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Hello and welcome to the Exit Five Weekly Newsletter - read by 25,000 B2B marketing professionals around the world. Exit Five is a membership site designed to help you build a successful career in B2B marketing. Join 5,000 other members at exitfive.com.

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✨ A thank you from all of us at Exit Five

As the year winds down, we wanted to take a minute to say thank you.

It's been a big year for our small (and growing) team – and none of it would be possible without you.

From subscribing to this newsletter, being a community member, or hanging out with us at our virtual or in-person events, you've been what's made 2024 so special.

We hope you're winding down the year spending time with family and friends and hopefully not thinking too much about B2B marketing – but if you are, we're here for that too 😉

🤖 Behind the scenes: how this CMO is actually using AI

I think I see some variation of this post on LinkedIn every day:

“Marketers that don’t use AI are going to be replaced by ones that do.”

As much as I want to roll my eyes – it’s kind of true, especially as marketing teams aren’t growing at quite the same rate as they once were.

But what does that look like? How are marketing teams actually adding AI in the right places?

Sylvia Lepoidevin (CMO at Kandji) recently shared how she’s embedding AI in her workflows and using it to eliminate bottlenecks – not replace creativity or collaboration.

Inspired by Sylvia’s approach, here’s a step-by-step framework for you to do the same:

1. Identify Bottlenecks

Start by mapping your current processes and asking:

• Where do teams hand off work to others? (e.g., writers relying on designers for visuals, growth teams waiting on analytics teams for data)
• What’s slowing down production?

Focus on tasks that are repetitive and take up time—those are prime candidates for automation.

2. Audit Your Current AI Toolset

Sylvia emphasized the importance of tools that empower marketers to be self-sufficient. AI tools like Canva, Jasper, and ChatGPT can fill gaps in design, content creation, and ideation.

Here’s how to decide which tools to integrate:

• For design: Use AI tools to enable non-designers to create on-brand visuals via templates.
• For writing: Leverage AI copywriting tools for first drafts, headlines, or social media posts.
• For data: Tools like Tableau or Looker, paired with AI features, can help marketers pull and interpret analytics on demand.

Remember: AI should amplify creativity, not replace it.

3. Equip Your Team with Skills and Resources

AI is only as effective as the people using it. Sylvia’s approach ensures each marketer owns their workstream from end to end.

To get there:

• Develop training programs to teach marketers how to use AI tools effectively.
• Create templates (e.g., brand guidelines, repeatable design frameworks) that help marketers maintain quality while moving faster.
• Encourage experimentation by giving team members the freedom to test and adapt new AI tools in their daily work.

4. Collaboration is for Strategy, Not Execution

One of Sylvia’s key takeaways was that collaboration should be reserved for brainstorming and strategy—not waiting on someone else to finish their task.

AI tools allow teams to move from “handoffs” to “ownership.”

For example:

• Social media managers can produce their own visuals and copy.
• Growth marketers can set up A/B tests without relying on dev teams.

The result? Faster execution, with cross-functional collaboration focused on innovation rather than logistics.

5. Monitor, Iterate, and Scale

Like any new initiative, your AI-driven workflows should evolve. Collect feedback regularly:

• What’s working? Is AI saving time and reducing dependencies?
• What’s not? Are there still gaps in execution or collaboration?
• What’s next? As AI tools advance, be ready to test new features and refine your processes.

As with anything new – there’s a learning curve and it’s going to take time to get it right. What works for someone on LinkedIn might not work for you.

That’s why I liked Sylvia’s approach – it’s more method than formula, with plenty of ways to adapt it to any marketing org.

P.S. Exit Five is “closed” for until the New Year, so I’ll be checking my email less than usual (at least that’s the idea 😅).

Here’s the link to the full interview with Sylvia if you want to listen to it while you’re traveling this week.

📺 UPCOMING EVENTS

✉️ The B2B Event Playbook: Building Revenue-Driving Events in 2025

Events are back, baby.

From small gatherings like dinners to large scale customer conferences and webinars, events are back in B2B marketing in a big way.

But throwing events without a strategy is like burning money.

Whether it’s hosting your first user conference, investing in a sponsorship booth at a tradeshow, or looking into hosting micro-events like dinners – you need a solid strategy to back up your investment.

Our first Exit Five Live session of 2025 is all about B2B events. We’ll be joined by event experts Stephanie Christensen (Director of Marketing at Zuddl) and Kristina DeBrito (Director of Strategic Events at Iterable); hosted by Exit Five founder Dave Gerhardt who will share how we’re running events at Exit Five.

You’ll learn:

• The key metrics to track to show ROI on your event plan in 2025
• How to get buy in from key stakeholders
• What’s working for B2B marketing leaders right now (and what’s not working)
• How to do follow up post event
• We’ll also cover some lessons from virtual events too

Plus, there will be plenty of time for live Q&A so you can get your burning questions answered by our panel of event pros.

Join us live

🏢 OPEN ROLES

Who's Hiring Right Now?

HOT JOB OF THE WEEK: Neuron7 is hiring a Content Marketing Director to own their content ecosystem to create a top-of-funnel strategy that drives engagement and qualified leads. Fully remote, US only.

Interested? Apply here.

Other open roles on the Exit Five job board this week:

• Global Payments is hiring a Principal Content Strategist, SMB Professional Services
• Global Payments is hiring a Principal Content Strategist, Higher Education
• Opus Training is hiring a B2B Growth Marketing Manager
• Valenz Health is hiring a Marketing Events Manager
• Paramark is hiring a Head of Marketing, Founding Marketer
• Trovata is hiring a Senior Content Marketing Manager
• RightMetric is hiring a Founding Marketer
• Wynter is looking for marketing leaders to participate in their research
• SpeedWork is hiring a Senior LinkedIn Ads Specialist
• Dragon360 is hiring a Advertising & Media Strategist
• AROYA is hiring a Performance Marketing Manager
• Peak Support is hiring a Head of Marketing ($140k-$185k)

See All Open Roles >>

Have an open role and want to make sure the best B2B marketing talent sees it?

Just reply to this email and we'll send over more info on how you can post it on our job board + get it in front of 25k+ marketers.

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