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The Fintech Marketing Lab is a podcast where Araminta Robertson, Managing Director at Mint Studios, explores, experiments, and breaks down how fintech marketing actually works in practice.
Intro: Today's episode is
one of those where I really
recommend having a notebook open.
Megan, my guest for today, came in
with a framework for almost everything.
How to prove your low intent
leads aren't converting.
How to get CFO to fund brand, how
to figure out where your marketing
actually sits on the maturity curve.
One that stuck with me
specifically is what she calls
the split the funnel analysis.
And the idea is simple.
You take all your inbound leads,
split them by source and follow
each one the whole way through to
closed revenue, not just top of
the funnel every time she runs it.
The low intent sources, you know,
your gated eBooks, bad scans
convert way worse than hand raisers.
You know people who actually wanna book
a demo, she says that once leadership
sees it in their own data budget,
conversations are so much easier.
If you've ever struggled to explain
marketing to your CEO or to move budget
away from the stuff that's easy to
measure but isn't working, a lot of
the stuff we talk about is gonna land.
Today's guest is Megan Bowen,
CEO, and now majority owner of
Refine Labs, one of the best known
demand generation agencies in B2B.
Over the last seven years, refine
Labs has run these exercises with
more than 300 companies, so the
frameworks aren't just theory, they
come from a lot of real client data.
Before Refine Labs, Megan spent two
decades building go-to market teams,
including roles at Managed by Q, GrubHub,
and as VP of Customer Success at Platters.
In this episode, we talk about how
to make the case for brand spend
to see CFO using metrics like share
of search and contribution margin.
One insight from the clients she's worked
with in the FinTech space and how that's
kind of changed their sales process where
she thinks AI belongs in marketing and why
using it for strategy could cause issues.
Let's hear from Megan.
I.
Generic intro: You are listening to
the FinTech Marketing Lab podcast.
I'm Arminta from Mint Studios, a
content marketing agency specialized
in the FinTech space, and this
podcast is where we experiment,
explore, and break down how FinTech
marketing actually works in practice.
Each episode I talk with top FinTech
marketers about what they're testing,
what they're learning, and how
they're pushing the boundaries of
brand strategy and team building.
With that, let's get into today's episode.
Araminta Robertson: Okay.
So what I'd really love to dive into
in this episode is the talks that you
do and also on the Refine Labs website.
You've got a lot of frameworks and a lot
of like, mental models, and I love those.
I always think they're a really good way
of explaining marketing to leadership
or even just framing things so people
can understand them more quickly.
And so there's a bunch that I'd like to
go through in this episode, but I think
I'd love to start with the funnel model
because I think this is the one that
we're all kind of most familiar with.
Your typical top, middle,
bottom of the funnel.
It's one that we talk a
lot about a lot as well.
And you have something that you call,
like split the funnel analysis, which I
think is really interesting that you do
when you start working with new clients.
So I say let's start with that
and then we can talk about a few
others and FinTech and all that.
But yeah, tell us a bit more about
the split, the funnel analysis
and how you use that in your work.
Megan Bowen: Yeah.
absolutely.
Great place to start.
So, if we take a quick step back to
just add some context to the split the
funnel analysis, we really believe that
overall in marketing there are things
that are very easy to measure and there
are things that are very hard to measure.
And that over the last several years
and we've been talking about this
for a long time, that very often
people will index into things that
are easy to measure without looking
at the full picture in terms of total
impact to your inbound pipeline.
And so, ultimately the way
we work with our clients, we
execute a variety of strategies.
Again, some which are easy to measure,
some which are not, but ultimately we
then look at the total inbound funnel
and we look at that growth over time.
What we found in working with clients over
the last seven years that often it can be
really challenging for the marketing teams
that we work with to get the requisite
buy-in from their leadership team, their
CEO, their CRO, their board whom, whomever
it may be in order to make some shifts
in terms of how to deploy their marketing
investments because they are so entrenched
in whether it's last touch attribution
or an outdated MQL measurement.
And so the reason that we developed, and
we use the split the funnel analysis is
because it allows us to essentially create
a business case to start thinking about
reallocating marketing investment overall.
And so what we end up doing is split
the funnel is really saying, let's
look at all of your inbound marketing
sourced leads that come in and let's
look at them by pipeline source.
