Turing's Tofu #7

📰 This Week in AI & SaaS 📰

• OpenAI has released a new memory feature that enables users to tell ChatGPT to remember past conversations so they don't have to repeat the same information, over and over again, during chats, which will be useful for things like generating the right formatting preferences for content, or reports. Read more.
  

• Apple researchers have released a new, open-sourced pilot image tool (available to try on GitHub) that allows users to verbally ask the tool to crop, resize, flip, and add filters to images and complete complex Photoshop-like edits. Read more.
  

• Google’s ChatGPT equivalent–Bard–has been renamed to Gemini, after the powerful platform it’s built on, and will now be available via a new Android app and have launched a more advanced version (subscription-based) to complete complex tasks like coding and logical reasoning. Read more.
  

• DiGGrowth (a Marketing Analytics & Attribution Platform) has launched a generative AI marketing data assistant that will help marketers decipher insights from marketing campaigns, allowing them to optimize campaigns and make data-driven decisions, with ease. Read more.

• Van Gogh is brought back to life by AI: Check this out!

🌟Turing’s Top Picks 🌟

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Other Tools to Explore:

Acumbamail: Build email marketing campaigns and responsive landing pages, automate digital workflows and responsive landing pages, analyze results, optimize sending times, and generate comprehensive data reports, with one platform. Try it.

GoBrunch: A webinar platform that makes it easy to interact with participants, host breakout rooms, and make the user experience more immersive. Try it.  

Read of the Week:

New AI Marketing Insights From Neil Patel. 

Give your eyes a rest this week, and listen to infamous marketer, Neil Patel, and serial entrepreneur, Jeff Fenster, talk about how AI is affecting marketing, and why human-created content still holds a higher rank than AI-generated content because humans can infuse passion, creativity, and a deeper understanding of the target audience into their content, machines can’t. 

Listen here. 

💡 Marketing Moments with Mounier 💡

A few weeks ago I shared a poll ➡ two paragraphs, one written by me and one by AI. I was curious to see your thoughts on which one was which! I have included a screenshot of the original post below.

There was a pretty lively discussion in the comments section 👇

73% of voters got it right 🚀 the second paragraph, labeled 🔴, was in fact written by AI! The first one, labeled 🔵, was written by me.

27% of voters thought that the one written by me was AI-generated, even though I made no effort at all to make it sound like it was. Re: 27% of voters, if you're here now, what I'm curious to know what made you think 🔵 was written by AI?

Here are some of my thoughts:

- I find that posts that end with "Let's do so & so" sound more like AI
- Maybe using "I" in the first one vs. "we" in the second gave it away
- 🔵 gives humanized advice like "some things you can do...", 🔴 doesn't

The main takeaway is that I really enjoyed this experiment and will be doing it again! Thanks for playing 🤖

👾 TOFU Quick Bytes: ConvertKit Teardown 👾

ConvertKit teardown

Founded in 2013, ConvertKit is an email marketing automation software company that offers content marketers email, automation, and monetization tools designed to drive continuous growth. 

Strategy overview:
ConvertKit’s immediate goal when they launched was to reach $5,000 in monthly recurring revenue (MRR) within six months. They didn’t hit this target and struggled to retain momentum and growth as investment and pre-sale revenue fell. Things started to turn around when Hiten Shah (co-founder of Crazy Egg and KISSmetrics) suggested they focus their marketing efforts, hire an internal sales team and launch a direct sales campaign.

Performance Analysis:

• They now generate $36.4M in revenue per year, and have over 49K active users, with an an annual churn rate of 3% 

• They managed to raise $500K in investor funding

• 5.47 million people visit their site, per month

• They have over 126 employees, which includes 20 sales reps and 9 marketers

How have they achieved this? 

Critical Teardown:
What does ConvertKit do well?

• Creating targeted marketing campaigns: They focus their marketing campaigns on a niche audience: When it first began in 2013, ConvertKit had a broad target audience, and tried to sell its services to all businesses–big and small–aiming to provide “email marketing for everyone.” This was challenging and produced disappointing results. They then re-focused and narrowed their target audience down to those who would benefit the most from email marketing tools: “Email marketing for professional bloggers.” to send focused messages that added value to those who needed help with their email marketing.
  

