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Explore every episode of the podcast Pipeline Visionaries

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TitlePub. DateDuration
How AI Is Transforming Productivity and Marketing10 Mar 202600:47:22

Ian sits down with Prachi Gore, CMO of Asana, to talk about how AI is reshaping marketing and the future of work. Prachi shares why she joined Asana, why brand and community matter more than ever in an AI-driven world, and how marketing leaders need to rethink old playbooks as buyers change how they research, discover, and adopt new tools.

Key Takeaways:

· Brand matters more than features. When marketing and products start to look similar, trust and reputation make the difference.

· Buyers are doing more research on their own. Marketers need to win in digital channels before sales ever gets involved.

· The future is more personalized marketing. AI will help teams move beyond broad campaigns to more relevant experiences.

Sponsor: 

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:

· Connect with Ian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianfaison/

· Connect with Prachi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prachigore/

 · Learn more about Asana: https://www.linkedin.com/company/asana/

· Learn more about Caspian Studios: https://www.linkedin.com/company/caspian-studios/about/


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Building Measurable Brand in a Signal-Driven World03 Mar 202600:42:59

Ian sits down with Trinity Nguyen, CMO at UserGems, to unpack how modern B2B teams balance AI-powered demand capture with measurable brand building. Trinity shares how signal-based ABM drives pipeline, why SDRs report to marketing, how owned events outperform conference booths, and what it really takes to move fast without losing alignment in an AI-driven go-to-market world.

Key Takeaways:

 Signal-based outbound wins. Prioritizing who to target, when to engage, and why drives higher conversion than volume alone.

· Brand can’t stay a black box. Marketing leaders must map awareness to buying stages and find breadcrumbs to revenue.

· AI should scale capacity, not replace thinking. Used well, it gives teams air cover when resources are tight.

· Owned events create real lift. Even registration alone can significantly increase downstream win rates.

· Prospecting is one of the hardest jobs in GTM. SDR roles build resilience — but closing requires a different muscle.

· Alignment matters more than speed alone. Moving fast is powerful, but only if marketing and sales stay in lockstep.

Episode Timestamps:
(02:23) Trust Tree: Demand capture and building brand

(18:48) The Playbook: When you depend on your own product

Sponsor:
Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:

· Connect with Ian on LinkedIn: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianfaison/

 

· Connect with Trinity on LinkedIn: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/trinitynguyen/

 

· Learn more about UserGems: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/trinitynguyen/

 

· Learn more about Caspian Studios: 

https://www.linkedin.com/company/caspian-studios/about/


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How to Capture the SMS Revenue You’re Missing24 Feb 202600:54:25

Ian sits down with Mike Manheimer, Chief Customer Officer at Postscript, to unpack how brands turn SMS into a revenue engine. Mike shares why Black Friday and Cyber Monday expose marketers who under-communicate, how Postscript aligns marketing and customer success under one leader, and why incrementality is the only metric that matters in e-commerce.

Key Takeaways:

· Under-communication kills revenue. During high-intent moments, hesitation leaves dollars on the table.
· E-commerce buyers care about one thing: making more money. Marketing strategy must tie directly to incremental revenue.
· Community drives pipeline. The fastest way into tight-knit markets is by creating spaces for customers to connect.
· B2B marketers are too risk-averse. Owned data and bold experimentation win.
· AI will redefine marketing. Don’t just buy tools — start building.

Episode Timestamps:

*(06:40) Black Friday mistakes: Why brands under-message at the worst time
*(17:09) Trust Tree: What Postscript does and how the buying process really works in e-commerce
*(46:22) The Playbook: Community-led pipeline and customer advisory boards

Sponsor:
Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:

· Connect with Ian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianfaison/ 
· Connect with Mike on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemanheimer/ 
· Learn more about Postscript: https://www.linkedin.com/company/postscriptio/ 
· Learn more about Caspian Studios: https://www.linkedin.com/company/caspian-studios/about/


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Why This $6B B2B Company Built a Chess League17 Feb 202600:46:06

Ian sits down with Peeyush Dubey, Chief Marketing Officer of Tech Mahindra, to unpack how he built the company’s first global marketing organization. Peeyush explains his four-pillar marketing strategy (brand, demand, expand, and grand). The conversation goes deep on Tech Mahindra’s Global Chess League, a bold brand experiment that has evolved into a flagship marketing, customer experience, and talent branding platform. 

Key Takeaways:

  • Marketing’s real job is reducing friction to sales. Everything else is in service of that goal.
  • Brand experiments can outperform sponsorships. Building owned IP creates control, longevity, and compounding value.
  • Innovation budgets should never be cut. Even in downturns, experimentation is non-negotiable.

Episode Timestamps: 

*(03:34) Trust Tree: Reducing friction for sales

*(22:09) The Playbook: Building a global ches league

*(43:13) Quick Hits 

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


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Trust, Hustle and Product Truth: A Modern Tech CMO’s Manifesto10 Feb 202600:48:51

In this episode, Ian sits down with Marco Mueller, CMO of AVEVA, to explore how marketing operates as a strategic growth engine inside one of the world’s leading industrial software companies.

Marco shares how AVEVA balances speed and stability in a risk-averse category, why in-person events remain one of their most powerful channels, and how the team redesigned its campaign model to move faster without sacrificing quality. The conversation dives into AVEVA’s global event strategy, including AVEVA World and 37 localized AVEVA Days. 

Key Takeaways:

  • In-person events compress trust timelines. Face-to-face experiences move risk-averse buyers faster than any digital channel in complex B2B.
  • Speed is a design problem, not a hustle problem.  Campaigns ship faster when you cut upfront complexity and build in room to adapt.
  • The CMO’s real job is integration. Growth happens when marketing aligns product truth, sales reality, and customer risk.

Episode Timestamps: 

* (02:08) The Trust Tree: Why industrial software marketing is built on trust
* (07:24) The Playbook: Events, positioning, and adaptive digital strategy
* (45:24) Quick Hits

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


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Why Strategy Fails Without Culture (Especially in B2B)03 Feb 202600:49:59

In this episode, Ian sits down with JP Laqueur, SVP of Marketing & Culture at DataBank, to explore how brand, culture, and CEO-led thought leadership work together to create lasting differentiation in B2B.

JP explains why DataBank prioritizes culture-first marketing, how involving the CEO in media and content unlocks disproportionate impact, and why disciplined PR often outperforms flashier tactics.  The conversation also covers how marketing teams should think about video, written content, AI-driven discovery, and why human connection may become even more valuable in an AI-saturated world.

Key Takeaways:

  • Culture is a competitive moat competitors can’t copy. Facilities and technology can be replicated, people and behaviors cannot.
  • CEO-led storytelling scales trust. Thoughtful PR and executive content outperform most paid tactics when done consistently.
  • Brand work compounds over time. Earned media, strong culture, and clear positioning reinforce each other across customers, employees, and investors.

     

Episode Timestamps: 

*(14:01) The Trust Tree: Culture is the strategy 

*(31:06) The Playbook: SEM is still working 

*(46:45) Quick Hits

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What a B2B Video Game Teaches Us About Earning Real Attention27 Jan 202600:48:08

In this episode, Ian sits down with Henry Wagner, Chief Marketing Officer at Megaport, to explore how marketing teams can earn attention in increasingly crowded and skeptical B2B markets.

Henry shares why Megaport invests in unconventional campaigns, like building an eight-bit video game to celebrate a major company milestone, and how smaller, calculated bets often outperform large, high-risk sponsorships. He breaks down his philosophy of “doing science, not alchemy” in marketing, emphasizing rigorous testing, learning, and iteration over narrative-driven guesswork.

Key Takeaways:

  • Creative risk is easier to justify when bets are small and frequent. Contained experiments often deliver outsized attention with limited downside.
  • Great marketing teams run science, not alchemy. Measurement, iteration, and learning beat intuition and narrative.
  • LLMs change discovery, but not the need for authority. Clear, structured, problem-focused content still wins—measurement just looks different.

Episode Timestamps: 

*(14:16) The Trust Tree: 

*(17:56) The Playbook: 

*(46:32) Quick Hits: 

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Community, Not Campaigns: How Enterprise Marketing Really Wins20 Jan 202600:35:38

In this episode, Ian sits down with Greer Lynch, VP of Marketing at Reprise, the AI-powered demo automation platform helping enterprise teams deliver high-stakes software demos with confidence.

Greer shares how she approaches storytelling as the foundation of effective marketing, why community-building has become a core growth lever for Reprise, and how her team balances long-term brand investments with short-term demand generation. She also breaks down how Reprise thinks about rebranding for enterprise credibility, adapting SEO strategies for an AI-first world, and using AI internally to move faster without losing authenticity.

Key Takeaways

  • Storytelling is the foundation of scalable marketing. Clear positioning and narrative make every channel more effective — from demand gen to community.
  • Community is a long-term growth strategy. Bringing people together authentically builds trust, insight, and future demand, even beyond your immediate ICP.
  • Brand maturity matters in enterprise markets. Positioning and design must reflect who you serve today, not who you served yesterday.
  • AI is changing how marketing works — not eliminating fundamentals. The best teams use AI to accelerate insight, experimentation, and execution, not replace judgment.