And let's actually do a full funnel
analysis by source to understand not
only top of funnel lead volume, but
how that actually flows through to
actual opportunities and pipeline
created and closed one revenue.
And essentially what happens every
time we do this analysis is that
what we call, when we say split the
funnel, what the split is looking at
the difference between low intent.
And high intent lead sources.
every single time the low intent
lead sources just convert at a
dramatically lower percentage to
qualified ops and revenue, where the
high intent sources obviously convert
at a much higher, higher amount.
And so when we take our customer's data
and we do this analysis, and then we
present this back to them, it essentially
becomes the business case for them to
start to make this very important shift.
And instead of optimising for top
of funnel volume, understanding that
optimising for qualified pipeline
and revenue is most important.
And as we're telling that story,
we're pointing out how there are
things that cannot be easily measured.
There are also other measurement
approaches we can bring in and begin
to add and eventually replace what
they're currently measuring today
and start to essentially reset their
marketing investment mix and strategy.
So it is a tool in a vehicle to help
people make that mindset shift that's
really required to be effective today.
And so that's why we've developed it.
And it's we do it with every
single client in onboarding.
We do it with one-off
projects for clients.
We have all of the material so people can
do it themselves available in the vault.
It's sort of foundational to
really getting that buy-in for
that, mental shift that's needed.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah.
No, I love that.
What are some examples of
low intent and high intent?
Like would you say a high intent is,
obviously fill in a contact form whereas
low intent is maybe fill in a, like
download a ebook, something like that.
Is that an example of the
Megan Bowen: Yeah.
exactly.
So low intent leads or gated content
downloads, maybe badge scans at events.
I think webinar signups high
intent is very much anchored in
what we like to call a hand raise.
Like I'm saying, I am ready to
talk to your sales person, I
wanna potentially buy your thing.
And it's not to say that, we've been
very dogmatic in the past about gated
content or certain things like this.
It's not to say that there aren't actual
good use cases for some of these motions.
There are, especially, for example,
for really robust research or unique or
first party data, proprietary content.
Like there absolutely can be a use
case, but just because someone gives you
their email address to get a piece of
content, it doesn't mean you should be
hammering them to get on a sales call.
And also you should just be looking
at that lead in a very different
way than a hand raise, right?
So it's not that we're just completely
eliminating any of these things that
produce low intent leads, it's just
recognising that they're at a different
place within their buyer journey.
And when we look at where we wanna put
our investments, we wanna be making sure
that we're allocating the appropriate
amount of dollars to start to increase
the high intent inbounds and begin to
just shift how much investment is driven
to low intent, and then what we're
actually doing with those leads or people.
And it should be a different motion
than how we're, immediately getting
a meeting and a sales process
kicked off with a hand raiser.
So it's not about like just
blanket elimination, it's just
really understanding that.
And then the split the funnel
analysis essentially, it
is often very illuminating.
What's interesting is usually
the marketing teams we're working
with, they already know this, but
they've been struggling to get the
rest of the stakeholders on board.
And it becomes illuminating to
those stakeholders that are just
not close enough to the details And
are focused on other things usually.
so that's where it becomes valuable in
making a case for, budget allocation
differences, strategy adjustments, and
also the evolution of how they're actually
measuring the success of marketing itself.
Araminta Robertson: And so
in practise, what do you find
happens after they realise this?
So for example, would you say maybe
before 40% of the budget was going towards
eBooks, they see this and then suddenly
they're like actually more high intent
is, I don't know, SEO, for example, and
then they decide to decrease that to
10% and increase SEO, for example, to
or Google ads, for example, two 40%.
Is that what typically happens after
Megan Bowen: Yeah, so there's typically
a balance of, a budget rebalancing.
Part of the split the funnel analysis
and the conclusion is us providing a
recommendation based on the data that?
we're seeing.
It's very common for companies to be
overly focused on what we call demand
capture, which is essentially who's
in market today, and usually they're
under investing in brand awareness
and also typically not even touching
like expansion or customer marketing.
So it's usually a rebalancing
of, Hey, here's an appropriate
amount of your budget to spend
on demand and demand capture.
Because this is essentially, the small
percent of your total addressable
market that's in market to buy.
This is an appropriate level of
investment to capture that demand.
The most important long-term growth
strategy though is that you are building
brand awareness and, typically that's
under invested in we'll validate
point that out and then recommend a
certain percentage of the budget be
allocated to those types of activities.