• Leveraging the power of a community: ConvertKit has created a community for its target audience to give them a channel to communicate with prospects and customers and encourage them to promote ConvertKit's tools. They share knowledge for free and gate access to the community so that every user has to sign up with their email address, which gives them a solid list of leads to use in other marketing initiatives.
  

• Using user-generated content to capture leads: Their strong community, which has over 10,000 members, creates content, that naturally promotes ConvertKit services, providing other members and potential customers with social proof which ConvertKit uses to promote their business and attract more leads.   

  

  Source

• A non-promotional email onboarding sequence: Convertkit turns every user into a long-term fan by using a powerful onboarding email sequence which allows them to minimize churn rate.
  

  

  Source

• They make sure that each new subscriber feels important. When someone subscribes to Convertkit, they receive multiple emails that aim to establish a long-term relationship that is not just transactional.

  For example: 

  • Their first email doesn't ask much of the recipient. More importantly, it contains no intention to sell or offer any discounts: It’s all about the recipient.

  • Their second email is from the CEO, himself. In the email, he talks about why he created Convertkit and offers his help and advice.

  • The third email is from the Community Manager of Convertkit, which officially invites the recipient to join the exclusive community and allows them to connect with other users and share experiences.

• They use pronouns such as “you” and “I” to make it personal, and each email comes from a real person, giving them a human feel, and none of their onboarding emails contains any promotional words, instead, they only offer free help, such as webinars and support with getting their first 10 email subscribers. 

What doesn’t ConvertKit do well?

• Although ConvertKit offers a free plan, it only offers basic features and only allows for up to 1,000 subscribers. You’ll need to choose a paid plan if you want more functionality. To persuade users to upgrade, they send heavy, promotional emails that offer various discounts to incentivize users to upgrade. Although their onboarding email sequence is full of trust and support, it seems that when you become a fully-fledged user, their tactics switch, meaning customers often end up paying more than they intended to, when they first joined. This can only encourage churn, in the long-term.
  

• Many users find ConvertKit’s automations complex and overwhelming to set up and manage, claiming that the, “UI was clunky” and “segmentation was so complicated.” If ConvertKit integrated a simple chatbot that users could use to help them through tricky parts of the process, this would reduce tension and produce happier customers who get the most value from the platform.  

AI integration
ConvertKit has implemented Akismet–an advanced AI that intelligently filters out spam, to automate spam prevention–to create time savings through automation and zero‑friction contact forms for the end‑user. The result of using Akismet, include increased customer satisfaction, increased conversion rates (by removing friction), and the ability to focus on delivering better features for customers.

Key takeaways

• Narrow your target market down, and create targeted marketing campaigns with focused messaging that adds value to them, or directly speaks to their pain points.
  

• Create a gated-access community that requires members to sign-up with their email address, to help create a loyal customer group that encourages natural advocacy, whilst also growing your email lead list
  

• Send non-promotional, personalized onboarding emails to build trust among new users
  

• Be careful about sending too many discount codes or promotional incentives that entice your customers to upgrade: it may lead to churn as they discover they’re paying way more than they thought for features they might expect to get on their existing plan.
  

• If you have a complex product, consider integrating a simple chatbot that users can use to help them through tricky parts of the process. 

What campaign or content marketing strategy would you like to see torn apart, next? Let me know! 

Andrew’s Final Thoughts

This edition of Turing's TOFU has taken us through a whirlwind of AI and SaaS innovations, highlighting the importance of strategic foresight in marketing. We've seen how OpenAI is enhancing ChatGPT's user experience, Apple's venture into AI-powered image editing, and Google's rebranding of Bard to Gemini, along with the emergence of DiGGrowth's AI marketing assistant. Our focus on ConvertKit's journey underscores the essence of targeted marketing and community building in achieving substantial growth. Each story emphasizes the dynamic blend of technology and human creativity that drives our industry forward. As we move forward, let's apply these insights to navigate the evolving landscape with innovation and integrity. Until next time, let's stay curious and committed to excellence. Keep pushing boundaries.

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