Episode Timestamps: 

*(03:01) The Trust Tree: Focus on what you can uniquely deliver to your audience 

*(07:09) The Playbook: Storytelling and understanding your audience

*(32:53) Quick Hits

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:

 

 


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Startup Marketing That’s Built to Scale13 Jan 202600:46:22

In this episode, Ian sits down with Phyllis Fang, Head of Marketing at Transcend, where she leads go-to-market strategy for a data infrastructure platform powering compliant AI-driven experiences.

Phyllis shares how she thinks about go-to-market strategy, building repeatable marketing systems, investing in thought leadership and IRL events, and creating the right culture for AI adoption inside marketing teams.

Key Takeaways
  • Thought leadership compounds over time. First-party research, executive voices, and clear points of view build trust long before buyers are in-market.

     
  • Operational rigor matters, even in startups. Repeatable playbooks and clear ownership help marketing scale without breaking.

     
  • AI adoption is as much a cultural challenge as a tooling one. Creating space to experiment is key to long-term impact.

     
Quote

“Slow down to speed up. Be best friends with sales. You’re there to help the business win.”

Episode Timestamps

00:27 Phyllis’s Path into Marketing
02:03 What Transcend Does and Who It Serves
03:53 Go-to-Market Strategy Overview
05:58 Marketing Team Structure
07:15 Lessons from Uber
12:26 Uncuttable Marketing Investments
14:57 Activating Executive Thought Leadership
16:22 Running Effective IRL Events
21:07 What’s Most Cuttable in the Budget
26:04 Favorite Campaigns
28:08 Building a Culture for AI Adoption
36:27 Navigating Cross-Functional Tension
41:21 Quick Hits

Sponsor

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links

Connect with Ian on LinkedIn

Connect with Phyllis on LinkedIn

Learn more about Transcend

Learn more about Caspian Studios


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The New Marketing Role You Should Be Hiring For06 Jan 202600:39:38
Emily Kramer, founder of MKT1 and a longtime voice in modern B2B marketing, joins Ian Faison to unpack how AI is reshaping marketing teams, roles, and expectations.

They explore Emily’s concept of the “gen marketer”,  and why traditional silos and specialist-heavy teams struggle in today’s high-velocity environment.

Key Takeaways
  • Marketing teams need more generalists who can connect strategy, creativity, and distribution.
  • Speed to execution matters more than perfect alignment across functions.
  • Big marketing wins come from coordinated campaigns, not isolated tactics.
  • AI increases the value of orchestration and taste, not specialization alone.
  • Marketing leaders should think in portfolios of bets, not incremental activities.
     
Quote

“Every big initiative needs to have a chance to really win — not just deliver incremental results.”

Episode Timestamps

(03:51) What the “Gen Marketer” role actually means

(10:04) Why speed matters more than perfect alignment

(16:42) Escaping random acts of marketing with big bets

(24:58) How CMOs should think like producers or VCs

(31:37) When founder-led marketing works (and when it doesn’t)

 Sponsor

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com — the pipeline generation platform for revenue teams.
Turn your website into a pipeline machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, and intent data.
Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

 

Links

Connect with Ian on LinkedIn
Connect with Emily Kramer on LinkedIn

Dear Marketers Podcast 

MKT1 Unboxing
Learn more about MKT1
Learn more about Caspian Studios


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4 CMOs, 1 Question: What Marketing Spend Is Truly Uncuttable?30 Dec 202500:42:25

Hear from Jill Wiltfong, CMO, Korn Ferry, Chris Bontempo, CMO, Johnson Controls, Shannon Sullivan Duffy, CMO, Asana, and Melton Littlepage, CMO, 1Password on their uncuttable budget items. 

Timestamps: 
(01:19) Jill Wiltfong, CMO, Korn Ferry,
(08:03) Chris Bontempo, CMO, Johnson Controls
(23:12) Shannon Sullivan Duffy, CMO, Asana
(28:10) Melton Littlepage, CMO, 1Password

 


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A CMO’s Guide to Working with the Board16 Dec 202500:44:09

Ian sits down with Stacey Epstein, CEO of Magnetic, where she helps brands create clear positioning and go-to-market strategies that drive lasting demand. She talks about how to succeed in interacting with the board, outlining do’s and don’ts, and providing advice around defensiveness and preparation. 

Key Takeaways:

  • The board is there to help you succeed. Treat them like advisors and go to them with questions and issues that you are trying to solve. Don’t try to hide problems, do demonstrate your wins.
  • There is an art to defending yourself without being defensive. Defensiveness often results in a board member feeling unheard and pushing harder. Take the note, even if you can’t take the proposed solution. 
  • Ditch the slide decks and excel spreadsheets, and tell the story for board members. A unified board letter from the leadership team is a great way to do this and increases alignment before a meeting. 

Quote: 

  • “  We're all on the same team. We all wanna win. Like we're here together in this board meeting because we want the company to be successful and we want to win. And, . There should be no hiding of issues. In fact, that's what the board is there for. The board is there to help you get through the challenging times.”

Episode Timestamps: 

00:53 The Role of the Board in Marketing

02:20 Navigating Board Interactions

03:06 Performance and Authenticity in Board Meetings

04:29 The Complexity of Marketing Roles

08:51 Aligning Marketing and Sales

16:56 The Importance of SDR Feedback

19:13 AI and Marketing Technology Decisions

21:44 Navigating Board Dynamics as a CMO

21:59 Building Relationships and Credibility

23:11 The Importance of Authenticity in Marketing

24:22 Handling Investor Feedback Tactfully

29:16 Defending Your Marketing Strategy

36:03 Effective Board Communication Strategies

39:10 The Value of Board Letters

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


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Are Websites Dying?09 Dec 202500:45:32

Ian sits down with Shafqat Islam, President, Optimizely. They dive into AI, GEO, and the future role of websites. They also talk about how experimentation and creativity give companies the competitive edge in the current marketing landscape.

Key Takeaways:

  • Your content needs to provide scarcity value to stand out. People and LLMs want original ideas.
  • Most CMOs are not experimenting enough, and are not being creative enough. Experimentation is key.
  • Many SEO tactics will work for GEO, and the harsh truth is that a lot of SEO content did not move the needle anyway.

Quote: 

  • “ Everyone should be testing. Testing allows you to be more creative.Take bigger bets, be bolder. If your bet is huge, and the return and the result is huge, it's totally disproportionate, upside uncapped. Frankly, most marketers are afraid.”

Episode Timestamps: 

01:56 The Role of Product and Marketing

03:09 Origins and Evolution of Opal

10:51 Creativity in Marketing and Software

13:44 The Importance of Experimentation

19:40 Storytelling and Risk-Taking in Marketing

23:21 The Rise of AI and Podcasting

28:03 Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)

29:31 Websites' New Dual Role

32:34 The Studio Head Approach to Marketing

38:12 The Impact of AI on Creativity

40:09 The Future of Search and Marketing

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

How To Win in AI Search02 Dec 202500:50:06

This episode features an interview with Alex Halliday, the CEO at AirOps, an end-to-end content engineering platform that gives marketing teams the systems they need to win visibility across AI search and SEO with quality content. Alex gives the marketing masterclass on AI search, laying out the framework for what marketers need to be doing. 


Key Takeaways:

  • Understand your current State of the Union: Audit how you are currently showing up across the AI models and what is driving those results. 
  • Pick a strategy based on what truly matters to you as a brand and ruthlessly prioritize. 
  • Execute through content engineering, a combination of brand taste, technical skills and strategy. 

Quote: 

  •   The future of, we think, content and AI search is this new role that we're pushing and championing. It's called content engineering. And content engineering is a blend of three things. It's brand taste, which you absolutely need. It's enough technical skills to use this technology well. It's strategy. It's like really a really good strategic mind of the kinds of plays that you want to put out into the world.”

Episode Timestamps: 

*(04:26) The Trust Tree: Education- and Evidence-led go-to-market

*(10:19) The Influence of YouTube on AI Search Results 

*(18:10) The Masterclass on AI Search: Step-by-step

*(25:35) What do LLMs actually like? 

*(40:04) How should marketers be investing in content? 

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Navigating GEO and the New Search Landscape25 Nov 202500:45:57

This episode features an interview with Kady Srinivasan, Chief Marketing Officer at You.com, the enterprise AI productivity platform redefining knowledge work with trusted, customizable AI agents. She breaks down GEO, storytelling in an infinite-content world, and why content now must serve both humans and LLMs.

Key Takeaways

  • Demand generation has changed: Google Ads don’t work, while newsletters, advertorials, and events perform better.
  • Marketing teams must operate as multithreaded groups built around outcomes rather than traditional functional silos.
  • Imperfection and speed are essential to stay competitive in fast-moving AI markets.

     

Quote 

“I just want everything to be on time and running properly… And so, particularly in AI and to your point in 2025, that is, you could just get killed if you're like that. So you need to know when to be fine with imperfection and when to, and in some cases you have to double down and really take your time.”

