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:

• Connect with Ian on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Caspian Studios

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:

• Connect with Ian on LinkedIn
• Connect with Chris on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Johnson Controls
• Learn more about Caspian Studios

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:

• Connect with Ian on LinkedIn
• Connect with Ashley on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Atlassian
• Human-Centered Marketing: How to Connect with Audiences in the Age of AI
• Learn more about Caspian Studios