Scaling B2B Marketing at an AI Startup: Channels, Strategy, and Team Ops with Holly Xiao

#270 Strategy | Dave is joined by Holly Xiao, Head of B2B Marketing at HeyGen, an AI video generation platform that helps teams produce personalized, high-quality content, fast. Holly has led marketing at high-growth startups and now runs the enterprise GTM motion at HeyGen, where she blends strategy, creative execution, and AI-powered workflows to reach modern B2B buyers.

Dave and Holly cover:

• The 4 channels her lean team is betting on to drive enterprise pipeline (and what’s not working anymore)
• How B2B marketers are using AI video for event marketing, sales enablement, onboarding, and beyond
• Why SEO is falling short and how HeyGen is shifting focus to webinars, events, and YouTube instead

If you’re figuring out how to use AI in your marketing or just trying to do more with less, this one’s full of practical ideas to help you think differently about team structure, channels, and strategy.

Timestamps

• (00:00) - – Intro
• (03:18) - – Holly’s nonlinear path to marketing
• (06:18) - – Getting started in marketing ops
• (08:18) - – Why she joined an AI startup
• (10:18) - – How HeyGen’s marketing org works
• (13:18) - – PLG vs SLG: Key differences
• (15:18) - – The 4 channels driving pipeline
• (17:18) - – What’s working: Events + webinars
• (19:18) - – Booth strategy that stands out
• (24:44) - – Brand vs demand events
• (26:44) - – Building community and user events
• (28:14) - – SEO is declining. Now what?
• (30:44) - – Running marketing in 2-month sprints
• (33:44) - – Aligning product and marketing cadence
• (35:44) - – Her daily AI tools
• (37:14) - – ChatGPT vs Gemini workflows
• (38:44) - – Real AI video use cases
• (40:44) - – Personalized event promos with avatars
• (41:44) - – Support, training, and onboarding videos
• (42:44) - – Fortune telling and music videos?!
• (43:44) - – Why AI won’t replace marketers

Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
Learn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/

***

Brought to you by:

AirOps - The content engineering platform that helps marketers create and maintain high-quality, on-brand content that wins AI search. Go to airops.com/exitfive to start creating content that reflects your expertise, stays true to your brand, and is engineered for performance across human and AI discovery.

Customer.io - An AI powered customer engagement platform that help marketers turn first-party data into engaging customer experiences across email, SMS, and push. Learn more at customer.io/exitfive.

Convertr - The enterprise lead data management platform that sits between your lead sources and your CRM, automatically validating, enriching, and standardizing every lead before it touches your systems. Check them out at convertr.io/exitfive.

Compound Growth Marketing - A full-funnel demand generation agency that helps high-growth cybersecurity, DevOps, and enterprise software companies drive more pipeline through AI SEO, paid media, and go-to-market engineering. Visit compoundgrowthmarketing.com and tell them Dave sent you.

***

Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.

• They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.
• Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.
• Visit hatch.fm to learn more