And then more recently we've been talking
a lot more about this brand demand expand
framework and especially with all of the
different changes that are just happening
in the market with ai really ensuring
that marketing has a stake in customer
marketing, lifecycle marketing, expansion
and retention of current customers.
we really believe it's
an untapped opportunity.
And so, thinking about that layer
as well and reallocating some budget
for those types of programmes.
And so in a successful split the
funnel analysis, we identify what's
working really well and what a
properly funded demand engine is.
And then we provide a recommendation
for how to round out the total go-to
market strategy with brand and expand
allocation and programme recommendations
. Araminta Robertson: Yes, I want
to get into that model as well.
I think the, what I hear a lot
from, marketing leaders, especially
at FinTech companies, is they
struggle to make a case for the
brand element side of things, right?
So you've just said what you find
is that companies tend to under
invest in the brand side of things.
So how do you find, or how do you
make a case for leadership to say,
look, you're spending about 10%
of your budget, we find typically
that you need to spend 30% on this.
How do you find that, first of all,
that they believe you and that they
then say, do you convince 'em to be
like, okay, yeah, that, that makes
sense, even though they're not gonna
be able to track that and be able to
attribute that maybe to closed customers.
Megan Bowen: Yeah, absolutely.
So, I think two things.
We've done this with over 300 companies
over the last, almost seven years now.
And so what we are able to point
to is essentially benchmarks and
track records in terms of hundreds
of companies that have made this
shift in the impact that it's had.
Almost all of those companies, we've
been able to drive a 50% increase in
qualified pipeline with the strategy
adjustment that we just discussed.
And, the budget splits, there are some
rough figures we can use, but it is
company dependent and so we share the
benchmarks, but because we've really
dug into that particular company's data,
we also make sure that we're tailoring
those benchmarks to the reality of
the company that we're working with.
And then the other piece of it is
there are ways to measure brand
awareness and these other programmes,
they're just different from what.
People are typically using
for marketing measurements.
So for example, we are, part of this is
introducing new ways to measure marketing
and get people on board with that.
One great metric to use for brand
awareness is share of search and
the change in share of search over
time relative to your competitive
set that you're up against.
We also like to look at it from a
financial lens, which typically CFOs
really like, let's look at your total
marketing investment and the total
impact of marketing to new customer
acquisition, and let's understand what
the ROI is or the contribution margin is.
And so there's a lot of different
ways that you can measure marketing
outside of in platform metrics and
or just inbound funnel metrics.
And as we know, brand awareness, for
example, will also show up in faster sales
cycles and higher ACVs and a growth on,
outbound as well, similar for expansion.
Like that will show up typically in
NRR or cross-sell and upsell targets.
And so broadening the aperture of what
successful, how successful marketing
is measured is crucial for this.
And obviously there are some things
that you know, can't be measured.
We've talked a lot in our history around
self-reported attribution and other things
we can do to collect those data points.
So all of that is on the table.
At the end of the day, if the business
needs to be getting a return on their
marketing investment in terms of new
customers acquired, and if those metrics
are not improving, something is wrong
either with the marketing, either with
the product, either with the sales,
or either with the customer success
or account management component of it.
And so That's how we try
to shift the conversation.
And it's less about waving our hands
of like, oh, it can't be measured.
It's like, no.
There are just different ways we
can look at this to validate if
what we're doing is working or not.
And that's what we try
to do with our customers.
Araminta Robertson: Well, this
is what I was gonna say is what's
interesting here is that you're not
saying, oh, you just have to trust us.
Like, I've literally been to events to
conferences where I argued, you know what
you're saying, which is you need to track.
And then the person after me would
be saying, it's common sense.
You don't have to make, and this
particular company was a SaaS company
selling to marketers, which is a
lot easier than in our industry,
specifically FinTech, where you're
selling to CFOs usually and CEOs
that are quite technical minded.
So I like what you're saying, which
is not just like, oh, just trust your
gut or believe in us, or whatever.
And instead it's like, actually
you just need to track more,
but track the right stuff.
And that's really how you get the
buy-in from the CFO when they,
when you're working with them to
understand what's working rather than
just being like, hand wave trust us.
yeah.
Megan Bowen: to be transparent, when,
back in 2020 and 2021 when we started
really championing this, that was
part of our talk track too, right?
