Appen (2021 - 2023)
Brand Marketing, Public Relations, Product Marketing: Artificial Intelligence, Data for AI, SEO, Organic Demand Generation.
Appen is a global leader providing the highest quality data for companies with Artificial Intelligence projects or products. AI, as you may know has recently been in a fever-pitch stage when ChatGPT and Generative AI took center stage - and for good reason.
ChatGPT was one of the very first AI applications whose access and benefits were easliy seen and understood. Today, social media sites and applications are littered with the results of Gen AI and now we're seeing integration into productivity applications such as Photoshop and Jarvis where both images and text can be auto generated from a visual or text promt.
My role at Appen
After joining as a Sr. Director of Product to manage client project needs, I was provided the opportunity to take over, rebuild and strengthen the global marketing initiatives to accelerate Appen's enterprise growth as key competitors were making their own mark in the space. My primary OKR, as the head of marketing, was to accelerate MQL growth of high quality leads through our Marketing channels and assets. I led three marketing team divisions - Brand Marketing, Public Relations and Product Marketing while also leading a Marketing Business Intelligence group that worked, at my direction, to deliver actionable insights not previously available. Addiitionally, I worked as a partner across several divisions including Customer Success, Digital Transformation, Technology, Product and Sales to help elevate their capabilities from my team's learned insights.
Below you'll see examples of what was delivered and its impact
When evaluating our competition, it became evident that there was an opportunity to enhance our design elements. Our focus landed on amplifying Appen's growth potential in the marketplace, both as a crowd work opportunity and an enterprise solution for AI-driven businesses.
To streamline this process, I hired and collaborated with a highly skilled creative director and designer duo from the beauty industry I had previously worked with. They infused vitality into our marketing assets, contributing to the noteworthy 10% overall enterprise growth in 2022, as highlighted during Tech Day 2023.
These revitalized assets played a significant role in supporting our:
Appen's website underwent a strategic update aimed at amplifying the quantity and quality of high-quality leads.
Prior to being hired, during the interview process, I crafted a presentation that outlined key opportunities I saw avalible for positively influencing the brand's growth trajectory through the website.
One slide showcased a 'before' image of the website's top section (the top portion of the image above), illustrating an aspect that caught my attention. I emphasized that for someone unfamiliar with Appen, there was room for improvement in quickly conveying an attention grabbing message.
I shared, that as a VP of Product, I acknowledged that with limited time and other priorities, I would have continued my search elsewhere due to missing key elements that I'd expect to find promptly.
My experience has proven, an effective website should communicate a clear narrative within the first 5 seconds of landing, followed by reinforcing that narrative to encourage exploration or action. Achieving this requires a user-friendly interface, clear content, and cohesive design.
The updated site addresses this requirement and can be seen in the above the fold section: 'Industry leaders trust Appen.
This model was then applied across market sites:
The Appen State of AI and Machine Learning Report is one of Appen's stand out thought leader pieces. They've been doing it longer than any other brand - now for 8 years - and as a result of its prior successes, many of Appen's competors as well as analysts at companies like McKinsey & Company are creating similar reports.
Under my leadership, this year we did something to futher pull our report out from the pack. Our strategy focused on delivering a tease upfront prior to the report being released publically - granting early access and we created a digital and interactive landing page where the report could be downloaded, but we also created suplemental verisons - such as the State of AI in Automotive.
As a result of these efforts, the 2022 State of AI report exceeded our MQL goal capture by over 800% and brought into the fold several high value MQLs that had not yet been seen.
The impact of the new branding, site design and marketing channel programs delivered the following year over year results
High Quality MQLs
Monthly Crowd Work Requests
Marketing Channel Closed/Won Revenue
© 2023 Will Ackerman
P.S. While I look like a younger version of the grammy-winning Windham Hill founder and musician, I am not him and while I play the piano, I do not play guitar.