Elaine Zelby’s Post

Amandine Servain, VP Marketing at Wunderkind is more strategic and thoughtful than most when it comes to evaluating, implementing, and measuring AI tools for Marketing. I had the opportunity to speak with her in a recent AMA and here are some of the key takeaways: 1. AI tools are best adopted when solving specific pain points, not just for the sake of using AI. Start by identifying challenges, then find tools that address them. 2. The "pod" structure for sales and marketing alignment is highly effective. Bringing together an SDR, account executive, and ABM marketer creates transparency and improves collaboration. 3. Quarterly surveys are a great way to uncover pain points and potential AI solutions from your team. It gives space for people to voice opinions they may not share in regular meetings. 4. Brand authenticity is crucial when adopting AI tools for content creation. Ensure the platform can ingest your brand voice and tone. 5. Measure AI tool impact through improved engagement metrics like open rates and click-through rates. Always start small, test, and then scale. 6. AI is currently in the "co-pilot" phase but may evolve into autonomous marketing agents. Human oversight will remain critical for strategy, authenticity, and analytics interpretation. Check out more here - https://lnkd.in/gDDjrMNq #MarketingInsights #AIinMarketing #B2BMarketing

AI adoption in business faces four key barriers, as highlighted by Tomasz Tunguz, venture capitalist and General Partner at Theory Ventures, in his recent newsletter... but's it's absolutely not impossible for even early stage startups to get around them: 1. Understanding AI's capabilities: The rapid evolution of AI technology makes it challenging for business leaders to grasp its full potential. 2. Security concerns: The unpredictable nature of AI systems raises questions about data security, including model security, prompt injection, RAG authentication/authorization, and data loss prevention. 3. Legal uncertainties: AI introduces new complexities in contracts and intellectual property rights, leaving many legal teams grappling with unprecedented questions. 4. Procurement hurdles: Unlike established software, AI lacks standardized certifications for security and compliance, complicating the buying process. As a 1-yr old startup that has sold to large enterprises and even public companies, here's how Tofu has navigated these challenges: 1. Customers want guidance. They want vendors to not only inspire but prescribe how they should be using AI. We take a consultative and opinionated approach and proactively create plans for how customers can get the most value out of our product and AI tools for their Marketing efforts. 2. Everyone is figuring out what questions to ask and what to care about when it comes to security. Our approach has been to document as much as possible (and continually update since it's changing so quickly) and jump through the hoops when every customer wants you to answer their specific questionnaire (despite it have 85% overlap with what we've already documented). 3. We proactively drafted clauses that we can add to our order form that has specific language around which LLMs we use, in what capacity, how we use Customer data, assurances that we comply with existing privacy laws, and what we do to mitigate things like hallucinations. 4. It feels like we're a long way off from actual AI "certifications" and we've seen that every company has their own tolerance and appetite to let their teams leverage these tools. We try to ask questions and discover the current reality for each company early in the sales cycle so we can spend time with the right and have a clear sense of how to navigate as early as possible. No question these barriers can extend sales cycles, but overall, if you're building a product that has serious value and ROI to a business unit, your internal champions paired with some thoughtful processes on your end can make the hurdles not as high as you think 😉

Perceived value can trump actual utility in SaaS products... Ever wondered why some SaaS companies win despite not delivering massive tangible ROI? I think the secret is in perceived value. Here are 7 examples (and not trying to throw shade on any company... I think these are all STELLAR businesses that I admire!!): 1. Grammarly: Real-time grammar suggestions make users feel like better writers, even if the actual impact on communication effectiveness is modest. 2. Hubspot's Email Scoring: Email scoring make users feel can dramatically improved the quality of their emails even if the performance doesn't significantly change. 3. Yoast SEO: SEO suggestions make users confident their content is optimized, despite minimal impact without a comprehensive SEO strategy. 4. Mailchimp’s Subject Line Helper: Users believe they'll achieve better email open rates with suggested subject lines, but results may not reflect this. 5. Workday's Best Practice Recommendations: Users feel they are implementing industry best practices for HR and financial ops despite often needing to dramatically tweak based on bespoke needs. 6. Zendesk’s Satisfaction Prediction: Predictive insights seem proactive, yet real improvements are dependent on overall customer service quality. 7. Salesforce's Einstein: Predictive analytics and insights promise to drive sales when in reality the usefulness of the AI predictions depend heavily on data quality and customization which are often lacking. Users derive satisfaction from feeling smarter, more efficient, or effective at their job, even if the tangible benefits are modest. For marketing leaders, this is a crucial insight. Focus on proactive suggestions, user experience, and features that resonate emotionally with your audience. Sometimes, the perception of value can be just as compelling as real-world results. #SaaS #B2BMarketing

