Charting New SaaS and AI Frontiers

Turing's TOFU: AI-Driven SaaS Growth

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Curated by Andrew Mounier

Originally published on January 13, 2024

Hey there, SaaS Aficionados, AI Explorers, and Marketing Pros! Andrew Mounier?here, welcoming you to another edition of Turing's TOFU. In this issue, we delve into the aftermath of Carta's recent scandal, explore groundbreaking funding in AI with Contents.com's Series B round, and examine Intel's latest venture into AI-powered enterprise software. Plus, don't miss our feature on Drift's unique conversational marketing in "TOFU Quick Bytes." We're also unpacking the essentials of a Marketing Test Brief in "Marketing Moments with Mounier," and our AI Unboxed Podcast spotlights the intersection of AI and national security. So gear up for a deep dive into the evolving landscape of AI, SaaS, and strategic marketing. Let's get started! ??????

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Table of Contents

• This Week in AI & SaaS
• Turing’s Top Picks
• Marketing Moments with Mounier
• AI Unboxed Podcast
• TOFU Quick Bytes: Drift Teardown
• Andrew’s Final Thought

???This Week in AI & SaaS ??

• Carta is pausing all sales outreach until further notice. Following last week's explosive scandal where Carta–a leading provider of equity management services for privately-held startups–was publicly outed for using confidential customer information to sell stakes in private companies, Carta has announced they are now exiting the secondary trading business.? Read more.
• Contents.com announces new Series B funding round of $18 million. Contents.com–a generative AI platform that simplifies LLMs to produce original content and reduce time and costs while maintaining quality–will use major European and American venture capital funds to enhance its technological capabilities and expand its global team, reinforcing its leadership in the AI content creation industry. Read more.
• Intel moves into the AI-powered enterprise software market. Building on last year's collaboration with BCG, Intel–backed by DigitalBridge–has launched a new AI software company, Articul8 AI: a generative AI platform that can read text and images for companies that require high levels of security and specialized domain knowledge. Read more.
• OpenAI has opened its ‘GPT Store’ doors, which is set to parallel Apple’s App Store. Anyone who subscribes to OpenAI's ChatGPT Plus, Team or Enterprise subscriptions will now be able to build GPTs, even without programming expertise, and market them on the GPT Store, making GPT tools more accessible (and more profitable for GPT makers). Read more.?
• Perplexity AI has raised $73.6 million in a funding round backed by Jeff Bezos. Valued at $520 million, Perplexity AI–an AI-powered search engine set to rival Google with its superior experience–has raised $73.6 million with investments from those including ex-Twitter VP, Elad Gil; ex-GitHub CEO, Nat Friedman; Shopify CEO, Tobi Lutke and Jeff Bezos, taking its total funding to a cool $100 million. Read more. ?

??Turing’s Top Picks ??

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Other Tools to Explore:

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Read of the Week:?

What SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin Really Thinks About AI, Sales & Lead Gen In 2024?

$0 to $1M in ARR is impossible.? $1M-$10M is unlikely.? $10M-$100M is inevitable. –Jason Lemkin

Should early-stage companies invest in AI? What’s the future of lead generation, and how do you stand out? What are the odds for a startup to hit $100 million in revenue? When is the right time to hire a VP of Sales? What should founders think about M&A over the next 6-12 months??

Jason Lemkin has all the answers.??

Read it.?

?? Marketing Moments with Mounier ??

Today, let's unravel a common pitfall in marketing campaigns: the absence of a Marketing Test Brief prior to a campaign launch.

Picture this: a team buzzing with excitement, brimming with creative ideas, meticulously planning resources and promotional tactics, all in pursuit of that exhilarating moment of launching something new. Often, these teams have a clear goal, say generating 'x' number of leads. If they're particularly data-driven, you might even see a fully mapped-out funnel, predicting visitor-to-lead and lead-to-customer conversion rates.

