.svg)
Hello and welcome to the Exit Five Weekly Newsletter — read by 42,000 B2B marketing professionals around the world. Exit Five is a membership site designed to help you build a successful career in B2B marketing. Join 5,700 other members at exitfive.com.
By the way — this email was designed in Knak, which helps you create email and landing pages in minutes without having to write code. Learn more about Knak here.
TOGETHER WITH WALNUT
📝 Did you know: 71% of small B2B teams use AI to create most of their content
And they’re not just using AI for fun, they’re using it to publish faster, smarter, and with less headcount.
In a new report from Walnut, 100+ B2B teams reveal how GenAI is moving from side project to core workflow, with small, scrappy teams leading the way.
In this report, you’ll learn:
- Top Use-Cases & Volume Trends
- What the 2025 AI Tool Stack actually looks like
- How to use AI with confidence and protect quality and brand voice
- Skill evolution and change management tips to get your team ahead
Don’t let AI pass you by, see how top teams are already putting it to work.
71% … Is that good? Or bad? Where do you fit?
😳 Everything In Marketing Is Dead
Have you heard this too? On LinkedIn. In the chat. I heard it at a workshop at our event too. For someone, somewhere, something is not working.
"SEO is dead."
"Email doesn't work anymore."
"Outbound? Impossible."
"Podcasts? Everyone has one."
"Events? Too expensive."
But cmon, I like to play around too and be dramatic but really ‑ nothing? Nothing in marketing is working anymore? I had to prove this wrong.
So I went straight to the Exit Five community and asked: What's actually working for you right now? Please, tell me something good. Something HAS to be working for you?
And you know what? A lot of things are working (thank goodness).
⚙️ Stop Creating Content. Start Creating Systems.
One common trend between the people that had channels working was that they had a real why, a real strategy vs. just say, shipping videos to YouTube with no real plan and wondering why they aren’t getting traffic. I am guilty of this too; our YouTube channel is like this right now, we’re working on it.
But there’s almost some level of measure twice cut once that we need to do in marketing…
Example:
One marketer shared how they reversed a massive decline in organic traffic.
The secret? They stopped chasing SEO keywords and started building an actual content system.
Here's what they did:
Created a video interview series with experts sharing tips related to their product (video marketing, in their case). But they didn't just publish the video and call it a day.
They turned each episode into:
- Blog posts
- Social content for multiple platforms
- YouTube content
- Guides and eBooks
- One‑pagers with key takeaways
- Reddit shares in relevant threads
- LinkedIn group discussions
The same video. Repurposed into 10+ different formats.
In January, their organic traffic was tanking. By July, they'd reversed the decline.
Why it worked: They created original, expert‑driven content that actually helped their audience. Then they squeezed every possible piece of content out of it across every relevant channel.
The team? Four people total.
The timeline? It took a month per episode at first. Now they do it in a week.
This isn't about working harder. It's about building a system that multiplies your effort.
🎟️ Multiple marketers said the same thing: Creating their own events? Game changer.
Marketers are getting smarter about which events they sponsor and which ones they create themselves. It's not either/or. It's about being strategic.
One marketer is running 100+ micro‑targeted events per year. Both in‑person and virtual. The hook? They bring in their own customers to talk about how they've found success. Real people. Real stories. Real proof.
These aren't huge productions. Sometimes it's 20‑30 people in a room. Sometimes it's a virtual session. And sometimes it's literally just buying drinks for your network on a random Tuesday evening.
Here's where it gets interesting: one team generated 45% of their entire pipeline in three months from a virtual event series. They shifted some budget from massive trade shows into their own programs. And the ROI was way better.
Another marketer partners with other companies to co‑host events, splitting costs while creating experiences that are actually fun and memorable. They tease the event, make it awesome, capture content in real‑time, encourage attendees to share, then create highlight reels for weeks after.
🎥 This came up over and over: customer stories and internal experts on video.
Not polished corporate videos. Not scripted testimonials. Real people talking about real problems and real solutions.
One marketer takes these videos and turns them into:
- Paid lead gen ads on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram
- Paid traffic campaigns
- Organic video posts across every channel
Another marketer built their entire approach around this: video interviews with customers, live sessions with internal experts, all repurposed relentlessly.
Why does this work when everything else feels stale?
Because people trust people. They don't trust marketing copy. They don't trust AI‑generated blog posts. They trust someone who looks them in the eye (even through a screen) and tells them how they solved a problem.
And here's the thing. You don't need a production studio. You need a good microphone, decent lighting, and someone willing to be authentic on camera.
🤳 What's working now? Posting on LinkedIn and teaching people what they do (without expecting anything back). No, this isn’t new, but if you do it right, it can be game changing.
I’ve been doing this for years and it’s still working.
The best-performing posts aren't the ones inspired by someone else's template. They're the ones that share your own journey into where you are today. Stories people can actually relate to.
