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Welcome to Volume 172 👋
Would you look at that? It’s Thursday again.
In this week’s newsletter, we’re jam-packed with:
- 🌱 How Environmental Software Companies Are Innovating in Marketing
- 📢 Introducing Foundation’s AI Marketing Console
- 🤖 What Actually is Generative AI? The Full Explanation
- 👀 What’s the Latest in B2B SaaS This Week?
- 🎧 How to Create Like the Greats
- 🧠 This Week’s Brain Food
- ➕ The Best Content Across The Web
Let’s get into it.
📩The Ultimate Guide to Content Distribution 📩
If you’ve followed Foundation long enough, you know there’s one thing we always preach:
D.R.E.A.M. — Distribution Rules Everything Around Me
It’s easy to forget about the critical role distribution plays in connecting your target audience to your content — from sales posts on LinkedIn to community hubs like Reddit and Quora. That’s why we’re bringing back this gem from Ross.
In this comprehensive guide, you’ll learn how to do the following:
- Master the art of leveraging Owned, Earned, and Paid Channels for maximum reach.
- Discover strategies to stand out in the content overload and effectively connect with your target audience.
- Gain actionable insights on choosing the right distribution channels to boost brand awareness and drive conversions.
Check out Ross’s Ultimate Guide to Content Distribution, and transform your content to engage your audience and grow your business.
B2B SAAS NEWS
🌱 How Environmental Software Companies Break the Mould
Environmental software companies have tough work ahead of them.
They’re in a highly competitive industry that’s always changing based on public opinion and regulations, and their departmental budgets are often the first to be eliminated.
I took a look at a few environmental software companies for our latest article to see what they’re doing to make their marketing stand out. It turns out we have a lot to learn from them.
Slick tools, great resources, and interesting examples of content repurposing are all part of how this innovative mix of companies pushes the envelope with its content.
This article has one of the most fascinating search scorecards I’ve ever put together. The total traffic isn’t very high but look at this backlink profile.
The wild part is that this is just a search bar for a database of templated forms. But VelocityEHS, an environmental, health, and safety software company, knows its customers well and they receive almost 60,000 backlinks from people who appreciate their templates.
By understanding their audience’s struggles so well that they deliver such a simple yet valuable tool, VelocityEHS shows how to succeed in a highly competitive industry.
Introducing Foundation’s AI marketing console
A few years ago, if someone said that mastering a single SaaS tool could save you 500+ work hours every year, make you a better creator, and increase your chances of landing a leadership position, you’d probably laugh them out of the room. Well, no one’s laughing now.
Generative AI is projected to add billions of dollars to the marketing industry in productivity savings alone, and the vast majority of professionals in our industry are incorporating AI this year.
Like all emerging technologies, there’s a huge advantage to moving quickly. Experimentation and research are key to building the skills you need to stay ahead. Unfortunately, these are also time-intensive processes.
That’s why we’re excited to announce the release of the AI Marketing Console.
With the AI Marketing Console, you get an arsenal of 130+ battle-tested ChatGPT prompts to help you create everything from landing pages and email drip campaigns to reports and customer research.
Plus, you’ll get exclusive access to the following:
- A visual AI toolkit with 20+ video walkthroughs
- Two keynote presentations on the state of AI in marketing
- An AI content evaluation checklist to level up your outputs
Get full access to the AI Marketing Console, and start building your AI skills now
If you want more information on why we’ve created this offering, check out this video from Ross.
B2B SAAS INSIGHTS
🤖 What is Generative AI? Everything Marketers Should Know
Most marketers still don’t understand everything generative AI is doing to shake up our industry. Check out this illustration with just a few of the AI tools you could be using across the board:
These AI marketing tools cover everything from email to video and SEO. If you’re in marketing, I guarantee that you can benefit from AI in at least one area of your job.
If you don’t believe me or you aren’t sure how you should be using it, that’s okay. Ross wrote an in-depth breakdown of everything marketers need to know about how generative AI works and the most valuable marketing use cases for it.
The article is a guide for how you can step up your AI game while avoiding some of the pitfalls that catch overeager first-time users. It’ll show you how to get the most out of AI without losing the human touch, so your content stands out.
Ready to find out how to use AI from a true expert? Check out the full article here.
👀 What’s The Latest in B2B SaaS This Week? 👀
- OpenAI and Arizona State University are bringing ChatGPT to classrooms
- Hackers stole data from 35 million customers of VF Corp, owner of Vans and Supreme
- Sheryl Sandberg left Meta’s board of directors
- HubSpot has partnered with TikTok for social media lead capture
- ElevenLabs raised $80 million Series B with new voice AI products
🎧 Learn How To Create Like The Greats 🎧
Looking to build your company’s content marketing and distribution engine? Interested in learning how leading brands like Loom, Toast, and Calm create winning content? Or just want to hear conversations with the likes of Tamara Dworetz, Dave Gerhardt, and Dr. Julie Gurner?
We have the podcast for you.
In Create Like the Greats, Foundation CEO — Ross Simmonds — discusses marketing, the creative process, life, and everything in between. Here are some of the most recent episodes you can catch up on:
- How to prepare for a big keynote presentation
- Debating the value of long-form vs. short-form content
- How Ross successfully maximized his time on a 48-hour trip to New York
- Marketing frameworks, mental models, AARRR pirate metrics, and B2B buyer journeys
Kickstart your creative journey today and check out the podcast on the Foundation website or listen through Apple and Spotify.
This week’s Brain Food 🧠
I love agendas.
A lot of companies don’t bother putting together meeting agendas ahead of time. I think that’s a huge mistake.
At Foundation, we have shared agendas for all of our meetings that we update ahead of time. Then, if you want to know what you’ll talk about, you can just look at the agenda right before the meeting starts. It’s all there.
It’s so simple, and it’s effective at making our meetings faster and more efficient. I usually have all the documents we’ll need to reference them ahead of time. That means there are no awkward pauses of “uh, yeah, I think I can find that for you.”
It also means I can emotionally prepare for a meeting. Will we discuss tough decisions and critical feedback or just check in to make sure everyone’s got what they need?
It’s all on the agenda.
This is the most boring, simple, easy way to drastically improve something that can define whether you actually like your job. It’s not a pitch for anything, just a tip — there’s no agenda here.
Want to sponsor our next issue? Reply to this email, and we’ll share how you can reach more SaaS founders and marketers today.
🏅Twitter/X Thread of The Week
A rude awakening for content marketers by Neil Patel
🎖️ LinkedIn Post of The Week
The most impressive programmatic SEO case study I’ve seen by Usman Akram
🤳🏽 Nice Finds You Should Binge
- Google Search Is a Mess. Can Mobile AI Make it Better? | WIRED
- Industry Jargon Is the Silent Killer of B2B Marketing | Adweek
- No, the Great Tech Layoffs of 2023 Aren’t Happening Again | WIRED
- Inside Meta’s Big AI Reorg | The Verge
🎧 What We’re Wired Into This Week:
30 Prompts for Content Generation, Create Like the Greats
This marvellous marketing medley is brought to you by me, Chris Meabe.
If you have any feedback, suggestions, or ideas you want to see in this newsletter, feel free to email me at chris.meabe@foundationinc.co. We’re always looking for ways to improve and make sure you’re getting the best B2B SaaS marketing resources.
Have a great week(end), and stay safe.