Episode Timestamps

03:23 Demand Generation Changes

04:56 Google Ads and New Marketing Channels

05:51 Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)

07:44 Importance of Original Content

25:12 Exploring the Future of Marketing Roles

28:10 Balancing Speed and Perfection in Marketing


Sponsor

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com — the pipeline generation platform for revenue teams.
Turn your website into a pipeline machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, and intent data.
Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links

Connect with Ian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianfaison/
Connect with Kady on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kadysrinivasan/ 
Learn more about You.com 
Learn more about Caspian Studios: https://caspianstudios.com


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Selling What Buyers Don’t Know to Search For18 Nov 202500:50:42

This episode features an interview with Dario Ambrosini, CMO at Propel Software, a product value management platform that connects commercial and product teams to help product companies grow revenue and increase business value.

Dario talks about merging three categories into one, selling to very different buying committees and leveraging changes in your competitors to get new business. 

Key Takeaways:

  • When buyers still search old categories, your job as CMO is to clarify the bigger story and guide them from familiar entry points into a new, more valuable category.
  • In a world where LLMs now shape discovery, your content and ABM strategy must shift from chasing clicks to shaping the algorithms your future buyers trust.
  • Competitor shifts—like an end-of-life announcement—can become high-intent pipeline moments when paired with precise ABM and deep understanding of the displaced product’s shortcomings.

Quote: 

  • “We’re doing a category creation because we’re rolling up three different categories and saying it’s an entirely new thing… Most of the people searching are still looking at those individual categories that make up a portion of the new thing that we’re creating.”

Episode Timestamps: 

*(02:37) The Trust Tree: Merging categories to create something new 

*(12:18) The Playbook: Selling to many different buying committees 

*(45:08) Quick Hits: Dario’s Quick Hits

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


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Building Pipeline Through AI and Zero-Click Content11 Nov 202500:39:31

This episode features Tami Cannizzaro, Chief Marketing Officer at Thryv, a software company helping small business owners run and grow their businesses with AI-powered tools. Tami shares how her team focuses on revenue first and builds marketing strategies around what drives impact for SMBs.She discusses the shift from traditional SEO to AEO and why speed and originality now define effective marketing. 

Key Takeaways
  • AEO and AI are redefining how customers find brands online: Learn how to optimize for AI-driven discovery so your brand appears in conversational search and LLM-generated results.
    Fresh, original content outperforms repurposed AI blogs: The fastest way to lose visibility is to sound like everyone else. Originality and recency are now ranking factors in AI search.
  • First-mover advantage in AI tools can create outsized revenue impact: Early adopters capture learnings and market share before competitors adapt.
Quote

“Anytime there’s something new in marketing, if you can be a first mover and jump on it before everyone else figures it out, there’s a real opportunity to drive revenue from that.”

Episode Timestamps

(02:28) The Trust Tree: Supporting SMBs
(17:12) The Playbook: ABM, AEO, and social ads 
(37:34) Quick Hits: Tami’s Quick Hits

Sponsor

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com — the pipeline generation platform for revenue teams.
Turn your website into a pipeline machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, and intent data.
Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The End of Manual Marketing and What Comes Next04 Nov 202500:46:51

 In this episode of Pipeline Visionaries, Ian Faison sits down with Gil Allouche, CEO of Metadata, to explore how AI is reshaping the way B2B marketers work.

Gil explains why marketers should stop fearing AI and start using it to eliminate repetitive work, freeing teams to focus on creativity and strategy. Gil also dives into how AI-driven optimization can save companies time and money, enabling bold experiments that cut through the noise.

Key Takeaways:

  • Speed beats consensus. The future of marketing belongs to fast-moving, experiment-driven teams.
  • Reinvest efficiency into innovation. Use time and budget saved through automation to fund bold creative ideas.
  • When something works — double down. Don’t move on too quickly from success; scale what performs.

     

Quote:

  • “You don’t have to wait for someone technical anymore. There’s no barrier between idea and execution. You can get everything to the finish line yourself — and see if it was a good idea or not.”


Episode Timestamps

03:10 AI's Role in Modern Marketing

07:30 The Future of Marketing Teams

30:20 Experimentation in Marketing

33:01 Encouraging Innovation

44:31 Embracing AI in Everyday Tasks

Sponsor:
Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com — the pipeline generation platform for revenue teams.
Turn your website into a pipeline machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, and intent data.
Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:
Connect with Ian on LinkedIn
Connect with Gil on LinkedIn
Learn more about Metadata
Learn more about Caspian Studios


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Thinking of Founder-Led Marketing? Do This First28 Oct 202500:18:06

In this special episode, we bring you an episode of Caspian Studios’ new B2B Snapshot webinar series. Ian Faison and Lindsay Tjepkema break down why founder-led marketing still matters, why it never truly ends and how to make it work at any stage of growth. Drawing from LinkedIn’s latest report, they share how to turn executive voices into authentic content that builds trust, cuts through AI noise, and drives real pipeline.

 

 

Key Takeaways:
  • Founder-led marketing never ends. Even as companies scale, founders remain the most powerful storytellers for their brand.
  • Separate founder-led sales from marketing. Let executives focus on perspective and narrative—not just deals.
  • LinkedIn wants this. The platform’s algorithm rewards executive-led thought leadership, so lean in and boost what works.
  • Start with better questions. Ditch the scripts. Ask founders about paradigm shifts, mistakes, or their “aha” moments to spark genuine insight.

     

 

 

Episode Timestamps:

(00:32) Introducing the Snapshot Series: Bite-size B2B Marketing Conversations
(02:00) Founder-Led Marketing vs. Founder-Led Sales
(06:20) Why Authenticity Wins on LinkedIn
(09:12) The 21 Questions Every Marketer Should Ask Their Founder
(16:00) The Grandma Test: Simplify Your Story
(17:40) Making Founder Marketing Fun Again

 

 

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com.
Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper—your AI SDR.

 

 

Links:

Connect with Ian on LinkedIn
Connect with Lindsay on LinkedIn 

Learn more about Caspian Studios
Tune in to B2B Snapshot Live


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The Future Belongs to the Marketers Who Move Fast21 Oct 202500:44:01

This episode of Pipeline Visionaries features an interview with Lauren Vaccarello, CMO of WEKA, a company building the foundation for enterprise and agentic AI. Lauren discusses her marketing philosophy: align every initiative with business goals, empower teams to experiment freely, and build category leadership through creativity and thought leadership. From the company’s breakthrough collaboration with U2 at the Sphere to its irreverent “Introducing Neural Mesh” launch video, Lauren shows why modern marketing demands bold storytelling and a studio-like mindset.

Key Takeaways:

  • Creativity and speed are non-negotiable. Empower teams to ship ideas quickly and learn fast, don’t get bogged down in creation by committee. 
  • Smart teams sell. Put your smartest people front and center to define the future of your industry.
  • Tell stories that feel human. From rock-concert customer videos to funny launch trailers, authentic content creates the biggest impact.
  • Anchor every idea to impact. If it doesn’t tie back to the company’s biggest goals, it’s just noise.

Quote: 

  • “ This amazing thing with being earlier in your career is, you don't know what you don't know. You think you can do everything and because you don't know this is how things are done, you just figure it out in a different way. And I see some of these earlier in career marketers and what they are able to accomplish because they don't have the hangups of the rest of us. The, well, this is hard and this takes a long time and you need approvals. Here they are using AI to just pump out really incredible work. They are thinking in ways that I just, I wish I was 22 and was like thinking like that. It's so inspiring and I think a challenge for many marketers who have more tenure and more experience.”

Episode Timestamps: 

*(02:29) The Trust Tree: Serving as a tech partner at the Sphere 

*(32:56) The Playbook: Kill Creation by Committee

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


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Why Share of Attention Beats Share of Voice14 Oct 202500:35:24

This episode of Pipeline Visionaries features an interview with Rodrigo Maroni, Head of U.S. at Winnin, the cultural intelligence platform that reveals actionable insights to grow your brand’s cultural relevance exponentially. Rodrigo shares why culture is the invisible hand guiding B2B consumer decisions, why chasing trends won’t make brands relevant, and how predictive cultural data uncovers unexpected audience opportunities.

Quotes

  •  We don't track things like share of voice. Really I believe that this is an outdated metric. You are only measuring your intent, not your outcome. So we use a metric we develop called share of attention. Share of attention is really a metric that takes into account, the output in there, the effect, the impact that you make in your audience.We are measuring the end game, not the starting game, so you get a real pulse on what's working.

Key Takeaways

  • Culture drives growth. Every purchase decision is culturally influenced, even in B2B. 
  • Don’t chase trends. Predict cultural moments and map “cultural categories” to get ahead.
  • Hidden audiences = growth. Insights from behavioral data can reveal unexpected segments like sneakerheads for cleaning products.
  • Measure what matters. Share of attention captures true cultural impact, unlike outdated share of voice metrics.

Episode Timestamps

(05:49) The Trust Tree: Collecting behavioral data

(21:38) The Playbook: Developing cultural intelligence reports 
(30:19) Dust up: Navigating gaps in metrics 
(31:05) Quick hits: Rodrigo’s Quick Hits

Sponsor

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR.

