Name: MC OD Session4 V2
Uploaded: 2026-08-25T14:38:23.168Z
Duration: 55 min 48 s
Description: MC OD Session4 V2

Transcript for "MC OD Session4 V2": Here's the moment you have been waiting for. Please welcome our speakers back to the stage, Abriana Alvarez Lopez, cofounder of OmniscientAI, Libby Sailor Wright, president and CEO, Boys and Girls Club of Metro Atlanta, Adam Vassala, CMO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, Crystal Washington of Crystal Washington Consulting, and Dan Kaplan, founder, DCAP Consulting, email and revenue systems operator. This is marketing success season twenty twenty six, and we're about to take your questions live. So our first question goes to you, Aubrianna. How can you get an LLM to recommend a product in your category if you are a multi brand retailer? So I think the first and most important thing to to recognize is that your brand is what you own, but the product or the actual descriptions under that brand, are actually what the LM can recommend. So regardless, the brand is yours to own, the website, the feeling, the sentiment, and that can be across several different brands if you have many. But what really is most important is that those products that are under that brand are accurately described when someone's looking for that. So, again, I think it's going back to how do you make sure that your data, your schema, everything that's under your pricing page is accurate, is up to date, and it's discoverable by the LLM, is the most important. Your brand will continue to be yours, whether you have one or 10. Alright. Thank you. Our next question goes to Adam. Adam, how do you engage alumni to continue their journey with you and become those cocreators of change? Yeah. Certainly. First, if at all possible, stay in contact with them if they're part of your program. At Big Brothers Big Sisters, we had our bigs and littles for years that were matched in our in our program, and they would graduate and they would move on. Today, our all of our bigs and littles are in a sales force system, and so we're able to stay in we have the tools and the resources to stay in contact with them. Once you're in contact with them, find out how they wanna be engaged. Find out what's the next step in their journey that they wanna take. Is it that they wanna come back and they wanna volunteer again? Do they just wanna hear updates? Do they wanna provide advice and insights on on how they how you can support from their professional experiences now? So, invite them in and find the the place where they wanna play and then connect them with that opportunity. Oh, that's wonderful. Our next question is gonna go to you, Daniel. Oh, great. The question is, we operate a Spanish restaurant and event venue in Vancouver. Beyond serving food, we want guests to feel connected to Spanish culture. How can a small hospitality business communicate that emotional value authentically while still keeping marketing focused on reservations and ticket sales? That is a great question, and it's about how do we spread out the limited resources to provide that great experience for our customers. Right? And so I think we all can actually lean into that. I love the idea here that you're thinking about, well, we gotta have reservations, we have to fill up ticket sales, but the content you're producing actually can be very, very much u t UGC. You can have user generated content from the staff, even just holding the camera and publishing that on your website or making that available through variety of social media channels, empowering your own employees to feed into that content and feel they can have a part of that. And sharing that personality and that story will become organic from that engagement. So I recommend empowering your staff to share together and but you you can kinda curate that whole experience. So the team has to focus on reservations and ticket sales. Well, they might have a really good story to share. So let's let's let's get that out there. Alright. Wonderful. This one goes back to you, Aubrianna. How does having a schema markup hurt or help a website? Should we ask our web developer, do we have a mark schema markup? You should ask your web developer, and there's some simple ways that we can talk about to check this yourself. There's free tools that Google offers. If If you're using a website, perhaps like a Shopify, a lot of times there's tools that are already baked into there. So your keywords and tags are kind of happening in that metadata that you're not seeing on the page. But having a schema markup is more like a it's evaluating risk. So whenever you have that there, the LLMs and the AI is evaluating risk really, really quickly. So they wanna know how risky is it for me to recommend this product. When you have that markup there that includes things like, is it in stock? What's the size? What's the price? What's the currency? All of that information there, it makes it really simple for the LLM to then recommend you because the risk is decreasing. So you absolutely should ask your website developer if you have, a schema markup. Alright. Great. Our next question goes back to you, Adam. Are philanthropists using AI agents to find legitimate worthwhile charities to donate to? If yes, what are the AI agents looking for? You know, our our our assumption is that anything that we put out on the web is going to be picked up and utilized by an AI agent. Of philanthropists are incredibly savvy, and so they're going to be using every tool and resource that's at their disposal. And so for us, we're constantly looking at our web footprint. We're looking at our Wikipedia page. We're looking at our Candid. We're looking at our Charity Navigator to make sure that our online presence is gonna feed into those AI agents