated that "marketing is pure offense when done correctly" and proceeded to share that many companies are solely playing defense. He shared a step by step process that all marketers should...
Aug 27, 2021•59 min
After a week off of Demand Gen Live, Chris and Megan were back last night for the Tuesday evening installment where they covered the following topics: A big shift in B2B Search (SEO/SEM) dynamics, Is the MQA the new MQL?, Breaking down what happens when Marketing crushes their pipeline goals & sales misses quota by 50%, Word of Mouth is driving a lot of business for you that you don't recognize, Why the entire GTM motion should have some shared goals, and Ungated content and the attribution ...
Aug 25, 2021•1 hr 11 min
This conversation was repurposed from Chris Walker's appearance as a guest on the B2B Made Simple Podcast. They got into the weeds in regards to organic social content strategy. Sam asked Chris questions about channels for new user acquisition, experimenting, metrics and the nitty gritty behind podcasting and creating content. Chris shared that the opportunity on LinkedIn organic isn't over, but it's certainly more challenging than it was a year or two ago.
Aug 21, 2021•43 min
Dustin Deno, SVP of Global Sales at Showpad, joined Chris on the podcast to address the following question: "when we stop generating leads that don't close, how are we going to keep our SDR team busy? They discussed an alternative for going outbound - intent, as well as how sales teams respond to this type of change. They also covered both the benefits and the challenges of this type of go-to-market and strategy change.
Aug 18, 2021•31 min
Triana Mills, Creative Director at Refine Labs, joined us for another Back to Basics episode, this time on the topic of The Power of Creative in B2B Marketing. Triana and Chris answered questions about the advantages of using good creative in B2B and how marketers can better work with their creative team to drive more expansive tests and engaging creative.
Aug 15, 2021•28 min
We recorded Chris’s LIVE session from the B2B Sales & Marketing Exchange 2021 in Boston, MA where he talks about how the marketers that are focusing on the dark funnel are the ones who are winning. This involves giving people information they want in the places they want to consume it, on their own time, as well as a fundamentally different mindset and measurement criteria. Instead of using the dark funnel to activate outbound sales, marketers should be focusing on driving signals in the dar...
Aug 13, 2021•30 min
Chris Walker and Megan Bowen hosted another Demand Gen Live last night, breaking down the Refine Labs strategy for the community and talking about the more effective alternatives to buyer personas. Chris expanded on the dark funnel and connected that concept to splitting the funnel. He also answered questions about opportunities outside of your 9-5 in marketing, the most important questions marketers should be able to answer about their customers, and measuring the impact of marketing to prospec...
Aug 11, 2021•57 min
Chris Walker hosted another live consulting session, this time with a post-seed stage start-up that is currently following the organic playbook we have shared on the podcast. You'll get to hear about things that the founders and practitioners noticed in their own business after implementing the strategy, and how you can implement an organic content strategy yourself with little to no resources. Chris answers their questions about measurement and how to paint the picture to investors, and they re...
Aug 08, 2021•54 min
We hosted a Demand Gen Expert Session with Tom Wentworth, CMO at Recorded Future, to talk about the catch-22 of attribution and what marketers can and should do about it. We've all been in a place where the challenges of attribution are apparent. When you're hitting your numbers, no one cares about attribution. But when you're not, that's when others become critical of it.
Aug 06, 2021•52 min
Chris Walker and Megan Bowen hosted Demand Gen Live again last night and covered the following agenda: -What happens when Marketing aligns to REVENUE instead of "leads" or SQLs, -How "ABM" breaks down at execution, and -The blurring line between marketing & sales as well as how Chris distinguishes the two. They also answered questions about where SDRs should sit in an org chart, the best sources for marketing education, why many marketers end up doing sales not marketing, the issues that com...
Aug 04, 2021•1 hr 15 min
Joe Mullings, Chairman & CEO of The Mullings Group Companies, joined Chris in the Refine Labs podcast studio for a discussion about what's changing in the hiring landscape and how companies should respond. Joe shared that "the market has changed more in the past 12 months than my previous 30 years in the business.” They talked about work from anywhere vs. working in the office, as an employer how to make the strongest offer possible and improve internal processes, the biggest reasons culture...