It is common sense, trust us.
But over time we've developed a much
more rigour around that measurement.
And really it's crucial, and I think
it's why we've been able to continue
our success as an agency and a
strategic partner, is because we are
constantly evolving and developing
measurement strategies that the
CEO accepts, the CFO accepts, and
of course, the head of marketing
and head of sales accept as well.
Araminta Robertson: Yes.
Yeah, no, that's so key.
So I was also thinking while
you were saying this, how you
must get really good at CRMs.
if the CRM is a mess.
I don't know how you're able to get all
this information, but I'm sure you've
come across some quite messy CRMs.
Megan Bowen: Everybody has messy data.
It's totally fine.
You know, no one has perfect data, but yes
almost all of our customers
use typically HubSpot.
or Salesforce, sometimes Marketo
and Salesforce, and absolutely
we get access to those systems.
We are measuring building
dashboards and reporting.
We're identifying, infrastructure
gaps and measurement gaps.
We're working with our customers to
close those gaps and improve conversion
tracking, self-reported attribution.
So that is absolutely a part of our work.
And where a lot of companies need help.
That's the other piece of this is
there are a lot of things that you
can measure, like what I say, like
with Google Search for example, you
can measure everything and you should.
And so.
but a lot of people don't have,
even just basic conversion tracking
set up or having integrations
with HubSpot or Salesforce set up.
You can get granular down to the keyword
level, what's driving opportunities.
but there's a lot of work involved
associated with that and not everybody
has the expertise in that particular area.
So very typical for us to help clean all
of that up and get all of that in order.
Also, making sure data from HubSpots
flowing through Salesforce and
consistency across the lead record to the
opportunity record so you can do that.
Full funnel reporting.
All of that is basic
fundamentals, but crucial.
And a lot of companies still
need some help with that.
Araminta Robertson: No, totally.
I couldn't believe it.
and often the really big ones as well.
Like it doesn't always relate to you
know, bigger is more mature often there
is still some kind of chaos there.
But I find that if you've got the data
and you've got evidence, that's the thing.
And this is why like in our world, which
is content, a big part of our work is
exactly that reporting and tracking.
Because by just showing the contribution
that content has, then suddenly you have
a seat at the table, then suddenly you
can prove the ROI and then you can get
budget, and then you can do all the other
stuff that maybe is a bit harder to track.
So it's really like, yeah, having
good CRM and good data and all that
in place, it just, it helps so much
with telling the marketing story.
But I wanted to talk about the
maturity model before we talk
about FinTech specifically.
So, I find it really interesting
'cause I think it's a really good way.
I'm sure anyone listening will be like,
oh, I feel like we're in that bucket.
So yeah.
Tell us a bit about the maturity model
and then what you find typically
in your own experience when talking
to companies where they're at.
What are the mistakes that they
often think, where they think
they're at, in one stage, but
actually maybe they're at another.
Megan Bowen: Yeah.
so we recently developed the
marketing maturity model.
And one of my biggest observations
that I've noticed over the last
like 18 months as we are, solidly in
entering and now in the AI era, is,
that there's a lot of noise out there
in terms of how marketers need to be
thinking about defining their strategy.
And unfortunately, a lot of it
is, I think, being pulled to
like the, new shiny object of ai.
And the focus is around, genic
workflows or ai, SEO or GEO,
whatever you wanna call it.
And one of the things that I observed
is it just felt that people were
really abandoning like the core
fundamentals of marketing that
are required to be successful.
And that honestly has been I think a
persistent issue in different forms.
And so, big reason why we've
become, started beating like
the brand demand expand drum
is it's all about fundamentals.
So the marketing maturity model
is essentially an extension
of brand demand expand.
So those are three pillars within
the marketing maturity model.
And then we have another layer of
dimensions that are important, things
like market research, things like
organisational readiness measurement.
And the maturity model essentially
has these like four phases going from,
reactive to informed, to integrated, to
market, led across all of these different
dimensions and in including descriptions
essentially of what each phase, represents
across each of these dimensions.
What we've been able to do after
we really codified our perspective
here was we actually developed a
set of questions, almost like a
survey, if you will, an assessment.
And so what we do with our clients is
we walk through and essentially have
them answer this set of questions in the
assessment, and then we're able to process
those answers and essentially provide an
artefact of where they are on the maturity
model across the different dimensions.
