Audrey Dotson

The State of AI in Content Marketing is out! Ahrefs (a tool I use) surveyed 879 marketers to see how AI is actually being used. Here’s what stood out: 📈 AI = 42% more content. Teams using AI publish a median of 17 articles/month vs 12 without. 🧰 94 different tools were named. ChatGPT dominates, but the long tail is real. ✍️ Only 4% publish “pure” AI content. Nearly everyone edits or reviews AI outputs. This nuance is often lost in debates about AI-generated content. 🫥 Disclosure is rare. Just 16% of companies let readers know content was AI-assisted. Full report: https://lnkd.in/gu_QzU7z #AI #ContentMarketing #GenerativeAI #MarketingInsights #LinkedInTLDR

7

My hot take on AI-generated content for B2B marketing 😈 I've said this before... Most B2B websites are actual drivel - written by humans. Product this, product that, "we're the market leaders", blah blah blah. If we're being honest, it all sounded the same before AI. Now? At least grammar is better (em dashes and all 😏). What's coming is a divide between the true master crafters and the waffling rinse-and-repeaters. Ai doesn't mean smaller marketing teams. It means smarter ones. Hopefully, with less burn out thanks to their new AI assistants. In content marketing, the real winners will be the humans with wordsmithery in their veins. And I predict the resurgence of a skill I miss more and more every year: copy editing. So to fellow marketers and writers worried about the "death" of human-generated content: 🚨 Turn your LLM of choice into your sparring partner and grammar police. 📝 Learn (or relearn) the art of copy editing. The Copyeditor's Handbook is gold for corp comms and publishing. ❤️‍🔥 NEVER go live with unedited AI copy. Now that you've gained 6 hours from that 2-prompt, 20-second first draft, use it well and wisely. Crack those knuckles. Make it ZING- add emotion, humor, meaning, humanity. 📔 Use messaging frameworks: With time and tools on your side, there's no excuse for bland, misaligned content. Build frameworks for every product, solution, or vertical. Let's use AI to raise the bar - not lower it.

40

8 Comments

The biggest difference between SEO and AEO is that the C-Suite is actually paying attention. Wei Zheng head of product at Conductor at C3 today. Really exciting to see how they are building toward Agentic workflows to automate AEO.

21

1 Comment

Network! I'm building something new for HubSpot Academy and I need your brains 🧠 Here's the core premise: Before any AI tool can do its job, your CRM data has to be clean. But, most teams already *know* their data is messy. What they don't have is a clear starting point. So, I want to teach HubSpot users how to build a lightweight data governance and hygiene system that actually makes AI work for them. I want to hear from the people living this every day: 🔹 HubSpot managers & practitioners — where does data quality actually break down on your team? Is it the initial setup? Ongoing habits? No clear ownership? 🔹 #RevOps folks — what's the #1 thing you wish someone had told you earlier about maintaining clean data at scale? 🔹 Anyone who's tried to use HubSpot's AI features — did data quality get in the way? What did you have to fix first? Drop your thoughts in the comments! Or if you'd rather talk through it, send me a DM so we can find time to connect. Every insight helps shape content that reaches thousands of HubSpot users - TYIA! 🙏

66

32 Comments

Great insights from Marketing Master Matt Heinz and 40 of our colleagues in SF. Great, short read - running into similar issues?

8

1 Comment

Most marketing updates miss the mark. Not because of the data, but because of the delivery. I’ve seen decks with 27 metrics on the first slide. I've been in meetings debating web visits, CTRs, or webinar signups - but never answer the question leadership actually cares about: “So, is it working?” That's because, while it’s technically accurate - it's narratively exhausting. Remember, as a marketer, your audience doesn’t want every scene (even if they say they do). They just want to understand the plot. So before your next campaign recap or QBR, keep these 3 things in mind: 👉 What’s the one-line takeaway? 👉 Who’s my audience, and what do they care about? 👉 What could I cut that wouldn’t change the story? Anyone can share data, but the best marketers tell a story with it.

39

17 Comments

I don’t spend much time debating what marketing owns anymore. What matters now is whether everything actually lines up. 🔸 Messaging breaks if pricing tells a different story. 🔸 GTM falls apart when enablement lives in a slide deck instead of daily workflows. 🔸 Personas don’t help if they aren’t shaping real revenue conversations. 🔸 Demand generation only works when today’s work makes next quarter easier, not harder. Not surprisingly, most of this comes back to people. Making your team "AI-enabled" is super important to execute, so you can free up that time for more meaningful strategic conversations that ensure you're moving in the right direction Curious how other GTM leaders are putting it all together.