Jul 30, 2021•55 min
Chris Walker and Megan Bowen hosted Demand Gen Live last night and covered the following agenda: 1 - The 5 Reasons Why B2B Advertising Fails, 2 - Building Your Paid Social Content Mix, and 3 - Why B2B Companies Need to Create Content In-House. They also answered questions live in regards to testing creative, how to decide if you have product market fit, growth marketers vs. product marketers, and influencer marketing. Chris shared that the way to win in the market right now is a combination of m...
Jul 28, 2021•1 hr 17 min
Chris hosted another live consulting session last week with an early-stage SaaS company. He walked through their overall strategy and made recommendations throughout, touching on customer research, their media plan across various channels, organic content strategy, and why optimizing for leads drives the wrong behaviors. He broke down their current strategy and provided deep and tactical recommendations to help them level up their marketing.
Jul 25, 2021•51 min
Charlotte Babington, Director of Demand Gen at Refine Labs, hosted this episode of Back to Basics on the topic of Content. They covered the role of content in creating demand, how to measure its success, and distribution means and channels.
Jul 23, 2021•39 min
Last night Chris Walker (CEO, Refine Labs) and Megan Bowen (CCO, Refine Labs) brought the DGL community back to cover the following agenda: 1 - How to control the flow of demand, 2 - The 3 levels of intent, 3 - How to leverage communities as an acquisition channel. They also hosted a live Q&A throughout and answered questions in regards to what happens when you create too much demand, influencer marketing, podcasting, declared vs. assumed intent, and demo requests.
Jul 21, 2021•1 hr 14 min
Chris Walker hosted another Small Business Consulting Session a couple weeks ago where he helped a startup flesh out a modern organic content strategy that centers around a live event. He talked them through measurement and attribution, where the dark funnel comes into play, how to get a feel for if something is working or not when few to no quantitative metrics are available, and how to create a community and build an engaged audience.
Jul 18, 2021•38 min
In response to some chatter circulating through the marketing community that LinkedIn organic is dead, Chris presented a keynote on why it in fact is very much still alive, and how marketers can still capitalize on the platform. He opened up the floor to a live Q&A and answered questions about whether it is best to distribute content via a personal or company profile, connection strategies, content ideas, and engagement metrics.
Jul 16, 2021•56 min
Chris Walker and Megan Bowen hosted an hour-long installment of Demand Gen Live last night. They covered: Why optimizing for SQLs instead of MQLs, even though they're further down the funnel, is often counterproductive and causes misalignment, Manual attribution and our findings from implementing this on our site, and how this differs from multi-touch attribution, Demo conversion by source as a means of troubleshooting declining demo requests, YouTube SEO, and How website changes can negatively ...
Jul 14, 2021•57 min
This episode was created from Chris's appearance a couple months ago on the Techie Talkie podcast. He answered questions as they related to: How attribution today is broken and how to fix it, the split between capturing demand and creating demand, and why podcasting is an underrated channel for creating demand. Chris is presenting a keynote about LinkedIn organic at Demand Gen Live on 6/15, 12pm EDT. Register here to sign up for one or all of the Demand Gen Live Keynote Series....
Jul 11, 2021•43 min
This episode is a playback from Chris's appearance on Kathleen Booth's Inbound Success Podcast. Kathleen started the conversation off by asking Chris about how he created such a buzz in the marketing industry in 2 short years. Their conversation then flowed into covering topics such as using data to shift away from the lead gen mindset, tactics vs. strategies, and optimizing for brand top of funnel. “Marketing is about finding something that works well, and then being incredibly consistent at de...
Jul 09, 2021•51 min
Chris Walker and Megan Bowen got the Demand Gen Live community together again last night to talk through a handful of impactful demand gen topics. They covered: How to build your holistic website funnel (with 50-100x better conversion rates than lead gen), Rethinking attribution using common sense - add these 3 measurement methods to your stack, & How marketing teams can be prepared to capitalize on new opportunities when they emerge. In addition to the agenda topics, they answered live ques...
Jul 07, 2021•1 hr 10 min
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 re...
Jul 04, 2021•1 hr 14 min