So what's very typical is, in certain
dimensions they might be further along
the maturity model because they've been
spending time focusing there and then
other dimensions they might not be.
And so the process that we use
is this initial assessment.
We then are able to provide a custom
report essentially for the client that
shows across, all the seven dimensions
where they are on the maturity model.
We then.
Essentially provide a prioritised
and sequenced roadmap for the next
24 months in terms of how they
should be thinking about progressing
across all of the dimensions.
And what's most important to tackle
first, where there are dependencies
or compounding gains if certain
things are done before others.
We then provide that, clarity on
where they are in the maturity
model and then that roadmap.
And then that is, that
essentially is an opening for a
really productive conversation.
We're able to get usually some
additional input in terms of what
they're working on internally,
validating some of the things we have.
We can make any adjustments from there,
but then that becomes a roadmap of what
their whole company should be focused on.
And then as we work with clients, we take
it another step further in being really
clear of, great, as your agency partner,
we are gonna own these initiatives.
Like here's where we have ownership,
here's where you have ownership
and you need to do these things.
And then here's where we have some shared
ownership where we'll be collaborating.
So we then are able to be really clear
about how we fit in what we need from
them in order for us to be successful
and for them to be successful.
And then this is something that we
revisit on a quarterly basis, right?
We take stock of progress.
We discuss if other things have come up
in the business, we recalibrate priorities
or sequencing if needed, and then we're
off to the races for the next quarter.
And then every single thing that
we're doing for our client in terms
of the day-to-day execution, it's
really clear how that ladders back
in to what they're trying to do.
This has been especially helpful
for our clients where there's a new
marketing leader in seat and they
wanna take an opportunity to reset.
Many of them have used our outputs to then
bring to their executive team meetings
or their board meetings to help create,
broader context of why certain things
are being prioritised or also where
they need help from other teams, right?
Whether it's sales or
product, things like that.
So it's a really good model that
allows us to really elevate the
conversation we're having with our
clients beyond the day-to-day programmes
that we're managing and executing
for them, and really make sure we're
helping them look at their holistic
engine and make the right decisions.
And so, we're excited to continue
to roll this out with our clients.
We're building some really
interesting like self-guided
assessments that we'll be rolling
out on our website later this year.
And so all of that is in the works.
It's a big focus right now.
And I think.
my belief is by anchoring in fundamentals
and helping our clients get those right
along with figuring out the right ways
that AI workflows should be integrated,
that balance is really crucial.
As opposed to a lot of the things
that I see out there that's just
obsessed with, building agents
or this and that, and sometimes I
feel like people can lose the plot.
And so the motivation is to help
customers remember what's most important
and be focusing on the right things
for their company, be successful.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah, no, I love that.
And also, obviously communicating
that to leadership, right?
And having a proper framework that
you can show to leadership and
showing how you're progressing.
I think that's like what
I see a lot of CMOs need.
I'd be interested, like across the,
if we talk about FinTech or financial
services specifically, across the
different assessments that you've done,
are there any patterns that you've seen?
Do you find that in FinTech, maybe most
of them are at that typically reactive
stage or they're more at the, they're
struggling to align it to revenue?
'cause when I think obviously
in the FinTech, especially B2B
space sales cycles are very long.
buying cycles are very complicated.
The stakes are very high.
Like buying a payment provider isn't the
same as opening a social media account.
So these are the kind of unique
things about that industry.
Do you find that when you're working with
them, or from a marketing perspective,
are there any things that are a little
bit different there or that you've
noticed maybe marketing leaders at those
organisations need to think more about?
What has been your experience there?
Megan Bowen: Yeah, we have a couple
of FinTech clients specifically
that we've done this on.
What was an Interesting.
commonality between both of them
actually was they had not really
ever put effort towards true market
research and customer insights.
And so, actually for both of these
clients one key output from the
exercise was actually prioritising
and investing in market research.
And what we found, what
was really Interesting.
especially with like a CFO buyer or a
finance buyer, that there was one thing
that came out of the research that was not
something that had been on the company's
radar, and it was that many CFOs are
truly convinced about a product purchase
when they're able to actually see some
proof of concept that addresses any
concern or scepticism that they may have.
And having them speak with someone
who they perceive as a credible
finance expert in the sales process is
crucial for them not to be turned off
or feel that they're being sold to.
