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 beyondWhy SEO is falling short and how HeyGen is shifting focus to webinars, events, and YouTube insteadIf 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 (02:00) - – Holly’s nonlinear path to marketing (05:00) - – Getting started in marketing ops (07:00) - – Why she joined an AI startup (09:00) - – How HeyGen’s marketing org works (12:00) - – PLG vs SLG: Key differences (14:00) - – The 4 channels driving pipeline (16:00) - – What’s working: Events + webinars (18:00) - – Booth strategy that stands out (21:00) - – Brand vs demand events (23:00) - – Building community and user events (24:30) - – SEO is declining. Now what? (27:00) - – Running marketing in 2-month sprints (30:00) - – Aligning product and marketing cadence (32:00) - – Her daily AI tools (33:30) - – ChatGPT vs Gemini workflows (35:00) - – Real AI video use cases (37:00) - – Personalized event promos with avatars (38:00) - – Support, training, and onboarding videos (39:00) - – Fortune telling and music videos?! (40:00) - – Why AI won’t replace marketers Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterLearn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/***Brought to you by:Webflow - A website platform built for the agentic web, helping modern marketing teams build fully custom sites—no developer needed—that perform in AI search. Learn more at webflow.com/for/exitfive.Markup AI - A content quality platform that scans your content against brand voice, preferred terms, messaging standards, and AI-search readiness before it goes live, right inside Google Docs. Learn more at markup.ai.Optimizely - A no-code AI platform where autonomous agents execute marketing work across webpages, email, SEO, and campaigns. Learn how to deploy agents on your marketing team at Agents in the Mix. Learn more at optimizely.com/exitfive. Walker Sands - An integrated B2B marketing and growth services agency that helps marketing leaders turn strategy into measurable business impact through their Outcome-based Marketing model. Learn more at walkersands.com/exitfive.Knak - A no-code, campaign creation platform that lets you go from idea to on-brand email and landing pages in minutes, using AI where it actually matters. Learn more at knak.com/exitfive, or check out the MCP server by clicking this link.***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