In this episode of Future-Proofed, host Nathan sits down with Ryan, Head of Product Marketing at Copy.ai, to explore the rapidly evolving landscape of AI product marketing strategy. Together, they unpack how perceptions of AI are shifting, how product marketers can get started and scale their impact, and what the future holds for the profession as AI tools become essential to messaging and personalization.

Key Themes & Insights:

1. AI’s Evolving Role in Product Marketing
   
   
   • The market’s perception of AI in marketing has undergone a “full 180”—from skepticism to eager adoption. As Ryan notes, “Last year leadership said, ‘Nope.’ This year they’re saying, ‘Go do.’ It’s a big change.”
   • Product marketers are moving beyond “make-the-deck-pretty” tasks, becoming architects of systems that operationalize messaging and brand voice at scale.
   • AI enables hyper-personalization: “We can have the conversation to a person, not a generic persona.”
2. Getting Started: Crawl, Walk, Run
   
   
   • Most teams begin with basic chat tools like ChatGPT for 1:1 tasks (“the crawl phase”), but the goal is to build repeatable, scalable systems.
   • “It feels like magic the first couple of times, but that crawl phase is super powerful.” True impact comes when marketers “shift from asset orientation to systems orientation.”
   • Context is everything: “Outputs are only as good as the inputs that you give it.” Rich, well-structured prompts and codified messaging libraries are essential.
3. Challenges & Opportunities
   
   
   • Brand voice consistency is a top concern: “One of our concerns is that now everyone has an individual license and they’re all prompting differently… that’s a product marketer’s worst nightmare.”
   • AI opens doors to align sales and marketing through shared tools and workflows. Custom content—like tailored battle cards—empowers teams across departments.
   • Properly implemented, AI can elevate the status of product marketing within organizations: “If anything, it’s a way to up your status within the company if you can do it right.”
4. The Future of AI Product Marketing Strategy
   
   
   • The profession is shifting from asset creation to systems design: “Stop being those slide people. Start building and implementing systems and brand voice.”
   • Human expertise remains vital: “It feels like a cheat code, but I’m very much needed as part of that process.”
   • Job security is strong: “There is a lot of work needed to build these systems in a way that will help scale product marketing—not eliminate it.”

Actionable Takeaways:

• Start small with AI tools, but focus on repeatability and context-informed prompts.
• Build and document systems—like messaging libraries and workflows—that scale your expertise across teams.
• Use transcription and AI collaboratively to generate richer prompts and better outputs.
• Embrace systems thinking to elevate product marketing from a cost center to a strategic driver.”

Season 2 of Future-Proofed kicks off with a fresh new voice—Ryane, the new co-host and Product Marketing Manager at Copy.ai. In this episode, Ryane shares her professional journey, unique onboarding story, and hands-on experiences leveraging AI productivity tools to drive impactful product launches.

Ryane steps in as co-host, bringing a background from Salesforce, Gong, Clary, and adjunct teaching at Loyola Chicago.

In this episode of Future Proof, host Nathan Thompson interviews Vanessa Silva, a content creator and strategist with over a decade of experience. Vanessa shares insights on how AI has transformed content creation workflows since she started in 2010.

Key Themes:

1. Evolution of content creation processes
2. AI as an assistant, not a replacement
3. Balancing efficiency and creativity
4. Streamlining content distribution
5. Maintaining quality with AI tools

Highlights:

• Vanessa describes the manual, time-consuming content creation process from 2010-2015, contrasting it with today's AI-assisted workflows.

• AI tools have dramatically reduced production time, allowing podcast episodes to be created and distributed in one day versus 2-3 days previously.

• Vanessa emphasizes using AI as an assistant for repetitive tasks while maintaining human creativity and strategic thinking.

• Content distribution and repurposing have been streamlined through AI, though some tasks like scheduling remain manual.

To maintain quality, Vanessa recommends:

• Thinking from the audience's perspective
• Using AI for idea generation when stuck
• Avoiding over-reliance on AI-generated content
• Ensuring brand guidelines and tone of voice are followed

Quote: "Don't lean too much on AI to do everything for you. It is an assistant. It is not replacing you." - Vanessa Silva

Vanessa balances freelance content creation work with running a web development agency - Uzumibi Agency -, specializing in HR, entertainment, and social media content.

In this episode of Future Proofed, Nathan Thompson explores how AI is transforming brand voice management, addressing long-standing challenges in maintaining consistency across multiple marketing channels.

Key Takeaways:

1. Traditional brand voice struggles with inconsistency due to multiple channels, subjective interpretations, and staff turnover.
2. AI offers a solution for codifying and maintaining consistent brand voice across all channels.
3. Implementing AI involves uploading brand guidelines and creating channel-specific workflows.
4. Benefits include improved consistency, reduced impact of staff changes, and more efficient content creation.
5. Defining clear brand voice guidelines and regularly updating documentation is crucial.

Thompson argues that true brand voice consistency has been nearly impossible to achieve without AI, especially for large teams and multiple channels. He states, "As far as I can tell, brand voice has... been more a fun idea than a reality until now with AI."