And so as a result of this research,
there were a couple of adjustments that
they made in their sales process that
included bringing in a subject matter
expert in finance and integrating a
proof of concept step in the sales
process to build that confidence
and credibility with their buyer.
And thinking about how we are messaging
that from a marketing perspective, both
on the website and in our programmes so
that they understand that we get where
they are and what their preferences or
requirements are to make a purchase.
And we saw meaningful improvement
both on the marketing and sales
side of things with that change.
And so sometimes it's one
or two things that you get
these really crucial insights.
You make a change, but again, you're
meeting your buyer where they're at.
And I'm sure there are other types
of buyers where, you know, proof of
concept or a subject matter expert
within a sales process is important.
But what we found was it was so important
and essentially a deciding factor
for a lot of these types of buyers.
And so, often I think it's easy to get
caught up in how good your product is
and just communicating the value of
the product without understanding how
people actually wanna buy something
or make a purchasing decision.
And so, that was a really
interesting takeaway from some of
our FinTech clients specifically,
that I thought was worth sharing.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah.
And it sounds like the tweak there is
less on the, I mean, there was tweaks
on the marketing side, but a big
impact was a tweak on the sales side.
So is that something that you look
at as, well, you're looking at the
sales, like those sales conversations,
because sales and marketing
are essentially, a sales call.
I love the saying, the
sale is the sample, right?
So in a way that sales conversation is
marketing in that how you behave and
how you talk is already, gonna influence
whether that person buys from you.
So is that something that you also look
at and you find that's, super important
in the marketing framework as well?
Megan Bowen: Absolutely.
And even with the expand, even if
after they're a customer, how can
we then, how can we upsell them?
Yeah.
So it's looking at it as a whole system
and not Just through only the marketing
Araminta Robertson: lead gen or whatever.
Yeah, exactly.
we've been talking about AI a little bit.
You've mentioned before on another
podcast, I think that a lot of
people are slapping on AI enabled
of what we've done already and
just using it for sales outreach.
I have seen this a lot and, these like
LinkedIn gurus or whatever that are
like, steal my system and it's just spam.
So I'd love to think more broadly I think
you've been thinking about this a lot.
Like how does AI redefine
marketing as a whole?
It's not just replacing one part of
it or making something more efficient.
It's really requiring
completely a change of mindset.
So I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
Like, how do you think marketing will
look like when AI is properly implemented?
How will it even affect
how B2B markets work?
Like how a buyer makes
a purchasing decision?
What are your thoughts on that?
Megan Bowen: Yeah.
I like to look at this topic, I
think through two different lenses.
One is, from a market or a buyer
perspective, how is AI shifting or
changing how people are discovering
products and making purchasing decisions?
So, I mean, absolutely.
Even I do it today, I use Claude
or chat GPT to do research, right?
So there is an element of, more and more
people are going to be using AI tools for
trying to solve their problems, and you
need to figure out and make sure that you
are recommended at the appropriate time.
the irony of that though is that it
actually just comes back to making sure
that you have clear and consistent and
differentiated positioning and that's
communicated well across all your digital
properties for LLMs to pull that up.
But that's important and people need
to be thinking about that as another
way that people are discovering
you on the, internal side, whether
that's, at an agency or an internal
marketing team at a B2B company, you
need to be thinking about what are the
components of your marketing strategy
that 100% should be owned by a human.
And then what are the areas of
your marketing strategy that
can be AI enabled in some way.
And so, if everybody used AI to
draught their go to market strategy
or their marketing strategy,
they're all gonna be the same.
And so the strategic
decisions of who is our buyer?
Why are they our buyer?
Why are they gonna buy from us?
That really needs to be driven by a human.
Now, it's not to say that you can't use AI
to help you get to those answers, right?
Like we just did this recently where
we grabbed all of our sales calls for
the last year, like the call recordings
and all of our closed one and closed
lost opportunity data, and we ran
it through a set of AI prompts to
synthesise and analyse the data, right?
But then we used our human
judgement to look at that and
draw conclusions, Not just from ai.
So I think it's, number one, it's
understanding that obviously there's a
lot of tasks and things that marketers do
that can be either fully automated with
AI or AI enabled in some way, and people
should take advantage of that, right?
Like, I'm in Claude every day.
