🛠️ Stop saying "AI-powered"

Hey there!

The AskCMO team spent the week digging up the best B2B marketing tools and trends so you don’t have to.

And the best part? You can catch up on all of it in the next 3 minutes.

In today’s Tools & Trends roundup:

• How Clay approaches marketing 🎯

• 35 post-event survey questions 📋

• Customers don't care about your AI feature 🤖

• HubSpot’s take on their “80% drop” in organic traffic 📉

• The 4 “Marketing Advantages” you can leverage to grow faster ⚡

• The key to great marketing is knowing what a customer already understands 🧠

How Clay approaches marketing

Want to know how a B2B company grew 6x in 2024 (and 10x the two years before)? Clay's marketing leaders share their playbook for building a thriving ecosystem of creators and partners, while transforming from a simple outbound tool to a complete GTM development environment.

🗝️ The key takeaways:

• Clay relies on ecosystem marketing to grow. They try to help creators be successful, which in turn drives their success. Revenue share is just icing on the cake.

• Clay is not only building GTM software to change how teams drive growth, but innovating on the roles they have on their go-to-market teams. Case in point: Their GTM Engineer role.

Ahrefs 35 post-event survey questions

Running events is tough, but improving them is even tougher if you don't know what worked and what didn't. Ahrefs shares their exact post-event survey strategy which helped them gather actionable feedback from their 500+ person conference.

🗝️ The key takeaways:

• They targeted three different groups with tailored surveys: attendees got questions about experience and content quality, employees shared insights on logistics and preparation, and sponsors provided feedback on lead generation and booth traffic.

• Their not-so-secret weapon is the mix of quantitative and qualitative questions - combining satisfaction scales with open-ended feedback gives them both measurable metrics and detailed insights for improvement.

Customers don't care about your AI feature

If you're thinking about plastering "AI-powered" all over your product's marketing, you might want to think twice. New research from 767 software users shows that mentioning AI might actually hurt your product's perception rather than help it.

🗝️ The key takeaways:

• When products were labeled as "AI-powered," users actually had lower performance expectations and weren't willing to pay more money.

• Talk benefits, not tech. Instead of saying "AI-powered productivity," try something like Canva's approach: "beautiful marketing templates ready in 10 seconds."

• When AI must be mentioned, always pair it with clear user benefits.

HubSpot’s take on their “80% drop” in organic traffic

With all the LinkedIn chatter about HubSpot's traffic numbers, Kieran Flanagan (their SVP of Marketing) stepped in to explain why everyone's focused on the wrong metrics and what's actually driving their marketing strategy.

🗝️ The key takeaways:

• Influence beats traffic: Their strategic bet on channels like theHustle, podcasts, and creator content is paying off big time, matching blog performance.

• Quality over quantity: They've intentionally removed 30k+ blog posts that weren't serving their core audience, focusing on content that actually converts.

• The AI factor: With the rise of no-click searches and AI-driven results, they're already optimizing for the future of search, including ChatGPT visibility.

Leverage your “Marketing Advantages” to grow faster

Every company has an unfair advantage: something that gives them a leg up on the competition. The trick is knowing what yours is and doubling down on it. This article breaks down the four key types of Marketing Advantages and how to use them to grow faster.

🗝️ The key takeaways:

• Product Advantages: If your product has built-in virality (like Slack) or a killer freemium model (like Figma), you’ve got an edge.

• Ecosystem Advantages: Partnerships, integrations, and market trends can be fuel for growth. Think HubSpot’s affiliate program or Zapier’s massive integration network.

• Marketing Fuel Advantages: A compelling brand story, customer love, or unique data can be your secret weapon (like Spotify’s recommendation algorithm or Patagonia’s sustainability mission).

• Marketing Engine Advantages: SEO dominance, event-driven communities, and a clear go-to-market wedge are key levers for scale (think: Stripe starting with developers before expanding).

The key to great marketing is knowing what a customer already understands

That’s it for this week,

Speak soon,

The Ask CMO team

P.S. Do you (or someone you know) want to be interviewed for AskCMO? We’re looking for 2025 guests now. If you’re a CMO or senior-level marketer in B2B, please fill out this form and we’ll be in touch.

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