However, the excitement often eclipses a crucial post-campaign phase: the retrospective analysis. This is where a Marketing Test Brief becomes indispensable. It's a post-mortem that ensures you crystallize your learnings, understand challenges, and strategize improvements for future campaigns. It's about building an internal database of testing knowledge, enhancing efficiency for your next launch.

So, What is a Marketing Test Brief?

A Marketing Test Brief is a structured framework for conducting and analyzing marketing experiments. It's a document that guides you through the entire process – from hypothesis to results and learnings – ensuring a systematic approach to your marketing experiments.

Marketing Test Brief - Template

Overview: This template serves as a blueprint for running marketing experiments, documenting learnings to evolve our marketing strategies.

{Insert Title of Marketing Test Brief} | Test Brief - {QX 20XX}

• Project Owner(s): {@ the project driver}
• Contributor: {@ collaborators and helpers}
• Informed: {@ stakeholders and potential final approvers}

Goal: {Specific, measurable goal}

Asana Task: {Link to main task}

Launch Date & Duration: {Start and end dates}

HYPOTHESIS

• Null hypothesis (current state): {What we currently believe}
• Alternate hypothesis (future state): {Our proposed experiment to challenge the null hypothesis}

EXPERIMENT DESIGN

• Detail the experiment setup, including comparisons of current and proposed states.

RESOURCES ESTIMATION & PROBABILITY

• Outline the required resources and estimated time investment.

RESULTS

• Tabulate and analyze the outcome, comparing variations and control measures.

LEARNINGS

• Document your findings. Was the hypothesis correct? Is further testing needed?

ACTION ITEMS

• Plan the next steps based on learnings. Repeat testing, implement findings, or explore new avenues?

Get the Marketing Test Brief Template Here FREE

Integrating AI in Marketing Test Briefs

In the realm of AI and SaaS, where innovation is relentless, incorporating AI tools can further refine this process. AI can provide predictive analytics for hypothesis formation, automate data collection, and offer deeper insights into results. Imagine utilizing AI to not only predict outcomes but also to recommend adjustments in real-time, optimizing your campaign as it unfolds.

While the initial thrill of launching a campaign is undeniable, the real magic lies in the meticulous analysis and learning that follows. A Marketing Test Brief is not just a document; it's a roadmap to continuous improvement and strategic mastery in the ever-evolving landscape of B2B SaaS marketing. Let's embrace this tool to elevate our campaigns, merging human ingenuity with AI precision.

Next week, we’ll dive deeper into how AI can revolutionize specific areas of our marketing strategies. Stay tuned for more insights!

BONUS Content: A quick primer on figuring out your funnel: The Two-Step Dance of Funnel Measurement

1. Accurate Funnel Measurement: It all begins with getting your numbers right. Whether through a sophisticated CRM system like HubSpot or a manual process like using Excel or Google Sheets, the objective is to gain an intimate understanding of your marketing and sales funnels.
2. Key Forecasting Metrics: Identifying and understanding a few pivotal metrics is crucial. These include:Company Revenue Targets: Align your marketing goals with the broader company objectives.Funnel Conversion Rates: How many leads become MQLs, and how many of those turn into opportunities?Average Contract Value (ACV): Averages are key. Know your deal sizes.Sales Cycle Length: Understand how long it takes for a lead to become a closed-won deal.

Practical Steps to Funnel Forecasting

• Gather Data: Collect detailed monthly data on each stage of your sales and marketing funnels.
• Determine Forecasting Metrics: Get historical averages or use AI to predict future performance.
• Project Your Funnel: Use historical data or AI estimations to project future performance.

??? AI Unboxed Podcast???

What happens when artificial intelligence meets the intricate demands of national security? This episode brings you an exclusive conversation with Hillary Coover, a seasoned expert in national security technology.

We delve into the responsible use of AI in government contracting, unraveling the complexities of technology adoption policies and the ethical use of public data. Join us as Coover reveals her journey in harnessing AI for critical security missions and discusses the future of AI in transforming government operations.