Links


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Cutting Through Complexity with Clear Value07 Oct 202500:37:08

This episode features an interview with John Gaines, VP Marketing, Zyter|TruCare, a healthcare technology company supporting 45 health plans and more than 44 million covered lives

John emphasizes the importance of establishing thought leadership to build credibility before focusing on amplification and talks about effective tactics such as leveraging PR agencies and using effective lead generation platforms.

Key Takeaways:

  • Lead with thought leadership to cut through the AI clutter. Position your brand as a credible voice first, then layer in activation.
  • Non-negotiable marketing levers: PR, demand gen infrastructure, and product clarity. These are foundations you can’t compromise.
  • Evaluate the ROI of events. In many cases, digital channels and content may outperform costly in-person events.

Quote: 

  • “  So you have to have, somewhere in the mix, the capability to cut through that density and get to an understanding of what does this stuff do that solves a compelling problem in a unique way that somebody will pay money for versus other alternatives that are out there? And that is a combination of talent and skill that you just have to have in the mix. It doesn't usually come from outside.  It's something you have to have internally.”

Episode Timestamps: 

*(04:51) The Trust Tree: Position your brand as a credible voice first, then layer in activation

*(11:10) The Playbook: The value of a PR agency 

*(30:36) The Dust Up: Operating in a startup up within a large company 

*(33:19) Quick Hits: John’s quick hits 

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


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Cutting Through the Noise with Personalization23 Sep 202500:33:55

This episode of Pipeline Visionaries features an interview with Tamir Sigal, the CMO of Trintech, a company that helps finance and accounting teams simplify and automate the entire financial close process, from reconciliations to reporting. Tamir explans his marketing philosophy of focusing on the customer journey, driving alignment across the organization, and evolving tactics around personalization, in-person experiences, and AI. He also reflects on rebranding challenges, innovative campaigns, and why he encourages his team to experiment—even if it means making mistakes along the way.

Quote: 

  • “We just get so much information into our lives—whether it’s through email, social media, our devices, and how do you differentiate? How do you cut through the noise? So one of our tactics is making sure that we’re personalizing the message to the right audience. One of my pet peeves is saying the right message at the right time at the right channel. That’s so cliché to say, but it’s at the heart of what we want to do—making sure that the message is personalized to the industry, to the persona, and to the topic.”

Key Takeaways:

  • Personalization cuts through noise. Tailoring messages by industry, persona, and timing is key to standing out in a crowded digital landscape.
  • CMOs are responsible for creating alignment. Success depends on aligning marketing with sales, finance, partners, and leadership.
  • Encourage experimentation. Tamir fosters innovation by rewarding his team for trying new ideas and learning from mistakes.

Episode Timestamps:
(04:00) The Trust Tree: Why time is the most valuable currency
(10:44) The Playbook: Top uncuttable tactics—personalization, events, and AI
(29:06) Dust Up: Rebranding a 100-year-old company against the odds
(31:15) Quick Hits: Tamir’s quick hits

Sponsor:
Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit https://www.qualified.com to learn more.

Links:
Connect with Ian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianfaison
Connect with Tamir on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamirsigal/ 
Learn more about Trintech: https://www.trintech.com
Learn more about Caspian Studios: https://www.caspianstudios.com


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Lead With Buyers Instead of Product16 Sep 202500:48:11

This episode features an interview with Bruno Bertini, the CMO of 8x8, a CX platform that brings together business communications and interaction data in one place.

Bruno discusses 8x8’s innovative marketing campaigns, particularly 'The Power of You,' which creatively leverages AI to feature customers in engaging ways. Bruno shares insights into their marketing strategy, the role of AI in scaling their efforts, and the challenges and rewards of pushing creative boundaries in B2B marketing. 

Guest Quote:

  • "In B2B, the only way to cut through the noise is by doing something creative. Imagine you're a buyer. You wake up like, oh my God, I'm gonna read a white paper this morning. I'm so excited. Anyways, jokes aside for us as we are repositioning the company, the idea was I don't have the biggest budget. You know, I'm one of the smallest players in a very big market, that's moving at quantum speed. So instead of burning all the money we had just in paid, trying to push more of the usual, the idea was can we do something really different leveraging our internal AI culture."

Episode Timestamps: 

*(06:42) The Trust Tree: Economies of scale from AI content

*(10:05) The Playbook: The Power of You Campaign

*(44:48) Quick Hits: Bruno’s quick hits

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


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Bringing Brand Mantras to B2B09 Sep 202500:47:45

This episode features an interview with Jill Wiltfong, Chief Marketing Officer at global consulting firm Korn Ferry.

Jill shares her unique path from TV news anchor to marketing, emphasizing the crucial skills of storytelling, communication, and adaptability. She discusses why their thought leadership team is all journalists and discusses their transformative sponsorship of the PGA Korn Ferry Tour. 

Key Takeaways:

  • Empower employees to promote your brand by giving them clear guardrails instead of slowing them down with heavy approval processes.
  • Wait for the big brand opportunities that authentically tell your company story, like Korn Ferry’s PGA development tour sponsorship, rather than chasing generic opportunities.
  • If you’re not the biggest player in your market, the only way to get a seat at the table is to do something different, at scale. 

Quote: 

  • "The other thing that was really transformative for us was deciding we were not going to be a boring B2B company. We needed to act and think and behave like a B2C firm. So we came up with this brand mantra: Be more than. Nike had just do it. Apple had think different. We are all about Be More Than. And this is our rallying cry. It tells people exactly who we are. It tells you what we're gonna do for you, for employees. It gives you a sense that Korn Ferry is rough, man, it's pretty relentless because we are always gonna push you to be more than you were yesterday."

Episode Timestamps: 

*(19:09) The Trust Tree: Marketing is best suited to lead and drive innovation

*(22:23) The Playbook: Get the right people, the rest falls into place

*(44:40) Quick Hits: Jill’s quick hits

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


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Will AI Finally Kill Spray and Pray?02 Sep 202500:38:56

This episode features an interview with Thea Hayden, CMO at Cognizant, a  leading professional services company that brings deep technology and industry expertise together to help our clients transform and stay ahead. 

Thea discusses the importance of a strong partnership with IT, and the significance of multi-channel tactics. She also shares insights into experiential marketing tactics and her commitment to fostering a culture of experimentation and fun within her marketing team. 

Key Takeaways:

  • We often discuss building strong relationships with the CFO, but investing in your relationship with your CIO is essential too, since the martech stack is so crucial to success. 
  • Overindexing on any strength will make it your weakness; nothing works in isolation and a multichannel approach is necessary. 
  • AI may be the death of spray and pray tactics and broad reach marketing, since personalization will be so much easier and more successful. 

Quote: 

  •  ”The tactic that may finally die because of AI is spray and pray, right? Because everything's going to be so personalized and so easy to personalize, and so much more effective because of that. And so I think even the days of just super broad reach maybe are dead altogether.”

Episode Timestamps: 

*(03:00) The Trust Tree: Start with the end in mind

*(16:48) The Playbook: Overindexing on strengths, makes them weaknesses

*(33:30) The Dust Up: Build a strong relationship with IT

*(34:26) Quick Hits: Thea’s quick hits 

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


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AI Video Generation: Practical Uses and How it Enhances Marketing26 Aug 202500:44:13

This episode features an interview with Gaurav Misra, CEO, Captions, an AI video-generation company that allows you to create and edit talking videos with AI.  

Gaurav dives into the practical applications and future implications of AI in video, and how these tools can enhance marketing efforts for businesses of all sizes.

Key Takeaways:

  • Video capabilities are improving rapidly, and are now at the point where spinning up an AI-generated version of you speaking, is likely better quality than anything you could deliver to camera. 
  • These capabilities allow marketers to spin-up and test content very quickly with far less expense than in the past. 
  • How people will react to content moving forward, when it will become less and less clear what is real, remains to be seen. 

Quote: 

  • “ Spun up a video and it's like me wearing like a suit… I'm delivering this emotional message, but I'm delivering it so fluently with all these words that I would probably never use actually… and I'm looking at this like, shit, I couldn't be like this on camera. This is such a good delivery, such a good presentation..  It just isn't actually physically possible. And I think we are at that point where I can look at that and be like, wow, I just couldn't do this. It's better than what I could do.”

Episode Timestamps: 

*(03:13) Challenges and Opportunities in Video Content

*(08:01) The Future of AI Tools in Creative Work

*(24:11) Innovations in Video Generation

*(28:28) Real-World Applications and Feedback

*(35:27) The Future of Deep Fakes and Content Authenticity

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


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Social Proof and Unintended Signaling19 Aug 202500:53:23

This episode features an interview with Casey Hill, CMO at DoWhatWorks, a company that removes the guesswork from website optimization, tracking millions of websites daily to find winning A/B tests from major brands.

Casey provides actionable advice on effective thought leadership, influencer marketing, and various ways to optimize your website. 

Key Takeaways:

  • Promoting customer’s posts about your company can be a great way to spread an outside vantage point, and customers are typically happy to have you pay to promote their pages. 
  • Test all your assumptions and learn what makes sense for your business. Try to test components of your website that you may not have initially thought to look into. 
  • Be cautious when it comes to social proof and unintended signalling with third party reviews. A lot of marketers do this poorly. 

