Episode #28: How to Implement a Demand Creation Strategy - Sam Kuehnle
Jumping off the MQL hamster wheel
More and more marketers are embracing demand creation as a strategy, at least in principle.
But making a fundamental GTM change is HARD, because businesses arrange themselves around their go-to-market motion.
If you’ve been practicing lead gen for multiple years, then your business plan, your budgeting process, your systems, your org structure, and your reporting rhythms are all likely based around it.
Changing your strategy isn’t just about ungating content and reallocating some paid spend. It’s a massive organizational shift.
You need to re-wire how the business thinks commercially, from the executive level down, and change the KPIs your team looks at to define marketing success.
It’s a communication and change management challenge as much as it is a marketing challenge.
I wanted to speak to someone who had taken this journey and could offer advice on how to do it successfully.
As VP of Demand Gen at Refine Labs, Sam Kuehnle has been a big part of the movement evangelizing a shift from lead gen to demand gen and has helped many companies make the transition as a consultant.
Now he's leading a similar shift as an in-house marketing leader.
Thanks to Our Sponsor
Many thanks to the sponsor of this episode - Knak.
Knak is a modern, slick, and beautiful email and landing page builder that integrates directly with your marketing automation platform.
Click below to learn more and get a special offer just for RevOps FM listeners.
About Today's Guest
Sam Kuehnle is VP of Marketing at Loxo, the Talent Intelligence Platform. From working in-house at a publicly-traded company, to advising seed stage companies trying to figure out how to crack their first $1M in ARR, to everything in-between, Sam is passionate about learning and sharing better ways to do marketing.
Key Topics
[00:00] - Introduction
[01:37] - Sam’s marketing experience before Refine Labs
[06:33] - Joining Refine Labs
[08:11] - Refine Labs onboarding process
[10:21] - A typical engagement + aligning with customer teams
[13:36] - How to communicate a demand creation strategy
[20:26] - Identifying the right mix of channels / platforms
[25:02] - Leading indicators for demand creation
[26:45] - Brand awareness vs. demand creation
[31:32] - Evolution during Sam’s tenure at Refine
[33:33] - The band-wagon effect and how to identify the best practices of tomorrow
[35:11] - Joining Loxo
[37:10] - Sam’s first priorities after going in house
[41:38] - LinkedIn ad strategy
[45:09] - Experiments with Connected TV
[51:35] - ChatGPT as a marketing channel
Resources
Sam's Marketing Meditations - Check out Sam’s weekly posts on Substack