Marketers of Technology
00:14:44 · Gijs Hoonhout
[00:14:44] S0: Yep. So I'm leading the team. Then we have a product market er who is also doing quite a lot of community management. So really focusing on matching product with markets and building a community that's both before and after investing is engaged with the brand. And then we also have a CRM marketer, but she also is doing a lot of the CMS website work, a lot of data insights and analytics stuff. So really making sure that the infrastructure of our CRM system is accurate, that we can use all those insights and we send out the right communications to the right people at the right time and don't overspend them either and make them as personal as possible, but also scalable and accurate. And then we also have a creative person who is really setting the strategy and writing a lot of the content that we make and also helping out with a creative process. But we also have a flexible layer of freelancers where we use a lot of specialties. So for example, a PR expert, a event manager for the really big events that we have, or a designer, a senior designer that really helps to templatize. But there you really see that, for example, with having developed a proper brand book, guidelines, design skills, then a lot of the detailed variation of ads, which used to be done by the designer, are now automated by cloud design, for example. And we're also experimenting a bit with Claude Motion, where there's obviously also a lot of opportunities opening up now, but also the creation of slide decks and all these kind of variations of different pitches. We are quite frequently either hosting or attending events. So there the skill to really customize existing slide decks really helps out. And we don't need a designer to do all that work while still being on brand and top tier on the level of quality that we deliver. So we, yeah, sorry, we have a base team that does the most important things to really get our product to market, know who our customers are, communicate with them and tell the right story.
00:16:35 · Gijs Hoonhout
And then we have a flexible layer whenever we need specialty on the PR side, event side, design side, videography, all these kinds of things where people just check-in or on the brand or creative side, if we need a new pair of eyes, because obviously we have a lot of insider bias and sometimes it's also really nice to have an advisor come in and look at it and say like, sure, but if you're not an insider, this is just a random person saying something random, or this is perceived as X, Y, and Z. While we fully believe with our inside branded mind that this is the perfect way to communicate this, and someone else comes in and says, okay, this doesn't come across as what you mean, what you think it is. So that's definitely all super useful. So that's how we sort of set up the marketing team to be flexible and have the human seniority that we need to deliver quality, but also not to have a super big marketing team for the growth stage that we're currently in. So we try to combine the best of both worlds in this way, supplemented with AI, but also it really helps that the whole organization is onboarded and everyone is contributing to cloud being as relevant as possible. So that also helps a lot.
00:17:43 · Andres Figuera
[00:17:43] S1: No, it really does. And making sure that the LLM is right on brand and is doing the designs and what you need within the essence of what you want the brand to represent is very important. But it is so funny that when you're too close to it, you're so proud of the word that... Of the work that you've done that maybe somebody from the outside, a third perspective is needed just to say like, hey, this might not be communicating what you want it to communicate actually. So I love that. Love that mention that you did there.
00:18:11 · Gijs Hoonhout
[00:18:11] S0: Quite interesting examples actually that we, for next year want to be as sharp as possible. And obviously the markets also develops, especially on the investment side, right? Because there's always different trends, there's different technological advancement, there's different geopolitical shifts, there's different economical policies. So there's a lot of things moving. So we're now in process of setting sort of the right message for the next year. But then also to really start with an AI enabled process, but it's all very human driven that we really try to from data, from notes, from conversations, try to distill, okay, what is actually our ICP? Like what is the actual traits and type of graphic traits of this person that we have in mind? Then to really start with key insights of what is actually driving this customer truly on an emotional level, and then coming up with a key message that we can maintain for a big part of the year to build campaigns around and be consistent, where you really see the benefits of going through a large amount of data points and a lot of copy and text to see what are the biggest trends, to not try and base it on a lot of the assumptions that we already have. And from that point to really, in a pretty human way, try to just tell, okay, what is then the exact ICP, what is the exact core insights, and is it actually validated by data and quotes from customer interviews and sales conversations? And then can we really make a message that resonates well with the audience? So there's lot of enablement, but there's also still quite a human process where a couple of people, both internal and external, are in a room hashing it out, what to give weight to what elements pretty much. And what the comedy nominated are in different visions together.
00:19:55 · Andres Figuera
[00:19:55] S1: And by the nature of the industry that you guys work in, I imagine that it is very much needed to having that human analysis and review to whatever the AI spits out. Even though you might have it as trained as possible, it is always this guardrail that you need to have with the team to just make sure that everything is appropriate. So I totally understand that. And I'm I'm noticing we're almost out of time here, but I do have one more question for you guys. Just... Oh my. And it is towards the end of this year, since we're already arriving two months away from 2026 from 2027, what would you like to say that you were able to accomplish as head of marketing at Carbon Equity Man?
00:20:32 · Gijs Hoonhout
[00:20:32] S0: Well, interesting project that we've currently launched is actually doing a podcast. Obviously it's an interesting, I think project for us to experiment with because it's more on a philosophical level, talking about the meaning of money. What does money do with your identity and how does your identity influence what you do with your money? So it's definitely an interesting experiment where by the end of the year, we can really evaluate if that adds something, because it's definitely not that commercial. It's from the perspective of our CEO. It's very authentic searching for finding the meaning behind money in that sense. So that's definitely a nice experiment that I'm curious to see how it unfolds and if it adds to the wider story that we try to get into the market with money as a means and helping to solve different kinds of challenges. And obviously the end of the year is very much a, on the commercial side of things, fundraising deadline. A lot of our funds are closing end of the year. And it's also for a lot of investors, a sort of a cohort of capital allocation. So it's also really end of year push in that sense that a lot of people are thinking about their capital allocation, where should I invest in, also a different year for taxation. So there's definitely a lot of things happening there to really make it a very strong end of the year. And so far, we're doing quite well to hit our targets on that side. So that's also on the output side. There's a lot of exciting things, but also on the input side, we have done a lot of experimentations that are now paying off, and I'm very curious to see where we end up.