Quote: 

  •   Most people do social proof really poorly. The way now, and this is across the board, so we talked about logos, but it also applies to G2 reviews or third party reviews. I think people don't pay attention enough to unintended signaling. Like someone puts 4.4 stars with 300 plus reviews and someone sees that, and that might actually might be a negative signal, right? And so like they look at that, they're like, 'oh, I thought you were much bigger. You only have 300 reviews.' Or in our world today is 4.4 good or bad, right? Like some people might see 4.4, like if I see it on a restaurant or I'm like, eh it's okay. Like it's kind of a neutral one to me, right? So I think you wanna be really careful about unintended signaling.

Episode Timestamps: 

*(07:32) The Trust Tree: Create content that will be shared by other outlets

*(20:30) The Playbook: Convert faster, talk about your capabilities instead of benefits

*(49:53) Quick Hits: Casey’s quick hits

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


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Distinction vs. Differentiation: Win on Both Fronts12 Aug 202500:39:46

This episode features an interview with Brenton Williamson, VP of Marketing at Bamboo HR, a company that empowers HR pros, employees, and organizations everywhere to simplify complicated processes and streamline time-consuming tasks.

Brenton discusses how he thinks about creating distinction in the market, the diversification of marketing channels, and the value of digital engagement. 

Key Takeaways:

  • Distinction is different from differentiation. Differentiation is product focused, while distinction has more to do with brand identity and feel. You need both. 
  • As organic search continues to take a hit, in-person events become an increasingly important tactic to get in front of customers. 
  • We’re coming out of the inbound era and sales may need to get used to interacting with people who aren’t actively in a buying motion, and building relationships over time. 

Episode Timestamps: 

*(04:29) The Trust Tree: Distinction, differentiation, diversification 

*(09:04) The Playbook: The end of the inbound era

*(36:24) Quick Hits: Brenton’s quick hits

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


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Building Memory Structures That Stick05 Aug 202500:47:30

This episode features an interview with Andrew Thomas, VP of Marketing at Archer Meat Snacks, a company that makes jerky, sticks and sausages, from real ingredients. Andrew has over 15 years of experience in the CPG food and beverage industry, with brands like Chicken of the Sea, Wilde Chips, and PepsiCo. 

He discusses Archer’s recent rebrand, their go-to-market strategies, and the importance of social and influencer marketing. 

Key Takeaways:

  • Awareness and creating memory structures for customers helps build a moat around your brand. 
  • Don’t underestimate the power of a strong PR flywheel. Once it gets going, it has an outsized impact. 
  • Long-term partnerships are the way to go with influencers. Fewer, bigger, better is a more strategic and authentic approach. 

Quote: 

  •   We're the fourth largest meat snack brand in the nation. Our awareness is not the fourth largest. It's lagging quite a bit behind. And so what I'm trying to do is really build that mental availability, build a big ownable, distinctive brand that creates those memory structures in our consumer's mind so that when they go to the store, when they go to Costco, they go to Sam's, they go to Target, they go to Walmart, they recognize and see us because we have a pretty successful business today, but people are buying the grass fed beef mini sticks. They haven't necessarily been buying the Country Archer or the Archer grass fed beef mini sticks. And we want to create a moat around our brand. We want to generate a lot of that stickiness. 

Episode Timestamps: 

*(05:46) The Trust Tree: Being scrappy with social and influencer

*(23:09) The Playbook: Leading a strategic rebrand

*(45:43) Quick Hits: Andrew’s quick hits 

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


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How Do We Restructure Our Websites?29 Jul 202500:34:47

This episode features an interview with Robin Emiliani, Co-founder and Chief Growth Officer at Catalyst Marketing, an AI-enhanced growth marketing company that leverages AI to build smarter growth marketing strategies, faster.

Ian and Robin cover the fears marketers face with AI and how becoming an expert in tech tools can make marketing leaders indispensable.

Key Takeaways:

  • Expectations around websites are changing. People want answers at their fingertips, not to search for them on secondary and tertiary pages. Marketers will need to rethink inbound. 
  • Surround sound and reaching your prospects through many different channels, is especially critical right now. 

Quote: 

  •  How are websites going to change over time when the expectation is, I don't wanna go to a secondary page, I don't wanna go to a tertiary page anymore. I just wanna be able to type in my question, get my answer. Like that I think is on the new forefront of how this is gonna help evolve things. But how do we restructure our websites completely? Because the expectation is I'm going to be able to get my answer at my fingertips.

Episode Timestamps: 

*(04:38) The Trust Tree: How AI is changing websites 

*(19:50) The Playbook: It’s a race to create strong content at scale 

*(29:47) The Dust Up: Messaging needs to be clear and concise

*(32:15) Quick Hits: Robin’s quick hits 

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


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To Invest or Not to Invest: Headcount22 Jul 202500:48:13

This episode features an interview with Kevin Cochrane, an experienced CMO who is currently CMO at Vultr, a company on a mission to make high-performance cloud computing easy to use, affordable, and locally accessible.

Kevin dives into the art of being discoverable, the monetary value of brand equity and the importance of using all data available to build a real model of your marketing efforts. He also discusses headcount, and how he is thinking about investing in it. 

Key Takeaways:

  • Avoid focusing too much on tactics to get customer attention, like tweaking the subject line or the format of the email. Focus on the art of being discoverable, on making it easy for customers to find and fall in love with you. 
  • Don’t be simplistic about data analysis. Simple metrics can you lead you astray, you need to leverage all the data available to you to build a holistic model. 
  • Brand equity directly impacts the value of a business, take a company like Nvidia or Apple. Marketers who investing in their brand well, will see the productivity of their demand gen dollars skyrocket. 

Quote: 

  • “ I would not invest heavily in headcount. I have seen too many marketing organizations rapidly scale headcount. And you can have a company that's 200 million in revenue and there'll be 80 people in marketing, right? You can have an organization that's 50 million in revenue and they'll have 40 people in marketing and they'll hire field marketers in this region and that region. They'll build out their whole PR team. They'll build the whole AR team. We operate super, super lean here at Vultr. Number one is we empower everyone with a lot of, you know, AI tools and a lot of ability to make decisions, and they all have access to a massive treasure trove of data in our data warehouse, right? We just drive employee productivity as much as possible. Secondly, we leverage as much as possible external third parties that have specific expertise.”

Episode Timestamps: 

*(06:59) The Trust Tree: Fostering an open ecosystem, the antithesis to a walled garden 

*(25:22) The Playbook: Brand experience drives demand gen productivity

*(43:42) The Dust Up: Tension over events 

*(46:05) Quick Hits: Kevin’s quick hits

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Moving With Agility as a Fortune 50015 Jul 202500:43:39

This episode features an interview with Rebecca Stone, SVP of Revenue Marketing at Cisco, the worldwide technology leader that is revolutionizing the way organizations connect and protect in the AI era.

Rebecca shares how she stays agile inside a Fortune 500 giant and why she approaches AI with thoughtful skepticism. She also reveals her evolving take on content strategy – arguing that soon how you present your content could matter more than the content itself.

Key Takeaways:

  • You can prioritize agility to drastically reduce time to market, even at a large Fortune 500. 
  • Always think critically about answers from AI, and ask the models where they pulled their data from. Otherwise, risk sharing misinformation. 
  • The way your content is distributed and presented is just as important as the content itself. 

Quote: 

  •  I think it's a matter of meeting the market and meeting the moment, as well as just the sheer breadth of things that we have to do from an internal perspective. As with most organizations, there's not an unlimited amount of headcount and budget to go around. And so when you start to think about how do I approach things in a way that allows us to make progress. In a way that we were super slow, to your point, historically, that agile methodology is really helping us. And I think as an example of that, if you look over the course of the last six months, as we've moved more and more into the team operating fully agilely, we've cut down time to market for some of our most successful tactics from months, even potentially a quarter or more, to weeks.

Episode Timestamps: 

*(03:42) The Trust Tree: Serving mom-and-pops up to the world’s largest governments 

*(10:22) The Playbook: Agile operations in very large marketing team 

*(37:50) The Dust Up: Marketing and sales, and marketing and product 

*(40:27) Quick Hits: Rebecca’s quick hits 

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


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No More Mass Marketing: Precision Wins08 Jul 202500:25:45

This episode features an interview with Suzanne Behrens, CMO at Granicus, a software company that helps better engage governments and the people they serve.

Suzanne discusses how Granicus is transforming engagement through AI-driven marketing, investing in digital channels over booths, and ensuring tight sales alignment. 

Key Takeaways:

  • While procurement processes differ, public sector buyers still seek personalized, digital-first experiences. Meeting them with the right message at the right time is just as critical as in traditional B2B marketing.
  • New tools allow a new level of precision, and marketers needs to stop with mass marketing effort and focus on higher prospects.
  • While events are crucial for many CMOs we speak to, they can also be high cost and it may make more sense to overinvest in digital channels to meet customers where they are.