Let's get real with AI tool adoption in Marketing... As VP of Marketing at Wunderkind, Amandine Servain knows firsthand the challenges and opportunities that come with integrating AI tools into marketing workflows. In a recent AMA webinar, Amandine shared her approach to evaluating and adopting these tools. The key, according to Amandine, is to start not with the tools but by identifying specific pain points within your team's workflows. From there, look for AI solutions that can both solve those problems and also seamlessly integrate with your existing technology stack. "First, we look at the challenges that we have... then we move to trying to find a tool that can solve that pain point, could be AI, could not be AI," Amandine explained. "When we find AI tools, such as Tofu, that was solving a pain point, most of the time we do a POC first to make sure it actually solving the pain point that we think it's solving." But adoption is only half the battle. Measuring the impact of these tools is equally important. Amandine's team tracks engagement metrics and runs A/B tests to quantify the effectiveness of their AI-powered campaigns. However, Amandine cautions against data overload: "We track a lot of data, probably too much data, more than we actually use, but I think that's kind of the marketer's disease, tracking too many data points and not fully knowing what am I going to do with that data?" The key takeaway? Be strategic in your approach to AI adoption. Identify clear pain points, ensure seamless integration, and measure impact using meaningful metrics. With the right strategy, AI tools can be a powerful addition to your marketing workflows. What has been your experience with adopting AI tools in your marketing efforts? https://lnkd.in/gMTVPbtU

We've all seen the charts of how much time is wasted in meetings... I want someone to show me the chart of how much time is wasted logging into things. The amount of times a day I have to log in (which also involves unlocking my 1password which is yet ANOTHER login), do one of 17 2FAs, customize cookie settings, etc is insane. Probably the biggest productivity waster that no one is talking about.

Want to learn from a team that has increased email engagement rates by 133%, increased email open rates by 15% and have gone from creating 1 personalized ABM landing page in 2 days to 20 in 10 minutes? Then join our AMA with Wunderkind VP Marketing Amandine Servain on Thursday to hear how they did it, how their team has adopted generative AI, and what kind of outcomes they're seeing :) Register here: https://lu.ma/79yieiii

Want to learn from a team that has increased email engagement rates by 133%, increased email open rates by 15% and have gone from creating 1 personalized ABM landing page in 2 days to 20 in 10 minutes? Then join our AMA with Wunderkind VP Marketing Amandine Servain on Thursday to hear how they did it, how their team has adopted generative AI, and what kind of outcomes they're seeing :) Register here: https://lu.ma/79yieiii

Traditional channels like email marketing, SEO, and paid advertising are seeing diminishing returns, so what are we seeing marketers turn to: webinars. Webinars offer a unique blend of engagement, scalability, and content repurposing potential, making them a cost-effective and high-impact solution for lead generation. You can incorporate dynamic visual content, live interaction, big-name guests/partners, and real-time Q&A sessions to create educational and engaging experiences that move leads through the funnel. 🎥💬 On top of that, a single webinar can reach hundreds or even thousands of participants simultaneously, don't have the cost or logistical burden of physical events, and can be repeated over and over again. And the best part? Webinars can be recorded and made available on-demand, extending their lifespan and allowing users to engage with your content at their convenience. Beyond just lead gen, webinars also create rich content that can be repurposed into blogs, social posts, ads, and more helping fill your content pipeline as well. The challenge is, there is a LOT of work that goes into the post-webinar process. From transcribing the video and crafting the derivative content to following up promptly with the attendees and the registrants. Teams are more bandwidth constrained than ever and a lot of this is just not getting done. Check out how Tofu's "Webinar In-a-Box" solution can help you get the most out of your webinars and enable them to power both your lead gen and content funnels. https://lnkd.in/gdKReKT3 #LeadGeneration #Webinars #MarketingStrategy

Been wanting to do this for a long time 😂 Bye bye "I hope this email finds you well" 😏