I love, it's a great tool.
I think the other piece of it is,
and I know you're friends with Duar
at Dojo, we're a big fan of Dojo.
And what I say to him, and what
I said on his podcast is right
now, his tool is not enough.
Just with the tool.
You want the tool and a market, a
smart marketer to be working together.
And so I do think there's a lot of value
in essentially using AI to run an initial
sort of analysis on a data set, whether
that's your Google search campaigns, your
LinkedIn campaigns, your CRM data, right?
Like data sets can be
anything that you want.
And they can be powerful in basically
saying, here's the 10 possible
things that could be going on.
But then you need the smart
marketer to essentially say, oh,
five of these things are not it.
Oh, let me look into
this a little bit more.
Oh, interesting.
Out of these initial 10 things,
like two of these things are
actually relevant and matter.
And then here are some
actions that can be taken.
And so it's not over-relying on ai,
it's not outsourcing your strategy
to ai, it's integrating it where
it's a value add and an efficiency
driver versus replacing taste or human
judgement or strategic decisions.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah.
And so for those listening who might
not be aware, dojo is kind of like
a, I'm not sure the wording that
he uses is assistant or basically
it's like a, operating system.
It plugs into your GA four, Google ads,
all these different kind of data sets,
and you can prompt it to ask questions.
It will also create content for you.
All these kind of things.
What have you found it to
be the most useful for?
Like where do you find that
it has the biggest impact?
Megan Bowen: Right now the one of the
primary use cases is similar to what
I just described, basically using
it to analyse paid media campaigns.
And when something good happens, something
bad happens, something unexpected happens,
we're able to run queries to get very
quick insights of what it could be.
And it just speeds up the time to
identifying what's going on and
then recommending a path forward.
That's been the primary benefit where
it might take a person a lot more time
to get the list of the potential five
things it could be and then eliminate.
It essentially is a shortcut to
working through essentially like
a diagnostic of, any anomaly that
we're detecting, good or bad.
Araminta Robertson: Yes.
And it plugs into all the
different tools at the same time.
So it allows you to quickly see,
if there's any common themes or
anything like that, which you
couldn't do before ai really.
As a content marketer, I have to ask
you, thoughts on using AI for content.
How have you have you found a way
to implement an AI workflow that
creates content in a good way?
Where do you draw the line?
Do you feel like there is a use case
for just fully AI generated content?
And by content I don't just
mean long form articles.
I could, it could be anything, right?
Videos and graphics and stuff.
So, yeah.
What are your thoughts on those two?
Megan Bowen: Yeah.
so some of the ways that we've tested
and the ways we used it, I think
it's great for like we do a lot
of podcasting and events and then
we do a lot of, clip cutting and
dropping that on LinkedIn or YouTube.
That editing used to be very manual
before, so I think like you're
creating great original content and
then you're using AI tooling to like
process that content more efficiently.
That's a great use case, right?
I started using chat GPT probably a year
ago and started like, okay, maybe chat
GBT can write my LinkedIn posts, right?
Like, let's kind of figure this
out and you kind of train it you
add in a bunch of your pre previous
posts and your preferences.
But what I found is
like, I don't love that.
Like, I think when you're outsourcing
a lot of that now, what I will say
is I think there is a middle ground.
Like if you bring some original thoughts
to the table and you use it essentially
as like an editing or a writing partner,
and then you are going through and
modifying and editing an AI output to
really reflect your proper tone and
what you're trying to communicate.
I think that's good.
Like you're essentially using it as
like an editor or a writing partner.
What I don't love, and I think
what's like, everyone sees this on
LinkedIn today is just like copy
paste from, chat GPT or clot or
otherwise, and it's just very obvious.
And so with a lot of the content
that I've been, I'm like off and on
LinkedIn, but when I do try to really
have it be driven by me and if I
use ai, it's more of an editing or a
writing partner versus outsourcing that.
So I think that's the key is how are
you not outsourcing your thoughts
and how are you using it just to be
more efficient with whatever your
content production strategy is.
We have a lot of blogs on our website
with a lot of, original content
and yes, similar, like I described
using it as a writing partner,
like we'll use it in that way.
That's where we found
it's most efficient for us
Araminta Robertson: Yeah.
Yeah.
There's just so many workflows.
I listen to podcast yesterday where
this lady has like multiple agents that
impersonate different like experts.