13

My 2026 prediction: If you don't crystalize your unique value and CLEARLY articulate in a way that resonates and is deeply meaningful to your personas different than any other provider in your space - the sophistication of your demand gen engine, how big your marketing budget is relative to ARR, or how many AI tools you deploy- you are chasing noise. Seems obvious - but I would say 8/10 companies miss this part. Just ask them what the unique value is they bring. I mean REALLY bring. And, if you cannot clearly articulate this - you need to go back to the basics quite possibly all the way back to the roadmap. Once your narrative is developed (tested internally and externally)- invest in public relations to support your GTM efforts and relentlessly speak this value as an organization. I mean RELENTLESSLY. When everyone has access to the same tools, what cuts through is a narrative that resonates, builds trust, and makes your value authentically and instantly clear. Because without that, even the most advanced marketing stack is just motion, not momentum. I'm the luckiest CMO to be at ALLPLAN helping to shape this incredible narrative. Watch out 2026!

55

2 Comments

The angst that AI is "gobbling up marketing tasks" is real — and product marketers, in particular, worry they’ll be replaced. But what I’m seeing in practice today is a bit different. PMM leaders are using AI to accelerate thinking. Here are 3 tangible ways in which we are using AI for messaging & positioning: 1️⃣ Creating internal persona GPTs to pressure-test messaging (e.g., the skeptical prospect that is using a competitive solution, a churned customer who did not renew their contract, your own internal stakeholders in Product, Legal, who hold final approval), and use them to poke holes. 2️⃣ Synthesizing customer insights at scale. Use AI to summarize themes across call transcripts (Gong), win/loss feedback (Clozd), analyst research (Gartner), online reviews (G2), customer tickets (Zendesk), and even RFPs. Ask AI to surface patterns across these sources for: customer pain and buying triggers/criteria using their very own language. Using the exact words from customers is gold. No need to fluff it up with marketing speak. 3️⃣ Brainstorming and exploring messaging directions. Ask AI to generate multiple positioning angles, value prop frameworks, and headline variations to do the scaffolding so you are not starting from zero. It's always easier to edit than to write from scratch. Will AIs take over messaging and positioning work from PMMs? The jury is still out, but one thing is for sure: PMMs who don't use AI will be replaced by those who do. A big thanks to panelists, Claire Drumond, Jon Rooney, Emi Hofmeister, Eileen Buenviaje Reyes, and the entire Sharebird community for the inspo for this post and for hosting the conversation on how to craft compelling messaging.

26

2 Comments

The rate of change in marketing isn’t just accelerating—it’s hitting a breaking point. HubSpot reports that 56% of marketers agree that our industry has changed more in the past 3 years than in the previous 50. Most teams are still trying to figure out the new rules. At Consensus, we’ve spent 2025 pivoting to find what drives growth in this new reality. Here is my unfiltered look at our 5 new strategic wins and 3 legacy tactics we’ve left behind. ✅ 5 Things That Worked 1️⃣ The SEO/GEO Pivot: While many are seeing a drop in search, we’ve seen a 200% lift. We treated SEO as a distribution channel (hello, Reddit) and tested five different LLM measurement tools to stay ahead of how AI is changing discovery. We put everything on the table to win including new, transparent pricing and packaging. In this environment, following the data isn't optional—it’s game changing.  2️⃣ Influencers with Vision: We ditched “reach” for resonance. By partnering with visionary thinkers in our space, those that connected to our story, we turned Brand into a trackable lead gen tool. Brand IS the new Demand. 3️⃣ More "At-Bats" (Events): Our CRO Rex Galbraith said: "Get us in front of our ICP and our story sells itself." Instead of "badge scanning," we focused on events that offered depth—conversations and presentations. Demofest and local dinners saw massive engagement. High-quality "at-bats" via owned, earned, and paid events paid off. 4️⃣ Demos as a Conversion Engine: Gartner says the #1 thing buyers want on a website is a demo. So we shifted focus from content to demo views. These leads convert 6-10x more. When you give buyers what they want, they respond. 5️⃣ Radical Buyer Empathy: We made it easy to buy. Transparent pricing, easy POCs, and accessible product info. We stopped hiding the "the goods" and started facilitating research. Empathy for the buyer journey is a competitive advantage. ❌ 3 Things That Didn���t 1️⃣ The Paid Digital Lag: Costs went up, conversions dipped, and it took us months to pivot. I regret not cutting our digital budget sooner. In a fast-moving market, you have to be willing to make moves as soon as the data tells you to. 2️⃣ The "Lead Form" Hangover: Gated content is a barrier—not just for prospects, but for the LLMs indexing your brand. We ungated late and left brand-building opportunities on the table. 3️⃣ Holding on to Old Playbooks: With tons of marketing wins behind me, I fell into the trap of holding on to what used to work. My CEO Doug Johnson gave me some tough feedback: I was moving too slow. I pushed back hard at first, but he was right. We didn't scrap the playbook, but we had to rewrite chapters that no longer served us. The takeaway? Marketing is no longer about who has the best plan, but who can pivot the fastest. At Consensus, we call it metabolic rate. What’s the one tactic you’re definitely leaving behind in 2025? Let’s swap notes below. 👇 #MarketingLeadership #B2BSaaS #BrandStrategy #DemandGen