The podcast highlights how AI platforms like Copy.ai can be used to create workflows that maintain brand consistency: "We can take our value propositions, our product lists, all of the information about the problems that we solve... and store it so it's trained and ready to go."

Thompson emphasizes the efficiency gains, noting, "You don't have to worry about turnover as much anymore... you can quickly get a new writer to use the same workflow as the past writer."

In conclusion, Thompson encourages marketers to embrace AI for brand voice management: "This is absolutely the year to strike on this."

In this episode, we hear from Scott Coleman, an experienced inside sales rep at Copy.AI, about his approach to cold calling. Scott shares insights on:

Combining cold calls with other outreach methods:
"You cannot talk about cold calling without talking about also having emails in your sequences and connecting on LinkedIn... just trying to create any amount of recognition leading up to your calls."

Researching prospects before calling:
"You need to know a little bit about them. You need to know a little bit about their company and you need to formulate an approach for that phone call."

Moving quickly but not blindly:
"Move with speed, move with velocity, but don't move blindly."

Scott's cold call approach includes:
• Using a hook or opening line
• Acknowledging it's a sales call
• Asking how the prospect is doing
• Inviting them to hang up (as reverse psychology)

On maintaining energy and motivation, Scott advises:
"If you feel your mood slipping... the best thing to do is take a moment... refocus your energy and re-center yourself however you do that."

For new or discouraged sales reps, Scott recommends:
"You need to know yourself. You need to know how to get yourself in a good mood... Don't try to fight through the bad feeling by doing nothing or just keeping on keeping on."

Scott reminds us of cold calling realities:
"It is a tough game. Most people are not going to pick up the phone."

But with the right mindset and approach, cold calling can still be an effective sales strategy.

In this episode of Future Proof, Aaron Adza, an inside account representative at Copy.ai, shares his insights on effective cold calling techniques in sales.

Key takeaways:

1. Parallel dialers boost efficiency: Aaron uses technology that allows him to call multiple numbers simultaneously, maximizing talk time and data validation.
2. Strategic voicemails generate callbacks: A vague yet intriguing voicemail can prompt prospects to return calls, opening doors for meaningful conversations.
3. Adaptable conversation starters: Aaron employs various opening lines to build familiarity, like "Does that ring a bell?" to engage prospects naturally.
4. Balancing quantity and quality: While focusing on high call volumes, Aaron emphasizes the importance of genuine interactions over "spray and pray" tactics.
5. Leveraging AI in sales: Copy.ai's tools help generate account research, contact information, and even draft cold emails, streamlining the outreach process.
6. Mindset matters: Handling rejection, embracing "cringe" moments, and staying motivated are crucial for SDR success.
7. Evolving outreach methods: There's a shift from email-heavy to phone-heavy strategies, adapting to market saturation in email outreach.

Aaron's approach demonstrates that cold calling remains a viable and effective strategy when combined with modern tools and a resilient attitude. As he puts it, "If you can handle a little cringe... I think you can do it."

Cold Calling Strategies That Actually Work

In this episode of Future Proofed, host Nathan Thompson speaks with Brianna Stout, an inside account representative at Copy.ai, about effective cold calling strategies. Despite claims that cold calling is "dead," Brianna argues it remains a powerful tool for understanding prospects and facilitating human connections.

She shares key insights on:

• Preparation: Researching prospects and having relevant talking points ready before calls
• Breaking the ice: Addressing upfront that it's a cold call to disarm prospects
• Bringing humanity: Making interactions feel personal, not robotic
• Focusing on relevance: Tailoring outreach to each prospect's specific situation

Brianna emphasizes the importance of having the right mindset, including:

• Approaching calls with humility and empathy
• Not taking rejections personally
• Speaking confidently but without pressure for specific outcomes

For those managing cold calling teams, Brianna recommends:

• Providing proper tools, resources and talk tracks
• Enabling reps to speak credibly about products/services
• Setting up team members for success

She also discusses how AI tools are enhancing cold calling by:

• Assisting with prospect research
• Allowing reps to work more strategically
• Saving time on preparation

While many claim cold calling is obsolete, Brianna argues it enables deeper prospect understanding and human-to-human conversations that other channels can't match. With the right approach, cold calling remains a valuable and effective outreach strategy.

In this episode of Future Proofed, host Kyle Coleman interviews Srinivas Attili, who leads the Center of Excellence for Data and AI at Juniper Networks. Srinivas shares insights on leveraging AI and machine learning to drive hyper-personalized marketing at scale.

Key highlights:

- Juniper achieved a 9x increase in email open rates and 46% higher lead-to-meeting conversion through AI-powered personalization
- They developed a real-time activation system that monitors web analytics and sends contextualized follow-ups within minutes
- An AI safety model vets all generated content to ensure brand consistency and truthfulness
- Attili advocates for combining ML expertise with generative AI capabilities
- Future plans include developing an "autopilot" system for marketing functions using agentic AI frameworks

Attili emphasizes the importance of having a strong data foundation and experimenting strategically when adopting AI. He also discusses balancing innovation with governance to mitigate risks.

The conversation highlights how enterprise B2B companies can apply B2C-style personalization tactics by leveraging AI, while maintaining brand standards. Attili's insights offer a glimpse into the future of AI-powered marketing automation and decision-making.