From analyzing large-scale data for security insights to addressing the ethical implications of AI in privacy, this episode is packed with groundbreaking discussions on AI's role in shaping the future of national security and governance.

???TOFU Quick Bytes: Drift Teardown ??

Drift is an AI-powered ‘conversational marketing’ platform that uses AI to listen, understand, and learn from buyers to create personalized experiences. We’re going to tear their content marketing strategy apart to see what they’re good at, what they’re bad at, and how they use AI to enhance traditional marketing tactics.?

Strategy overview:?

• They include perspectives from wider teams in their blogs, and they encourage all employees to share content (their own or their colleagues) through advocacy schemes?
• They ask their customers for leadership content?
• They make their product updates about their customers, not about them
• They don’t use lead-gen forms. They use chatbots (more on that, next) and carefully placed email subscribe buttons because they believe that if customers want content, they should have it. For free, and without hassle.?
• They don’t try to rank for every blog post. They target high-volume primary and secondary keyphrases such as ‘growth marketer’, ‘product marketer’, and ‘chatbots/sales bots’
• They don’t email about every blog post they publish, they keep it light and stick to emailing about signups for their events?
• They only use social (Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram) to promote key product launches and to drive traffic to their blog
• They inspire their followers to share their content by studying trends and using social listening tools to establish what people are saying/asking so they can create content that their target audience wants to read and, naturally, share??

AI integration: Instead of lead-gen forms, Drift uses their own chatbot functionality to:?

• Engage with visitors who meet certain criteria, such as those viewing high-intent posts eg. landing pages or product updates

• Prompt regular blog visitors to sign up for their email list?

Performance Analysis:? Drift’s content marketing strategy is clearly working: They hit $135M ARR at the end of 2022 and have over 50,000 customers, including Gong, Okta, Zenefits, Outreach, and Pluralsight. Their DA is 84, with 315k backlinks, 14.3k referring domains, and 54k ranking organic keywords.?

Critical Teardown: There’s no doubt, looking at the performance figures above, that Drift is crushing it with its content marketing strategy: They’ve coined the phase ‘conversational marketing’ positioning themselves as pioneers in the chatbot world, they’ve built a solid inside community with over 30,000 members, and they own 1.07% of the market share. But it was a bold move to replace all their tried and tested lead-gen forms with chatbots. It’s a move that does make sense, though: By using their own product–a chatbot–instead of lead-gen forms, they’re proving to their audience that their product is effective. It’s a genius strategy that works because of their product and positioning. But replacing lead-gen forms with chatbots might not work for everyone. What will work, though, is if you can utilize your own product/service and demonstrate its effectiveness. Afterall, if you or your team can’t use your product/service, why would anyone else???

Lessons and Takeaways

• Use customers in your content as experts whose insights can help other users and prospects
• Center content around your customers, not yourself?
• Publish content written by employees who fit your target audience
• Utilize your own product to prove how effective it is
• If you do decide to use chatbots, use them sparingly — trigger them based on user behavior
• Don’t overwhelm your audience with emails and social posts. Keep it sparing, and only focus on key messages
• Prioritize employee advocacy to acquire organic traffic

What campaign or marketing strategy would you like to see analyzed in future editions? Let me know!?

Andrew’s Final Thoughts

As we close this edition of Turing’s TOFU, let's reflect on the rich insights we've gathered. From Drift's cutting-edge customer engagement tactics to the nuanced role of AI in national security, we've traversed a landscape where AI's prowess meets human ingenuity. These stories underline the importance of marrying AI's capabilities with ethical, human-centered strategies. It's a narrative that's deeply embedded in the essence of SaaS innovation, a reminder of the delicate yet powerful interplay between technology and human creativity. Here's to navigating these waters with a blend of precision and imagination, unlocking new realms of potential in the AI-driven SaaS universe. Until we meet again in the next edition – let's continue to pioneer and innovate!

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