180

10 Comments

A colleague of mine sent me this article...and while I agree with the premise - content becomes more important, not less, as AI reshapes discovery - I’m not convinced the answer is simply more content. Most companies already have vast content estates. Some of it is visible: website pages, blogs, customer stories, product content. But a lot of the most valuable thinking sits below the waterline in decks, research, sales enablement, technical documentation, SharePoint folders, customer insights, and internal repositories. So, before we start pumping out content for every possible prompt, maybe the better question is: what do we already know, what has already been vetted, and where do we have the authority to be the answer? It feels like the opportunity is to make the right knowledge findable, structured, and trustworthy, rather than just creating noise. What do you think? https://lnkd.in/eb4QyXmX

45

3 Comments

If you celebrate that marketing metrics are up, while sales are going down, I think it’s worth asking whether internal KPIs are in alignment. Seeing these two very different headlines about AE’s Sydney Sweeney campaign is like a microcosm of what happens at so many organizations. And it is true. These two opposing states can exist simultaneously. But the questions are: should this be your goal? And, if it isn’t, how do you prevent it from happening. Also bears mentioning that the inverse can be true, people can be brow beating marketing while sales are going up. That too bears investigating.

18

12 Comments

CRM leaders are waking up to another threat to the performance of their program health and effectiveness with the upcoming Gmail changes rolling out this week. From Fast Company - "The tool lets users see all their active email subscriptions in one place, along with a count of how many emails each sender has delivered in recent weeks. From there, unsubscribing takes just a single click." Check out the full article here for Gmail's rationale behind the changes: https://lnkd.in/dHYgSXd5 Brands that are over sending unpersonalized batch emails are going to get called out on that leaderboard and banished with that simple unsub button. If you're not already leveraging AI to optimize frequency and content selection so your audiences believe that you know them and have a customer centric content strategy - this won't play out in your favor. We'd love to talk about how Movable Ink Da Vinci and Studio can help ensure this reckoning rewards your customer centric, AI optimized program. And check out Andrew LeClair's great take on all of this on our blog: https://lnkd.in/dk8mf8vv

24

1 Comment

"ABM didn't work for us" is what I've heard all too often the last few years of being a consultant. In my experience the biggest reasons why ABM didn't work is two-fold: either an expensive ABM platform, especially 6sense, was purchased prematurely and/or the GTM team was unclear of their roles in the account-based motion and marketing teams only understood this motion conceptually and unable to drive business transformation. I wrote this article for MarTech with specific account-based GTM "Pod Team" instructions of how to tangibly be one GTM revenue team with joint goals and accountability to each other. Responsibilities of each Pod Team function include: ⭐ Marketing-The Strategist and Enabler ⭐ Define/focus ICP, fuel campaigns, create engagement ⭐ BDRs- The Activator and Connector ⭐ Focus MQAs of ICP, research, personalize, book human conversations ⭐ Sales- The Closer and Strategist ⭐ Account prioritization, buying group confirmation, control sales cycle ⭐ CS- The Strategic Partner ⭐ Retention, expansion, fuel advocacy Read the full article here for specific actionable details to how a successful account-based revenue team works. There are many ways to skin a cat, what advice do you have to make this GTM motion work for your team? What hasn't worked and why? https://lnkd.in/eDU2gRy7