the information that, provides the most information on our impact and the work that we do. Oh, fantastic. I would add to that too, Sharon, is that I think what people don't realize is that our AI agents are knowing us very well. They know how we spend our life. They know our values, perhaps our faith, things that are really close to us at heart. And so it makes it really simple for to ensure that it's aligning as long as that information that Adam mentioned is there. Now we can actually connect those dots. So I think it's very likely. Alright. Well, that's good to know. Back to you, Daniel. Sure. How can a flooring company provide enough consistent online information for AI tools to understand and recommend the brand when products are not sold online and pricing is only provided after discussing the customer's project? Great question. This really does go back to something that we just talked about with schema, but thinking about the content you produce having value. Right? Educational pieces, deep dives into how the process works that will help them to for your site to be a, actually, resource that the LLMs can look at and understand how does this actually work, what's happening with the flooring company process, when somebody's coming on-site, how does that estimate process actually work. Building out all those questions and now almost like an FAQ can really help with that as well. They love to see frequently asked questions, in in the right structure so they can actually present that, for you. And you can triple this out. Right? So put come up with a content plan that allows you to, obviously, put all the core stuff in first and then maybe weekly, maybe every two weeks is all you can do. Try to come up with some type of think piece that will add a little bit more to that, but really build in the discussion around what it is for you as a foreign company and provide those values so they can actually benefit from the what's what's up on the website. You don't have to worry about the pricing in that scenario. You're building trust around. You are the resource to go to that you should when you're ready for that, oh, well, these guys really know what they're doing. They're putting out content that is helpful for me in discovering and understanding. I think they're gonna be able to help me make a good choice for my for my, touring project. Alright. Wonderful. Next question goes to you, Libby. How critical are charity evaluators like Charity Navigator? Charity evaluators are incredibly critical. If you remember, some of us might remember there was a time where you worked for an organization or a company, and they partnered with another organization to direct your funding to a particular non nonprofit. Well, that doesn't necessarily happen that way anymore. So it really goes back again to what Adam said earlier. How consistent are you with your brand message, with your storytelling, with your mission across every single platform where you appear. And I also give you a hint. In addition to things like Charity Navigator, your nine ninety is actually very important as a nonprofit organization, and I call your attention to section o in particular. Funders are looking at that to see how you are describing and explaining the work that you're doing and telling your story. It is an area where a lot of nonprofits do not focus, and it turns out that a lot of funders are focusing there as well. Oh, that's really insightful. Our next question goes back to you, Aubrianna. If 71% of marketers haven't optimized their content for AI search and agents, ignore hero imagery, what is the single most critical schema or product data field we must add to our pages tonight to prevent chat GPT or Copilot from skipping our score. This is urgent now. It is. And I love whoever asked this question because I like people who take action. This is exciting, and you're ready to to take a next step. So what I would say is, right now, you need to go on to your product page. Pick your top product. This is very simple as right click and see what comes up. You can actually analyze the code when you right click, and you can see what metadata is there. If there is nothing there or if it has something like hand poured with love, that is something that you need to address. So you need to ensure that that data schema, which the most important things are, again, pricing and currency and availability. So is it in stock? And then, you know, if you wanna go a little bit further than that, you can add in things like, details around the specs or the size of the candle or, you know, other things around that. But if you have that, then ChatGPT and Copilot will not be skipping your storefront. I think that's the most important thing, and it's something, like you said, spend maybe an hour tonight. And then if you wanted to go a little bit further, if you are running on, let's say, Shopify or Etsy or other storefronts like that, you can take a look at some of the keywords that have been put there and just analyze those and make sure that they're correct and up to date and also consistent across each of those areas. So that's, you know, an hour, hour and a half while you're binge watching whatever show you wanna be putting on. Awesome advice. Daniel, what tips do you have for a consulting business versus product sales when pricing fluctuates depending on services requested? How does that translate for consulting as opposed to tangible physical products? Well, as a consultant, I love this question. Really, what we're talking about here is how are we placing ourselves out there? How are you discoverable around these things? Obviously, as a consultant, you're gonna need to be flexible based on what the needs are of your of your clients and your prospects. I feel it's always