Quote: 

  • “  We've got a tech stack with some tools that are AI-enabled, that we've adopted and hosted, that have really helped us more effectively understand buyer's behavior and intent to help us target opportunities more effectively, versus in the past, it used to be mass marketing. You'd sort of throw it out there and hope someone will, you know, call you. It's really now about looking at their behavior and intent to help us target more effectively and personalize the experience and customize from a super ABM perspective of reaching prospects and customers. So, leveraging different tools to help us do that. We're reaching them when they're ready. They're much higher prospect than just sort of casting a wide net.”

Episode Timestamps: 

*(02:36) The Trust Tree: Selling globally to many personas 

*(05:04) The Playbook: Overinvesting in digital and web

*(21:37) The Dust Up: Meeting in the middle

*(22:47) Quick Hits: Suzanne’s quick hits 

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Search: Don’t Throw The Baby Out With The Bath Water01 Jul 202500:48:20

This episode features an interview with Putney Cloos, CMO at Bombora, a B2B data pioneer that connects the B2B ecosystem in a one-of-a-kind Data Co-op of leading publishers, brand websites, and premium data providers.

Putney dives into the criticality of intent data in building your go-to-market motions, the importance of measuring ROI across a long sales cycles and playing the long game in PR.  

Key Takeaways:

  • While we all need to be rethinking search and paying attention to how the world is changing, we shouldn’t abandon traditional search entirely, or too quickly. It still has a significant role.
  • While some see PR as an old-school tactic, it’s a very high return tactic. Marketers should leverage the fact that journalists are under pressure to find stories and should be reaching out before there is a deadline to they are top of mind.
  • An AI thought-partner doesn’t care when you throw out the entire brainstorm or trash an hour of work, making AI a great thought partner.

Quote:

  • “One thing that we're all struggling with, or thinking about at least, is traditional search. I think we all need to learn and think about, how does the world change? But the reality is in aggregate, traditional search still plays a pretty significant role. We're not going to throw the baby out with the bath water. We have to think about how we position ourselves as the world changes, but continue to do sort of old school investment and test and learn in the traditional search channels.”

Episode Timestamps: 

*(04:16) The Trust Tree: Selling to publishers 

*(19:43) The Playbook: Invest in high quality intent data 

*(41:36) The Dust Up: Conflict during the interview process

*(45:06) Quick Hits: Putney’s quick hits 

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links: 


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

How to Build Your B2B Content Strategy in 202524 Jun 202500:31:36

In this special episode of Pipeline Visionaries, Ian Faison, CEO of Caspian Studios, breaks down the future of B2B content creation for 2025. He dives into frameworks and strategies, outlining the five methods of consumption and aiming for high quality that makes virality possible. He also dives into the difference between feeds, shows, and networks, giving case studies and examples and highlights the shift towards platform-specific content and the role of marketers as 'gardeners' in navigating walled gardens like YouTube and LinkedIn.

Key Takeaways:

  • There are five methods of consumption that marketers need to be thinking about: shorts, shows, medium form video, live entertainment and fiction.  The format matches consumption. Shorts for scrollers, shows for subscribers, limited series for binges, live events for live learners, fiction for edutainment.
  •  A feed and a show and a network are three different things. Creating a network allows audiences to self-select into the content that they like. 
  •  The optimal strategy for creating content to deliver it to your audiences, is for creators to create it and put it on the platform. Individuals, not brands.

Quote: 

  • “ That's what we have to figure out - how do we maximize coverage for our target audience? And if you ignore methods of consumption or you ignore format, or you ignore hosts, you're inherently ignoring a subset of your population." 
     

Episode Timestamps: 

*(00:06) The future of B2B content in 2025

*(01:42) Five methods of consumption

*(07:52) Framework: feeds, shows, and networks

*(16:38) We’re all gardeners: accessing walled gardens

*(17:38) The shift to creator-first content

*(24:41) The importance of distribution and creativity

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

AI is Now Part of Your Team17 Jun 202500:51:23

This episode features an interview with Chris Bontempo, CMO, Johnson Controls, a 140 year old company that is a global leader in smart, healthy and sustainable buildings.

Chris spent nearly 19 years at IBM, eventually serving as CMO of IBM Americas before moving to Johnson Controls. He shares his perspective on website content being scraped by LLMs, how they’re using AI to reduce ad spend, and which types of content are resonating most with prospects.

Key Takeaways:

  • Websites need to be designed to be scraped by LLMs. All CMOs are trying to figure this out right now.
  • CMOs need to consider AI part of their teams “to supplement the labor that [they] have and give people superpowers to do their jobs better”.
  • CMOs need to be hands-on-keys, using, learning and leveraging new tools themselves, in order to be able to lead well.

Quote: 

  • "As a CMO, you need to consider AI as part of your team, right? So the tools that we're using that all have AI baked into them, the how AI is going to streamline your process. AI is part of your team to supplement the labor that you have and give people superpowers to do their jobs better and at huge scale without taking on a huge amount of expense."

Episode Timestamps: 

*(06:02) The Trust Tree: No daylight between sales and marketing 

*(15:04) The Playbook: Designing the website to be scraped by AI

*(42:12) The Dust Up : There’s always a kernel of truth to both sides

*(46:08) Quick Hits: Chris’s quick hits 

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From Bait-and-Switch to Human-Centric10 Jun 202500:44:48

This episode features an interview with Ashley Faus, Head of Lifecycle Marketing, Portfolio, Atlassian and author of the book Human-Centered Marketing: How to Connect with Audiences in the Age of AI. 

Ashley dives into the pitfalls of both active spamming and the bait-and-switch tactics that are commonplace today. She also explains why marketers should ditch the funnel framework and embrace playgrounds as the model for the customer journey, and shares her insights into what it means to make marketing truly human-centric. 

Key Takeaways:

  • Misleading CTAs and bait-and-switch tactics erode trust. Marketers should not be trying to trick prospects into buying. It is expensive to acquire a customer that is a bad fit, and they should be prioritizing the relationship.
  • The funnel is outdated; marketers should adopt “the playground” where they allow customers to move through a self-directed customer journey however they want to.
  • The language that we use to talk about our audience, “is so adversarial. It's like I'm gonna hunt for a prospect and I'm gonna capture a lead, and I'm gonna lock down a deal.” Remember there is a person behind the screen.

Quote: 

  • “ My job as a marketer, I always say, I never want to sell anything to anybody. My job is to match problems with solutions. And if I harass you or convince you to buy something that doesn't actually solve your problem, that's going to  be very expensive for me to fix, either from a reputation standpoint, from a support or implementation cost standpoint. Like, it's not free for me to acquire a customer that's a bad fit. It's not just not serving them. It does not serve the business either. And I think that's the other piece that like sometimes people think when I talk about this, that I'm trying to be altruistic or that like it's a nice thing to do for the audience. I mean, yes, we should be decent humans, but it's bad for business to behave this way and to do the bait and switch or to force somebody into a bad fit. It's gonna be very expensive for you to force fit that, or to try to, you know, win and re-win that customer or to serve that customer If they go nuclear and they start posting on social media, or they file a lawsuit, right? It's very expensive to get out of a bad deal or to turn a bad deal into a good deal.”

Segment Timestamps:

  • *(02:55) Human-centered marketing frameworks
  • *(08:56) The pitfalls of bait-and-switch tactics
  • *(27:13) The playground over the funnel
  • *(35:33) The Playbook: Uncuttable budget items

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Using Small Bets to Win Big with AI03 Jun 202500:40:27

This episode features an interview with Avi Bhagtani, CMO at Digitate, a company that leverages machine learning and AI to intelligently manage IT and business operations.

Avi discusses their success with regional, curated events and how they are investing in AI experiments. He also shares insights into how they are leveraging AI to optimize the website. 

Key Takeaways:

  • Many successful events are curated, smaller and regional. Marketers who can meet their customer expectations and create networking opportunities with peers will pull ahead. 
  • The world of the traditional funnel is gone. The buyer journey is much more user dependent. Buyers have more agency and the journey has become very fast. 
  • The speed that generative AI can move when it comes to updating the website and launching ABM campaigns is already astonishing, and will only get better. Marketers should be leveraging these tools to move faster. 

Quote: 

  • “In the last one year, we have experimented with at least 12 to 15 new tools, either for finding our prospects or distilling our signals or increasing productivity with AI, right? Some of them have worked. Some of them have failed miserably, just the nature of the business today. But fortunately, we are doing this going in all eyes wide open, right? We know that some of these things are just gonna work. Some of these things have, you know, they have a little bit of a longer runway that they need to give you the results you want. Some of these just don't work, right? So that's where the majority of the investments are focused on today.”

Episode Timestamps: 

*(03:07) The Trust Tree: Finding every avenue to intercept prospects

*(09:06) The Playbook: Consistency of messaging over time

*(31:31) The Dust Up: Answer what marketing will do for other functions

*(33:48) Quick Hits: Avi quick hits

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Category Design and Surviving as a Startup27 May 202500:44:04

This episode features an interview with Bruce Cleveland, author of the best-seller “Traversing the Traction Gap" and CEO of Traction Gap Partners, a Market Engineering advisory firm.

