Episode Summary
Brian Finnerty of Udacity discusses effective strategies for aligning content to different stages of the buyer's journey. He stresses the importance of investing in lower funnel proof points like customer success stories and third-party reports. Finnerty also provides tips for validating content assumptions directly with customers. Additionally, he emphasizes optimizing the content mix based on performance data and attribution to opportunities. Throughout the conversation, Finnerty reinforces the importance of tying content marketing efforts directly to pipeline and sales goals.

About the guest

Brian is a senior marketing executive with deep experience leading successful marketing teams. He believes that marketing can deliver extraordinary results when it harnesses the right blend of full-funnel demand, sales alignment, and rich customer insights. Brian's expertise includes brand strategy, B2B demand generation, and global customer acquisition from mid-market to Fortune 500.

Connect with Brian Finnerty

Key takeaways
- Map content assets to stages of the buyer's journey, including top-of-funnel awareness content and bottom-of-funnel proof points

- Invest in lower-funnel customer success stories and third-party validation reports

- Validate content assumptions directly with customers through feedback

- Optimize the content mix regularly based on performance data and attribution to opportunities

- Track pipeline as the primary metric for measuring content marketing success

Quotes

"If you're able to track all of those touchpoints, and make sure that they're associated with opportunities in your CRM, then I think you've got a fairly consistent way of assessing how your content engine is performing." -Brian Finnerty

Recommended Resource

Books
Brian suggests "No Rules Rules" by Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer about Netflix's approach to talent and culture.

Podcast

Professor Galloway's podcast, ‘The Prof G Pod’ for marketing and sales insights.

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