good to have some type of introductory opportunity where you guys can get to know each other and something that is tangible in a bite sized, maybe thirty day type of engagement. You can offer some type of analysis. So you can choose as a consultant. This is a client that I actually wanna work with and make sure that's clear on your website. Provide also collateral and inventory that just helps them to help themselves and sees you as a trusted resource and and as an expert in your field. It's really it's about again, we keep talking about trust and authenticity, but I feel that's always the best way to start, as a consultant and presenting my my pricing or my products. That's really important to at least figure out, hey. Do we even like working together? And here's how we can engage in a way that's safe for everybody and probably would be really helpful towards, you know, position yourself in the market. Awesome. Our next question goes to you, Libby. As a nonprofit, how exactly do you collect data? We understand click rates and view numbers from electronic communication, but how do you measure, collect data with actual human consumers of your organization? That is a great question. First of all, let's make sure that we're collecting and analyzing data that's linked to our mission and our strategy. We're gonna get a lot of pieces of information. All of it is not gonna be as relevant. So let's start with that. But within the Boys and Girls Club, for example, we really are looking at two major areas in which we wanna make sure we understand the data. One is around our members and operations. Mhmm. The other is around those people that are funding us. Right? So for members and operations, we look at things like how many youth have we been able to touch and impact in a given time period. How many youth are actually coming into the club. And we do a lot of this through use of current, you know, kind of technology, and we use Salesforce for the background, quite frankly, for a lot of things. And then we also have a proprietary boys and girls club, custom tool that we're able to use to measure certain things. So we're looking at how many kids do we serve, how often are we serving them, how many hours of homework are they doing are they doing, how many STEM programs have they engaged in, How have we helped parents of the organization? Do they return and come back to us? We look at percentage of members across age. So there's a number of different things we're measuring when it comes to members and operations, including, of course, safety assessments. Then when you think about our donors, we're looking at the typical things that everybody looks at. How often are they engaging with us? Have they been with us for multiple years? Or have they left us and come back? Do they even know what we do? Do they know anything about our mission? Have we connected with them personally? Segmenting them. All of those things are things that we're consistently looking at and watching, year over year, day over day, everything to make sure that we're using the data again against our strategy and our mission and using what's most relevant to helping us to advance. Adam, do you wanna chime in on this? Because I'll just add, at Big Brothers Big Sisters, we have a platform called the youth outcome survey. And, when a young person first enrolls in our program to get matched with a mentor, they fill out the survey, and the survey's questions are geared towards really three, long term outcomes. One being, how are they doing in school? The other being, how are they creating relationships with friends, with peers, with family? And, how how is their what is their decision making? How are they how are they, you know, going about making decisions? What type of decisions are they making? And, on the anniversary of being matched with their mentor, they take that survey again. And then every year that they're matched in our program, they take that, they take that survey. And what it shows is, you know, the the actual, outcomes, that are taking place now that are tied to to these longer term outcomes. But we often find is that our donors love to see that information as well because for them, it makes it real. Again, where is their where are their dollars going? Where is the impact being made? And we're able to show that, to them. Awesome. Daniel, which platforms should businesses focus on to build consistent online information and improve their chances of being recommended by AI tools? Well, we've we've talked a lot about schema, but I would say we're talking about our website in this in this question about what we wanna do for our website to build online information. You know, I would actually go to the l l m that you use today and ask it and say, hey, can you look at my website right now, look at my business, and describe it back to me? Does that sound right to you? What it's what it's describing back to you? How would you tweak that? Ask some questions. Have a conversation with any tool you want, and then you're gonna take that same conversation, go to your web developer, go to someone who's gonna help you on the schema, and really massage that offline first so you can bring back into how do you wanna be seen online so you can build that trust. It will probably lead you to some ideas around new content you wanna develop or you wanna tweak your language around how you're presenting yourself. But ask it what it sees about you and how it sees you now so you can start from ground zero and see, hey. This is actually pretty darn good. I've done a good job. Or you know what? I wanna massage this message more. I wanna lean in more of this particular skill or service that we offer. Try using the tools to tell you what to, actually do next. You have anything to add to