Bruce outlines why most startups fail and explains market engineering, a term he coined  to represent the ideas around category design. He shares insights into creating a category and what goes into startup success. 

Key Takeaways:

  • Market engineering involves the ideas around category design or redefinition thought leadership to create a category.
  • There are distinct advantages to being a category leader; the category leader generates about 76% of  all the profits from a category. While there is a first-mover advantage, there are also some associated challenges.
  • Thought leadership is an essential component of creating a category. People want to be around peers they admire, so gathering the right people together leads to an eventual tipping point that makes it easier for a company to sell.

Quote:  

  • One of the reasons that you need to actively be involved in the thought leadership part of category creation is people wanna hang out with other people who they think are smart, who have some cool ideas. And that I think happens with companies as well. So eventually some companies kind of climb out of the morass, the cacophony of, fighting the marketing battle and begin to emerge as the thought leaders in those. And then they collectively gather more people and more people. And finally there's a tipping point where that company is perceived as the category leader. And so it becomes really easy for those companies to then sell more.

Episode Timestamps: 

*(02:26) The Trust Tree: Traversing the Traction Gap 

*(07:31) The importance of category design

*(26:05) Thought Leadership in category creation

*(35:39) How to evaluate startups

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Not Taking Risks is Risky20 May 202500:47:14

This episode features an interview with Armen Najarian, CMO at Sift, an AI-powered fraud platform delivering identity trust for leading global businesses.

Armen has 10 years of experience as a CMO across a variety of fraud prevention, digital identity, and cybersecurity organizations. He discusses how word of mouth and a strong brand has allowed them to become a leader in their space and also gives insight into Sift’s top source for demand generation.

Key Takeaways:

  • It is riskier not to take risks. Marketers need to be willing to try something unconventional. If it fails, the world goes on. 
  • Giving your customers access to your data, if it answers important questions for them, can be a key driver of demand. 
  • Understand what your customers are curious about and what questions they are asking. If you can find a way to provide answers, the ROI will be significant. 

Quote: 

  •  ”Those that aren't taking risks are the ones taking risks, is the way I would look at this. Like we have to take risks -you know, it's gotten so noisy and some of the tried and true tactics like organic search, right, which is completely flipped on its head right now. Every CMO has a responsibility, anyone in marketing really, has a responsibility to really rethink the logic for what they're doing and take some risks.”

Episode Timestamps: 

*(02:29) The Trust Tree: 10 years of CMO experience

*(09:19) The Playbook: Answering your customers biggest questions

*(38:24) The Dust Up: To create a category or not 

*(42:32) Quick Hits: Armen’s quick hits

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Get Off the Treadmill: Make Space for Creativity13 May 202500:43:54

This episode features an interview with Alison Lange Engel, CEO of Ceros, a company that provides tools and services that empower companies to create interactive content with unparalleled ease and efficiency, driving customer engagement.

In this episode, Alison discusses the power of interactive content and how to differentiate your brand amidst increasing noise. She and Ian dive into the importance of being unique and how creativity is a competitive advantage. 

Key Takeaways:

  • Creativity is a competitive advantage, even more so as copying assets gets easier with AI. CMOs need to get their teams off the treadmill and make space for creativity, inspiration and ideation. 
  • The sea of sameness is real, especially in B2B, and the world continues to get noisier. You have to disrupt and have conviction behind your big bets; check box marketing won’t cut it anymore. 
  • Originality is as important as ever, but teams have to find ways to do more with less and won’t succeed if they are only trying to differentiate themselves through words, tone, or processes.

Quote: 

  •  You're going to miss the opportunity to differentiate and tell a unique story, right, if you have your team on a treadmill constantly. And that's how most people feel. But, as a leader, you've got to create space for it and find inspiration. Encourage your team to bring ideas. We would bring magazine clips in. People would bring in their pets. People brought in old, you know, pictures, family mementos, what matters to them. You've gotta get to the heart and soul of what you're trying to do to kind of unlock your team and have your company, you know, feel fresh, feel modern, and have people take risks, right? Great companies take risks and you have to kind of create that environment to do that. The brands that don't, are in trouble and the brands that do are the ones that win.

Episode Timestamps: 

*(05:50) The Trust Tree: Experiences over static content

*(25:36) The ROI of creativity

*(36:29) Advice for CMOs on creativity and boldness

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Driving Qualified Pipeline Through Meta06 May 202500:42:54

This episode features an interview with Jen Rapp, CMO at Superside, an AI-powered creative service, trusted by 500+ top brands. Jen has over 20 years of experience developing and executing marketing strategies for high-growth companies, with a particular focus on working alongside entrepreneurial leaders to scale.


She discusses selling the vision and how doing good impacts marketing, sharing her lessons from her time at Patagonia and DoorDash. She also discusses winning on meta through quality creative and driving qualified leads through virtual summits. 

Key Takeaways:

  • Don’t sleep on meta ads. If your ICP is on Instagram, those ads can be some of the cleanest and most effective ads to drive pipeline, especially if you have quality creative. 
  • Virtual Summits, or essentially a stack of webinars, are a great way to get emails and drive pipeline if you are truly offering great content. 
  • Sell the vision, not the product. A focus on features, instead of stories, is rarely the way to go. 

Quote:

  • “  I would not have said this a year ago, when I first joined the company - number one is our meta, paid meta spend. I came to this company and I saw how much we were spending on Meta, and I was like, whoa, what the hell are these people doing? They're making mistakes left and right. Nope. We drive a majority, or a lot, I shouldn't say a majority, a lot of our qualified pipeline through our Meta spend. Our Meta spend also acts as our top of funnel awareness driver.  When we turn off meta, we basically turn off the ability of our SDRs and our BDRs to convert people to SQLs. It is invaluable. So number one, my marketing team is like rallied around creating incredible creative for Meta.”

Episode Timestamps: 

*(03:51) The Trust Tree: Making sure customers have confidence in you

*(12:12) The Playbook: The power of Meta ads

*(33:10) The Dust Up: Standing up to brilliant founders

*(41:01) Quick Hits: Jen’s Quick Hits

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

People Churn From Products, Not From Brands29 Apr 202500:43:04

This episode features an interview with Steve Rotter, CMO at DeepL, a global communications platform powered by Language AI.

In this episode, Steve shares with us the power of a small uplift to your website when you see large scale website traffic, and the importance of pushing your point of view over your product features. He also dives into the value of brand in avoiding churn. 

Key Takeaways:

  • Small changes to the website can have a small uplift, and when you are dealing with large-scale website traffic, that can have a big impact on the business. For large enterprises, don’t underestimate the value of small optimizations on the website. 
  • People churn products, they don’t churn from valued brands and communities. Make sure to invest in your brand accordingly. 
  • Explaining your POV over pushing your features, allows you to demonstrate the outsized impact of your product more effectively. 

Quote: 

  •  Brand is critical. My general sense is, people churn from products, they don't churn from communities, they don't churn from brands with personalities that they enjoy. So, we spend a lot of time looking at that in terms of, you know, what is the voice, what is the language, what is the identity of the brand?

Episode Timestamps: 

*(04:11) The Trust Tree: People churn from products, not brands and communities 

*(24:13) The Playbook: Explain your point of view, over pushing all your features

*(39:22) Quick Hits: Scott’s Quick Hits

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Being Led Astray: First- and Last-Touch Attribution22 Apr 202500:46:42

This episode features an interview with Bill Macaitis, Founder & CEO, SaaS CMO Pro, where he shares growth strategies for SaaS and AI companies. His past roles include CMO positions at Slack and Zendesk, and SVP of Marketing at Salesforce. 

Bill joins the podcast to discuss findings from a recent survey of over 300 B2B marketers that gives insights into marketing strategies and budgets. He shares what they learned about marketing versus sales budgets, the most common attribution model, and more. 

Key Takeaways:

  • Companies that are growing the fastest, invest the most in marketing. While cause and effect of that correlation is unclear, it’s an interesting finding. 
  • Pipeline generation was one of the most tracked metrics for CMOs, which is a nice move away from only looking at MQLs or leads. Unfortunately, awareness was rarely tracked, making it hard for marketing teams to invest in long-term initiatives. 
  • A lot of companies, 65 percent, continue to use first or last touch attribution models. 

     

Quote: 

  •  So, what we learned is a lot of companies, I think especially in their earlier stages -  percent still use first- or last- touch.  It's kind of crazy. I'm still shocked by it.  I remember my time at Salesforce,  I was running the marketing ops team at that point, along with a couple other teams, and  I just did a deep dive into attribution. Like I really wanted to understand like, hey, how many touches are people having with us before they became a lead? And then how many touches before they became a customer? What we would see is people would have 10, 20, 30 interactions or touches with us before they became a lead, and then they'd have like another 20 or 30 before they became a customer. And just imagine giving all the credit to the very first or last thing. And by the way, it's one of the reasons Google got so big was because a very common last touch thing is they will search on your company name. Branded search, right? And it's like, oh, like the SEM guys are like, this is amazing, right? We need to spend more on Google because they're producing these massive deals. And it's like, well wait, what about all the stuff in the middle?