This takes time. It's not a quick win. But if you're consistent, and you actually help people instead of just promoting yourself, it compounds.
Six months from now, a year from now, you'll have an audience that knows you, trusts you, and wants to work with you.
💬 One response cut through all the tactics and got to the heart of it:
"Not knowing your audience makes channels dead."
This marketer's emails sucked two years ago. Then they studied their audience, changed their targeting lists, and adjusted their formatting.
Now? 25%+ open rates and strong click-through rates on emails to 8,000+ recipients.
Webinars? Most people say they're dead. But to this marketer's audience? They love them. So they're investing more there.
The point: There aren't blanket channels that work or don't work. It all depends on how well you know your audience.
Your opportunity is to actually understand your audience and give them something they actually want.
‼️ What This Means for You
Marketing isn't broken. Your approach might be.
If something isn't working, ask yourself:
- Am I creating something original, or am I copying what everyone else is doing?
- Do I actually understand my audience, or am I guessing?
- Am I building systems that multiply my effort, or am I starting from scratch every time?
- Am I showing up as a real person, or hiding behind corporate speak?
The marketers who are winning right now aren't doing anything revolutionary.
They're creating original content. Building their own communities. Putting real people on camera. Showing up consistently.
Stop blaming the channel. Start looking at your execution.
– Dave
P.S. At Exit Five, we’re seeing in person events working really well, too. Not just our big events like Drive, but smaller, local meetups are a big hit right now. And they’re really helping us from a brand perspective.
So what's actually working for you right now? Or what do you want to try after seeing this newsletter? Hit reply and let me know.
📺 UPCOMING EVENTS
[THURSDAY] Exit Five New York City Meetup
We’ve done Austin. We’ve done Boston.
Both were packed with 100+ B2B marketers, speed networking, new “work friends,” and plenty of good conversation.
Now it’s New York City’s turn, and it’s happening this Thursday from 6–9 PM at Mr. Purple.
Here’s what to expect:
- Speed networking to kick things off (10-minute convos, then switch)
- Open networking with great food and drinks
- Fried chicken sliders, short rib–turkey bacon skewers, fig + whipped ricotta crostinis, and more
- Prizes from Customer.io, not just your average B2B swag
- A hang with the Exit Five crew and 125 B2B marketers who actually get what you do
And the best part? It’s free for Exit Five members.
Not a member yet? Join after the event and we’ll refund your ticket.
In a world full of AI and digital noise, nothing replaces showing up in person, swapping ideas, meeting peers, and maybe even finding your next mentor, business partner, or job lead.
🏢 Open Roles
Who's hiring right now?
Dragon360 is hiring a Demand Gen Strategist to lead paid media campaigns for B2B clients. You’ll own strategy, creative alignment, and optimization across Google Ads, LinkedIn, and Meta to turn data insights into growth. Ideal for someone who’s equal parts analytical and creative, and who knows how to connect content, attribution, and performance to real pipeline results.
Other open roles on the Exit Five job board this week:
- Exit Five is hiring a Content Marketing Manager
- TLDR is hiring a Senior Growth Marketer - Paid Acquisition
- TLDR is hiring a Senior Growth Marketer - Lifecycle & Automation
- Vapi is hiring a Head of Marketing
- Tatari is hiring a Senior Manager, Customer Marketing
- Paramark is hiring a Marketing Manager
- Doist is hiring a Lifecycle Marketer
- Tatari is hiring a Digital Marketing Manager
- Enumerate is hiring a Senior Product Marketing Manager
- Red Stag Fulfillment is hiring a Director of Growth Operations
- Dynamic Lifecycle Innovations is hiring a Director of Marketing
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 42k+ marketers.
✍️ NEW CONTENT FROM EXIT FIVE
Do you need to learn more about AI in Marketing?
Our head of marketing, Jess, just launched a new newsletter devoted entirely to AI. She’s sharing what she’s doing running marketing here and also talking about everything she’s learning about AI, new tools, workflows you can steal, etc.
Click here to subscribe to The Prompt and we can help you get an A in AI. 🍎
🪪 NEW INSIDE THE EXIT FIVE COMMUNITY
New Inside Exit Five: DaveBot aka E5 AI
Check this out. We trained an AI model on 20 million words on B2B marketing, including 250 hours of podcast interviews, every LinkedIn posts I've ever written, every newsletter we've sent, and 40,000 comments from our community and we've built an incredible B2B Marketing Intern to help you out - now available exclusively to community members.
Join Exit Five and Try DaveBot Today
This newsletter was designed in Knak. Check them out here.
Want to sponsor a future newsletter or learn more about other sponsorship opportunities with Exit Five? Email hi@exitfive.com (or just reply to this email).
If this email was forwarded to you, sign up here to get the newsletter every week.
The Exit Five newsletter
Sponsor the exitfive newsletter