that? Well, I I have witnessed this firsthand that I know, you know, several years ago when we had just started the Ignacio company. I was joining a podcast, and they had obviously used an LOM to come up with a description of our our business, and it was very wrong. And so it was a wake up call for me to say, okay. We need to go in and fix this because we are not a voice, you know, or a creative agency. So it's just interesting. I think it's a great practice, and it's good to continually do it and see how it needs to be, you know, refined and reformed over time. And I would add a little bit more to to that as well. Ask it about your competitors and the people that are also out there and how they're positioning themselves and and and see where you're stacking up with them and the language around that. Don't be so myopic just to yourself, but look externally as well. Right. Fred, let me totally agree with all that. And then also look at how do you simplify it. Because the reality is is we're often trying to tell very complex and complicated stories, and that's not what is necessary. Yeah. So simplifying and then again, the consistency, I think that helps with that as well. Great. Great. So, Aubrianna, question for you. I work at a museum and don't sell items online. Instead of adding data to products, would you recommend adding general data to the site to be higher up on AI's list? Yes. And I love this too. And it it takes a little bit of reframing of your mind to sort of think about, okay. What is my product or service, and how do I want it to show up to the AI agents? So what you are selling are experiences, and that is your product. And so people are coming in from out of town, and perhaps they're looking for what should I do with kids in Atlanta this weekend, you know, or I'm interested in art. What is there to see? And so recommending those things and adding those things to your site, that is the data point. That is the product. So I think that the general data is about your hours of operation. Are there any events happening? Do you have any specialty programming that's happening that could cater towards a specific group of people that they may be interested in. So shift your mind just a little bit because you're not selling hard goods, but you are selling an experience and that is the product that you need to ensure the data and the schema is there for and available. Alright. Perfect. Question for you, Libby. For nonprofits with regional reach that lack human capital to measure metrics in the same way as national counterparts, what is your top line advice for boosting storytelling visibility and breaking through digital overwhelm and AI content flood. Well, if you recall, we've been talking about authenticity. Yes. I think Adam mentioned earlier, those things that you do on your cell phone to film different things actually have, higher impressions in a lot of cases than some of the other things, that other people may be doing that cost them more money to do it. And you also do have people that are connected to your organization. So whether you're one employees, five employees, you likely have a board. You likely have those stakeholders that have been engaged in your organization for a long time. They become your brand ambassadors and ask them to help you promote. Anytime you do anything, you ask them to amplify it for you, to help you seem bigger and flood more than if it was just you doing it. The other thing is that real time right information is important. We have a thing called youth of the year. It is across our national organization, but we bring it down locally and regionally to our individual clubs. Mhmm. When we follow our young people throughout their day and their experience in growing through Youth of the Year, that is the best content we have. And so we literally follow them in the moment and have a incredible amount of engagement and visibility as a result of that. So I would encourage that. We talked a little bit about this earlier, but how AI is leveling the playing field, and that applies both across, you know, brands that are selling goods, but also for nonprofits and the the visibility that you can actually have and gain really quickly. That's which is great because we know awareness is the engine Yes. Of generosity. Next question goes back to you, Aubrianna. How can businesses utilize organic and agentic search without ecommerce or pricing information on their website? When custom products need human input and the primary call to action is reaching out to sales via phone or email? Yeah. So, I mean, being from a b to b world, this happens a lot. You know, you have maybe some start up pricing, and a lot of times it's enterprise pricing, and it needs to have specialist input. I think that providing some level of guardrails or some sort of, lanes is really helpful. So you want people to come to you, but, again, this is more just an introduction. It's just do I fit? And it's also helping you to provide some level of guidelines because you don't want people coming to you expecting free or cheap if you are premium pricing. And so it kind of weeds those out. So what I would recommend is that, one, include as much information as you can around things like what is the process to work with you look like, what is the pricing based on, perhaps it's based on square footage, or perhaps it's based on, what type of career coaching you might need or what type of, you you know, an industry that you're in. And so give some guidelines as much detail as you can, who this is for, what is the pricing based upon, where does the pricing begin, maybe just starting from $500 is is enough to at least you put put you into consideration. Because, again, when the AI agent is reading and there's no pricing information