Jackie Paulus Sr. Director of Marketing at VidMob talks about the state of B2B marketing and increasing use of AI in this martech Q&A:

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Welcome to this MarTech Series chat, Jackie, tell us about yourself and more about your role at VidMob? What got you into marketing?

Thanks for having me, Paroma! My name is Jackie Paulus, and I’m the Senior Director of Marketing at VidMob. As part of a fast-growing technology startup, my roles have evolved frequently since I started in March 2021. I’ve managed field marketing events, social and content strategy, creative production, PR, and thought leadership.

I’ve always enjoyed sports and understood early on that marketing was the conduit for me to have the most fun in my career. I played softball in college, so a natural move was to baseball, where I started in promotions in AAA baseball. Those hours were brutal, so I transitioned into the incrementally less brutal industry of traditional media, producing events and promoting radio stations, concerts, and professional sports. The experience I gained working in all facets of sports and media marketing laid a great foundation as a marketing generalist.

What about today’s state of marketing needs to change?

Today’s state of marketing isn’t necessarily broken, but we’re certainly navigating the forefront of massive changes and challenges brought on by AI. AI has brought a lot of positive change to every facet of marketing, but the thought that AI can produce on its own has led to a downside of bad practices and waste in these early stages.

Marketing and agency experts as well as unique creative data must inform AI-powered creative platforms or the ads and content produced are going to be lackluster, look a lot like competitors’, or worse, be off-brand and scaled across multiple platforms. Content that doesn’t resonate is problematic enough, but the processing power required to generate these ads for millions of people every minute is having a massive impact on energy consumption. We need a more thoughtful and sustainable use of AI in marketing.

Can you talk about some of the most interesting marketing experiences you’ve seen in B2B SaaS and what key takeaways you’d share from them?

When I moved to B2B SaaS marketing, I quickly learned that the sales cycles are much longer and more complex compared to my B2C experience. The difficulty of B2B SaaS marketing is compounded by the ongoing fragmentation of channels and content fatigue. The biggest lesson I’ve learned is not to be too rigid with marketing plans or processes because of the ever-moving target. Technology, roles, culture, and consumption patterns are changing so rapidly that if you hold on too long to anything without revisiting it—like ICPs, buyer journeys, company narrative, or thought leadership topics—you risk not connecting with the right decision-makers or addressing their current challenges.

Another key lesson is that effective marketing requires close collaboration with different business functions, including sales, client services, and product development. Breaking down communication silos and building a culture of cross-functional collaboration leads to more cohesive and impactful marketing campaigns. Plus, it just generally makes the workplace more enjoyable.

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Tell us more about your marketing strategies that you’ve relied on over the years to boost impact?

I’ve been blessed with marketing leaders throughout my career who truly embrace a ‘test and learn’ culture, allowing me to experiment with various strategies. The mainstay has been content marketing and thought leadership. This approach is easy to control, can quickly adapt to changing narratives and positioning, is easily promoted through organic and paid social channels, and can also earn free hits.

SEO and SEM have been imperative, and as we’ve honed in on our ICPs, we’ve continued to refine our ABM and lead nurturing strategies. Additionally, working with martech that enables us to learn and provides actionable insights to improve efforts moving forward is critical.

How do you use AI in your current marketing plans and martech stack?

We use Vidmob’s creative data platform to uncover insights from our online advertising. Our platform provides us with valuable creative direction and ideas for future optimizations. Additionally, we utilize revenue intelligence, sales enablement, and marketing tools to glean information from client calls and interactions. These insights help us refine our narrative, enhance our go-to-market strategy, and thoughtfully co-create materials to better serve our clients.

Can you share your thoughts on the future of AI, marketing and martech: what will the market look like down the line?

The AI landscape will witness a consolidation, where companies without distinctive AI capabilities or unique data inputs will struggle to survive. Those relying on common data sources will produce similar outputs, failing to provide unique value and will ultimately fall behind. The future will favor companies that invest in extracting and providing exclusive data, enabling their AI to deliver differentiated, actionable insights and outputs that set them apart from competitors.

AI will be extracting loads of first-party data for brands which will advance seamless omnichannel experiences for consumers. Data from various touch points will be integrated effortlessly, providing a holistic view of the customer journey and enabling consistently meaningful interactions across all channels. Customer service will reach new heights through advanced training and real-time responses. The dream? When you want/need to speak to a human, it will happen within moments without the dreaded key or voice prompts.

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