So one will be a Hitchcock, one
will be, I don't know, think of all
your famous writers and she'll have
her article be analysed by these
different kind of like amazing writers.
And then it gives her feedback.
So there's just so many
interesting workflows and ways
that you can implement ai.
And sometimes I listen to this and I'm
like, my God, there's so much to try.
It's a bit overwhelming.
So I was curious to see if
there's any like that you've seen
that seem to be really helpful.
I feel like sometimes they're
a little bit over engineered.
Megan Bowen: I think a lot of
people feel that if they're not
using AI for everything, that
they might get left behind.
And if you're starting from
a place of like, oh, what are
all the ways I can use ai?
I just, let's say, reframe it and
say, what are the most important
things that I need to do?
And then how can AI help me do
those things in the right way?
That doesn't put creativity,
taste, strategy, risk.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah.
Agree.
The last topic I wanted to cover was
the topic of agencies, because am
sure you've seen this as well, like,
I think a lot of brand marketers are
being questioned maybe by leadership.
Like, do we need agencies now?
Right.
We can, we have ai, we
can do so much in-house.
Or it's not even the choice
of the marketer where the CEO
comes in and says, that's it.
No more external vendors.
Everything is in house . And obviously
like I, don't agree with that, and I think
that there's always gonna be a place for
agencies, but I think a lot of marketing
leaders are wondering, okay, at what point
does it make sense to hire an agency?
And what should I look for in an agency?
Like what, maybe you could argue
execution only doesn't really make
sense anymore as an agency, and you
want an agency that does the strategy
that, that has that expertise.
So, as someone who's been in the business
for so long and has seen probably both,
many of the different sides of this,
like what is your viewpoint nowadays?
when does it make sense for
a company to hire an agency?
And what kind of agencies kind of really
make sense nowadays with AI and all that?
Megan Bowen: Yeah, I think that the
agencies that are gonna survive this
next, you know, air ai era that we're
in, are the ones that can prove that
they're a true strategic partner and
that they're actually impacting bottom
line financials for the company.
And so I do still think there's a place
for agencies to take on a variety of
execution focused tasks, but there
needs to be a clear strategic value
add and there needs to be a clear line
between what the agency is doing and
how that's impacting your business.
And if you don't have those things,
you're probably not gonna survive.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I agree.
I always thought that if you as
a partner, if you cannot show
your ROI, it can be tricky.
It will be tricky if you cannot show
them and calculate it with them and
show this as a return on investment.
But still to this day, there are
content marketing agencies that just
do content and don't do the strategy,
and I sometimes wonder if that's a bit
risky.
Megan Bowen: Yeah.
I think there will always be some
market for outsourcing execution.
But it will continue to
shrink over, over time.
And so the total market opportunity is
gonna become smaller and smaller and
it's gonna be very challenging to grow
and scale a business in that lane only.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah.
Yeah.
And so if you're talking to a
marketing leader now that's listening
to this and they're evaluating
agencies, like what would you tell
them they should look for in this
age of AI and strategy and all this?
Megan Bowen: I think at understanding
what their point of view is on
how they support their client
in setting the right strategy.
the most important thing for
companies to do is to pick the things
that are the right things to do.
That is usually the difference
between a successful company
and an unsuccessful company.
So how are you finding a partner that
is going to bring value to the table and
help you make sure that you're doing the
right things from a strategic perspective?
And then the second thing is, can
you find a partner that is willing
to be held accountable to real
outcomes and will be a true partner?
And then it is, absolutely a, good
investment if you can clearly define
what the return on your investment
Araminta Robertson: Yeah.
Yeah.
And of course you're more
aligned ultimately, right?
'cause you're both striving
for the same thing.
So it just makes decisions
so much more easy.
Amazing.
Well thanks so much Megan, for coming on.
I really appreciate it and I really
urge listeners to head to the vault
where you've got a lot of these
frameworks and a lot of interesting
pieces of content to understand those
mental models and all that more.
So, Thanks so much for coming on.
I really appreciate it.
Megan Bowen: Thank you for having me.
Great conversation.
outro: Thanks for listening.
You can find show notes and
information about guests@www.mint
copywriting studios.com/podcast.
And finally, huge thanks to orama
TV for producing this podcast.
Thanks for listening, and
see you at the next episode.