Turing's Tofu #8

📰 This Week in AI & SaaS 📰

• OpenAI has released a preview version of a new text-to-video AI model, called Sora, which can create realistic 60-second videos from instructional prompts. Read more.
  

•  North Korean hackers are using ChatGPT and other Large Language Models (LLMs) to create fake recruiter profiles on LinkedIn and send targeted messages that trick professionals (mainly within cybersecurity and cryptocurrency sectors) into revealing sensitive information or clicking on malicious links. Read more.
  

• Adobe is adding a new “AI Assistant in Acrobat” feature which can summarize long documents, answer questions, and format information within all Adobe document formats, including Word and PowerPoint.  Read more.
  

• Check out some of the best Sora videos (so far!) Watch this. 

🌟Turing’s Top Picks 🌟

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• Headlime: Headlime uses AI and templates to streamline the writing process by providing helpful suggestions and prompts, allowing writers to focus on producing quality copy, without getting bogged down by the details. Try it.
  

• The Marketing Strategy Generator: The Marketing Strategy Generator is an AI-powered tool designed to help busy solopreneurs create a perfect marketing strategy for their products, in just 5 minutes. Try it. 

Read of the Week: 

AI As Startup Catalyst: What It Can And Cannot Deliver

In this Forbes article, Spiros Margaris (AI influencer and founder of Margaris Ventures)  gives his opinion on how AI is helping to boost business formation and innovation.

Read it 

💡 Marketing Moments with Mounier 💡

I Read Fast Company’s Why AI Is Shifting Productivity In The Energy Industry (So That You Don't Have To) 📚👀

Jay Bhatty, CFA, FastCompany Executive Board and Founder at at Natgashub.com, shares his unique perspective and breaks down the strategies for success you should know.

Swipe through the carousel for my quick summary of the article.

🎙️ AI Unboxed Podcast 🤖

In this episode, we're joined by Sophie Buonassisi, VP of Marketing at GTMfund, for an insightful discussion on AI's evolving role in B2B marketing and go-to-market strategies. Sophie delves into how businesses are shifting their focus towards not just adopting AI, but leveraging it for smarter, more informed decision-making processes.

We'll uncover GTMfund's strategy for investing in AI technologies, striking a balance between harnessing its disruptive power and addressing ethical concerns. Plus, Sophie shares valuable advice for professionals navigating their careers in the AI sector, emphasizing the importance of hands-on experience and the pursuit of continual learning. Tune in for a deep dive into integrating AI into the fabric of B2B marketing strategies. 👇👇

👾 TOFU Quick Bytes: Later Teardown 👾

Later Teardown

Founded in 2014, Later is a social media management platform that allows companies to automate their daily social media tasks, from creating, scheduling, and publishing content to reporting on performance and planning social media marketing strategies.

Strategy overview: 

As a SaaS company, Later knew that onboarding their new customers was one of the most crucial areas to get right. Get it wrong, and they knew they’d experience churn.

The main job of Later’s Customer Success team is to make sure that new users understand how their features work, and how they can be incorporated within their own businesses, in the first week of using the platform. 

Later’s original onboarding process consisted of email funnels and in-app messages, which explained how features worked. 

However, they discovered that this wasn’t enough to get users to adopt some of their best optimization features, which were a little more complex to understand. 

So, they decided to change their onboarding process. They began hosting live onboarding webinars and immediately saw an increase in the adoption of features and user retention levels. But, this quickly became a drain on their customer success teams' time and resources. 

They wanted the ability to scale and reach more users, as well as build a lasting onboarding process.

Performance Analysis:

Currently, Later has: 

• 137,000 customers

• generates $29M in revenue

Since they changed their onboarding strategy, they have seen a: 

• 320% increase in retention

• 467% increase in adoption of features

• 368% increase in purchasing paid plans

How have they achieved this? 

Critical Teardown:
What does Later do well?

• They decided to reformat the live webinars into video courses and short GIFs. They already had the content they needed from the webinars, so they just plugged that into the course videos and pages and it was ready to go within a few hours.

• To test the idea, they ran a 4-month A/B test, with one in-app message and email directing new users to view the webinar, and the second version inviting them to the new onboarding courses and GIFs: It was a landslide victory, in favor of the onboarding videos and GIFs.
  

• Initially, they were concerned that a video course accompanied by short GIFs vs a comprehensive live webinar would generate less engagement, but they found that more people watched the videos and GIFs, than attended the live webinar.
  

• Thanks to the in-depth content (generated from the original live webinars) users, more often than not, took all six onboarding courses.  

• Later’s onboarding videos and GIFs go beyond simple ‘How to videos’. Instead, they focus on how to help users get value from their product and its features.

What doesn’t Later do well?

• Later doesn’t seem to update their onboarding courses to implement user feedback. Reviews show that users have difficulty with some of their more complex features, like Instagram Story Scheduling, for example. Perhaps if they paid more attention to the negative reviews, and updated their onboarding material accordingly, they would experience even less churn.  

AI integration

• Perhaps in the future, Later might consider setting up Single-Sign-On (SSO) user areas to house their onboarding course and training material. Then, using AI, they could personalize onboarding videos and GIFs, so they are tailored to solve each user's specific problem or serve each of their individual needs. By collecting and analyzing individual behavior and interaction data, AI can make recommendations that can help Later create bespoke onboarding material. Especially after they train their model on the materials the team has already created.
  

• They could also use tools like Pendo.io or Survicate to collect and auto-analyze customer feedback that they could then integrate into their onboarding material (and use for new features or improvements).
  

Key takeaways

• Developing online video courses and quick GIFs (alongside email campaigns and in-app messaging) that educate users on how to use your product and features could be an interactive and effective way to help users reach their aha! Moment, quickly, reducing churn in the process.
  

• Online video courses and GIFs vs live webinars could generate more engagement, as users can do it in their own time, as opposed to committing to a designated time.
  

• Consider repurposing old content for new onboarding strategies to save time, effort and resources.
   

• Always A/B test new ideas against your original onboarding processes to see if it’s more effective at onboarding users, efficiently and cost-effectively.
  

• Make it easy for users to access onboarding content by creating an SSO page, and try using AI to personalize onboarding content to suit their specific problems/needs. You could also use this gated area to push other tailored content, products/features. 
  

• Continuously update onboarding course content to include new features and utilize AI tools to collect, analyze and implement user feedback to inform future feature decisions.
  

• Move away from the simple ‘How to’ videos and GIFs. Instead, focus on how to help your customers see value in your product with your onboarding course materials.

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

Andrew’s Final Thoughts

In this week's edition of Turing's TOFU, we explored the latest in AI and SaaS, showcasing the power of AI to innovate and streamline, from OpenAI's Sora to Adobe's AI Assistant. Insights from industry leaders like Sophie Buonassisi remind us of the importance of integrating these technologies thoughtfully. As we continue to navigate these advancements, let's keep our strategies adaptive, our learning continuous, and our outlook forward-thinking. Stay tuned for more explorations at the intersection of technology and strategy. Keep exploring, keep innovating.

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