Episode Timestamps: 

*(03:48) Marketing Strategies and Budgeting

*(22:31) Attribution Models in Marketing

*(26:44) Top Metrics for B2B SaaS and AI Companies

*(31:06) Marketing's Role in Revenue and Expansion

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Automating Inbound to Maximize MQLs15 Apr 202500:52:38

This episode features an interview with Jenny Force, VP of Global Demand Generation at Meltwater, a company with a suite of solutions that spans media, social, consumer, and sales intelligence. Jenny discusses her experience launching the company’s first big summit, as well as the work they have done to automate their inbound process to maximize each MQL.

Key Takeaways:

  • Launching a new big initiative and then proving ROI to the executive team requires careful positioning and careful measurement against KPIs.
  • Automating the process for inbound leads through tech removes manual human intervention and puts the sellers into positions where they can do their job at a more impactful level.
  • Imbuing campaigns with humor, while a little scary, can cause a big lift in engagement.

Quote: 

  • We've been really investing and not just spending more money to get more MQLs. It's making, not to sound cliche, but every MQL count. It's about automating the process. Here at Meltwater, we're a 20-year-old company, we're very sales-centric and there's a lot of energy that used to be put behind outbound. So, it was changing the narrative around inbound. Until we totally make this change as a business where everyone in the business is shouting to get an inbound lead and are super excited about it, it's how can I get every single lead responded to in under an hour without any delays? And it's been a bit of a journey to put the right tech in place to automate those processes that we can, take out that manual human intervention and then put the sellers into the business so they can actually sell. So, I've got some tech around instant meeting scheduling, self-serve demos, a conversational email that we've put in. And honestly, I feel like that has already had such an impact on our conversion rates. I wouldn't get rid of it.

Episode Timestamps: 

*(06:03) The Trust Tree: Improving inbound efficiency and increasing deal velocity

*(14:32) The Playbook: Launching a summit and investing in automation 

*(45:53) The Dust Up: Changing inbound KPIs to get a seat at the table 

*(49:30) Quick Hits: Jenny’s quick hits

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Making Sales an Advisor to Prospects08 Apr 202500:43:50

This episode features an interview with Luke Arno, CRO at Transcend, a privacy platform that empowers brands to enhance regulatory stances and improve customer relationships through data transparency, consent, and control.

Luke shares his thoughts on strategy that prioritizes data privacy and limits engagement to prospects who opt in. He also discusses making the sales function an advisor and consultant to potential customers.

Key Takeaways:

  • One size fits all messaging is not successful and does more damage than good. It needs to go.
  • Marketing while prioritizing data privacy is a different ball game and requires a series of calculated investments based on the target market.
  • Empowering your sales leaders as thought leaders, and asking them to act as advisors, makes them very valuable at events.

Quote: 

  • “ How do we most effectively deliver thought leadership or ask the right questions from our customers about the problems they're solving? And we invest deeply in enabling our sales force  to be subject matter experts, and then therefore we rely on them to help scale, to meet our customers and open up the conversation in a trusted environment. Hence the name of the segment, the trust tree. But that whole process requires sales rep to put their sales position down and, effectively, ship the paradigm for how they think about engaging customers as more of a consultant or an advisor.  So, we try and delight our customers with a sales free experience, but we do rely deeply on the employees we hire at every function to effectively manage the conversation as a trusted advisor.”

Episode Timestamps: 

*(07:47) The Trust Tree: Thoughts on marketing strategy from a CRO  

*(21:52) The Playbook: The psychology of prospecting

*(37:03) The Dust Up: Show up prepared to articulate your position

*(40:45) Quick Hits: Luke’s quick hits

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Standing Out in a Crowded Market01 Apr 202500:47:57

This episode features an interview with Kamal Thakarsey, CMO at Smartling, an AI Translation Platform that helps companies grow globally, faster. Kamal shares his strategy to stand out in a crowded market. He also dives into understanding trends, educating your customer, and testing even your smallest hypothesis.

Key Takeaways:

  • Fight complacency in your messaging. Companies may be comfortable with what they are doing, and comfortable sticking with the status quo, so you need to demonstrate the value of changing their approach. 
  • Test everything, from button colors to CTAs and beyond. Testing often surprises you and proves your hypotheses wrong. 
  • If you’re in a crowded market, focus on truly understanding your market and customers. Investing in that research can support your efforts to differentiate. 

Quote: 

  •   Being an established market, there's lot of kind of noise that's happening and every company kind of raising your hand and saying, we do this, we do this.I think for us also a big part of our strategy is like standing out really like trying to show the market that like we are kind of being industry leaders and helping the space move forward. , I think it's also really about for us, also about how we really highlight kind of the value we bring to an organization and a team. Not just like, tactically, here's some solutions, we help you kind of of do better, but like, what do we actually bring the table and how are we going to help you be successful? I think to me, that's really just like foundational to them, like how we kind of run our programs and campaigns and how more effective they can be, rather than just kind of de facto doing things because we should be doing them. So, you know, one thing I really stress is just really continue to do like market research and understanding, you know, what are their priorities? What are the business initiatives? What are their executives and leaders asking them on an ongoing basis?How can we then understand those trends and that feedback and really put together, you know, smart, timely, relevant campaigns that are going to reach them? Because, like I said, we're in a crowded market with a lot of different vendors, both in the software and the services side, and we have to stand out.

Episode Timestamps: 

*(03:35) The Trust Tree: Capturing the marketing and targeting accounts 

*(12:24) The Playbook: Driving intent through search

*(36:59) The Dust Up: Advocating for self-service 

*(41:50) Quick Hits: Kamal’s quick hits 

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Rigorous Testing to Go Viral25 Mar 202500:46:47

This episode features an interview with Gaurav Agarwal, COO and Revenue Leader at ClickUp, an all-in-one productivity platform that replaces all individual workplace productivity tools with a single, unified platform. 

Gaurav shares his thoughts on keeping your content strategy relevant and the iteration and testing needed to go viral. He also discusses maintaining a blend of B2B and B2C tactics to achieve scalable success.

Key Takeaways:

  • Content strategy and going viral is much more about consistency and iteration than it is about the spark of one amazing ideas. Rigorous and experimentation leads to long-term ROI. 
  • To stay relevant in marketing, you have to keep up to date on generational trends and new formats of reaching people. You can’t get comfortable being a great marketer in an outdate channel. 
  • You have to keep bets in your portfolio that have an asymmetric upside, which you can only do if you are willing to take on a certain amount of risk. Don’t get too excited about immediate ROI. 

Quote: 

  • A huge part of perfecting craft is you want to stay relevant.  I know amazing marketers  who are gods of Facebook and building viral content on Facebook.  And they fought the short form vertical video format with TikTok so much. They looked down upon it because they thought that this is cringy, this is shot on an iPhone. And I'm like, why are you doing this to yourself? Like, do you not want to be culturally relevant in the next decade? So, a huge part of a great team is staying hungry and not thinking that you've arrived because content, media, consumer preferences, even software is a generational business.  You have to stay on with the formats of what the future is and keep moving towards that direction versus be so happy that I'm this amazing marketer on Facebook. Dude, like your time is up. Facebook pages don't get any distribution anymore. 

Episode Timestamps: 

*(03:29) The Trust Tree: Size of audience and LTV should drive your marketing strategy 

*(11:18) The Playbook: Strategic iteration to go viral on social 

*(38:03) The Dust Up: Adapt content to different channels and stay true to your brand ethos 

*(43:52) Quick Hits: Gaurav’s quick hits 

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Understanding Digital Body Language18 Mar 202500:31:46

This episode features an interview with Ural Cebeci, SVP Marketing, Global Demand Generation at Braze, a customer engagement platform that allows any marketer to collect and take action on data from any source, so they can creatively engage with customers in real time, across channels.

Ural shares his perspective on the challenges and hesitations surrounding personalization, and his thoughts on how to move forward. He also dives into understanding digital body language and customer signals.

Key Takeaways:

  • A good demand strategy requires two things: GTM alignment and having the infrastructure to understand the business through data.
  • To have a strong brand, you need healthy, long-term customer relationships, which requires understanding digital body language and customer signals.
  • Marketers have valid hesitations around personalization, due to compliance and data privacy issues, and fear of eroding customer trust. As a result, using channels to continually get consent from customers and actually delivering value is key.

Quote: 

  • ”In the end, in order to have a strong brand, you need to have healthy and long-term customer relationships. And we all acquire customers, users, through campaigns, but then retaining them really means connecting with the human behind that anonymous user or anonymous visitor. And that brings back the whole digital body language. Like we understand what that user is signaling, like what is at the surface versus what they are saying with their engagement, like what they say and collect that data and then like use that to drive better and more meaningful customer relationships.”

Episode Timestamps: 

*(03:55) The Trust Tree: Understanding the business through data

*(11:46) The Playbook: Any channel is cuttable, you need to understand your marketing mix

*(25:59) The Dust Up: Alignment and committing to the same idea

*(27:43) Quick Hits: Ural’s quick hits

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com. Qualified helps you turn your website into a pipeline generation machine with PipelineAI. Engage and convert your most valuable website visitors with live chat, chatbots, meeting scheduling, intent data, and Piper, your AI SDR. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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