37

14 Comments

Product marketing is ever-changing. In this graph, two skills in particular stood out to me: Competitive Intelligence: The people who benefit the most from emerging technologies and AI are the ones who learn how to use it to their advantage. Today's marketers have more consumer data at their fingertips than ever before. Being able to weed through information to find what's most relevant to your organization will only become more critical. Storytelling: At the end of the day, AI can never "replace" marketers because a great story requires a human touch. Emerging technologies have changed the processes and audience strategies of marketing over the years, but storytelling will always be the core of our profession. What skills resonated the most with you?

7

Are you stuck in a content calendar trap? A blog here. A white paper there. with no real connection. No compounding effect. Demand gen content isn’t random. It’s repeatable. Habit-forming. Expected. Your buyers should expect you: 👉 Podcast queued every Monday 👉 Newsletter in their inbox 👉 Short clips showing up in Slack threads and sales calls That’s when attention compounds. In Module 3 of the Demand Gen Playbook, I break down: 🌟 How to build consistent content loops 🌟 Why distribution should come before creation 🌟 How we turned content into the engine, not the afterthought, of our strategy Link to the playbook in the comments 👇

24

3 Comments

84% of B2B SaaS CMOs now use AI for vendor discovery. If you are a CMO, this is not just a buying insight. It is a strategy signal. If you use ChatGPT and Perplexity to evaluate vendors, what makes you think your buyers are not doing the same? Discovery is moving from search results to conversational evaluation. Buyers are asking things like: “We are a 50M ARR SaaS company, PLG motion, HubSpot stack. What ABM platforms should we consider and why?” That is high intent. And the shortlist is generated instantly. If your brand is not part of that answer, you are not in the consideration set. Source: Wynter , How B2B SaaS CMOs Buy Software in 2026.

21

The fastest way to accelerate your career and reach the C-suite is knowing your numbers and become fluent with the metrics of the business. I’ve seen too many talented GTM leaders plateau because they couldn’t connect their decisions back to the P&L. But if you want to earn a permanent seat at the table, you need to know your metrics. And honestly, early in my career I thought strategy, creativity, and execution were what mattered most. And they do—but what I learned is if you can’t connect your work back to the financials, you’ll always be seen as a functional lead, not a strategic leader. The best thing I ever did for my career was to become fluent with metrics. – How CAC payback affects runway – Why NRR is the heartbeat of SaaS – How expansion ARR drives valuation And now the bar is moving higher. AI is reshaping the very benchmarks we rely on. Pricing. Packaging. Payback. Even how ARR is defined. It’s crazy to me how quickly the math of SaaS is evolving. If you don’t understand how AI is bending the benchmarks, you’re playing with an outdated playbook. The good new is that financial fluency is a skill you can build. Start by: – Reading your company’s financial statements each month (don’t skim, study!) – Asking your CFO or FP&A lead to walk you through the drivers of margin and efficiency. – Translating your own initiatives into financial outcomes: “This campaign shortens payback by 3 months” is far more powerful than “this campaign generated 500 leads.” Do this consistently and you’ll stop being the marketer, seller, or operator “at the table” and start being the person shaping board-level decisions. And if you want a crash course in sharpening this skill, SaaS Metrics Palooza 2025 hosted by Ray Rike and the Benchmarkit team is where to start. Over two days, 30+ SaaS leaders and investors will break down how metrics drive decisions across finance, GTM, and operations. And more than half the sessions are dedicated to AI’s impact on SaaS. You’ll hear from: – Dave Kellogg – Peter Walker of Carta – Jeff Epstein of Bessemer Venture Partners – David Spitz of BenchSights – Ben Murray, The SaaS CFO – Jon Miller – Jacco van der Kooij of Winning by Design – Mark Roberge of Stage 2 Capital – Craig Rosenberg of Scale Venture Partners And a whole lot more!

87

13 Comments

Marketing is not a set-it-and-forget-it function‼️ Hitting "generate" and posting AI outputs doesn’t make you a marketer. It makes you a machine operator.

10