whatsoever, it just says risk and it's like no. That's what it reads as no. And so you don't wanna be the no man and, I would say just providing some level of information at the beginning or guardrails is a great place to con continue to be relevant and show up without having to give away everything, out the gate. Okay. Adam, how do you engage alumni and past attendees to continue their journey with you and become cocreators of change in a fast paced, spam heavy digital environment? Yeah. I you know, we had a similar question earlier on alumni, and I think one thing I was remiss mentioning is before they become alumni is start the conversation with them. So while you have them opted into your emails and you have their cell phone, you're able to text them, start that conversation, explain what the value of alumni is, show what the alumni are doing, highlight programs like we have a we have a National Alumni Hall of Fame. Every year, it's very prominent. We usually are inducting a a professional athlete or a celebrity. So make sure that you're bringing that alumni story to life while your members are active in your program, and then continue that conversation, but start asking them how do they wanna participate, where do they see value, what are their interests, do they wanna volunteer, do they wanna donate, do they just wanna keep hearing stories, and then make sure you put them on that path. Okay. Wonderful. Our next question goes back to you, Aubrianna. If you're a small business and aren't selling online, can social media and a basic landing page website with policies still be recommended through an AI agent? Yes. Definitely, I would say focus in on the website. Social media is very difficult to parse for AI right now at this that could change in the future. But for now and today, it is very difficult for them to pull that information that's relevant. But with a basic web page, you just need one page, honestly. Putting in your your policies for sure, you have to drive people into your store. So this is just making sure that people actually want to visit the store. It's kind of that handshake that starts the conversation for them or starts the relationship and opens the door. And so, yes, a landing page basic website can go a very long way. Just include that data there. Include those data points. It doesn't have to be shown. It can be hidden, you know, in the schema behind the page, but, it's really simple. And and that way, an agent can find you and recommend visiting your store, visiting your restaurant, right, visiting your event venue, all of those components. Great. Daniel, with customer acquisition costs at an all time high, what automated email triggers or dynamic segmentation rules yield the highest margin protection when reengaging churn risk customers before peak buying season? What a great question and very timely to think about how we are reengaging for those that are really kind of we're afraid. Right? There sounds like there's some fear there around I don't wanna necessarily reach out to somebody and they're not wanting to hear from me, and I wanna protect the risk of them leaving me. So that seems what I'm reading into with this question a little bit. That goes back to what we talked about in our panel earlier about understanding those cohorts and where they are in your journey. We do have a worksheet that kinda helps you figure out, like, the 12 different areas of what they're where they are in that relationship with you. I think it's in the resources that y'all can look at. That may help you get started on what that's all about. But if you wanna protect margin, you have to also be willing to let customers go. Right? You don't wanna waste money on advertising to folks that absolutely have no interest in still being engaged with you. You should be able to see those signals if you're looking at that. And being willing to take a put a suppression list in in place is smart business. Make sure you are reengaging based on what you see in your overactive life cycle journey, but try to break it into those cohorts. That's gonna be really smart math to do upfront and do some small experiments. You can actually say, I believe this segment I I'm gonna take 10% of them, and I'm gonna run a test against them to see what actually happens. And then judging from that, you can decide whether you wanna open the floodgates on that. Okay. Fantastic. Back to you, Aubrianna. What if everything is bespoke and you don't have set pricing? Will that go against you in the AI searches? I mean, short answer is yes. It will. Like I said, absence is a no. Absence is risk, and so you need to have some type of guardrails. I think try to think of it a little bit outside of the box. Go in and ask an LLM tonight. Hey. I don't have, a set pricing. This is very bespoke or it's custom. If you include that in the metadata that it's customized, what is it customized to? What is that customization and bespoke based upon? That is kind of foundational where you can begin with. And and so, again, you don't have to be super prescriptive, like, this is the price. But if I know, okay. This is a bespoke, you know, tile installation in your kitchen. What is it based on? Well, it starts based on square footage, or I I don't do any projects that are smaller than this size, or it's based upon specific materials. So if you're using specific materials that are priced, maybe list the materials that you're using from high to low and what they run for cost. So, again, try to step outside the box a little bit instead of thinking everything is bespoke. I can't provide pricing or data for anything, and try to provide some type of guardrails around that. I'd love to add on to that too, which is, do you know who your ideal customer is, I hope. Right? And where who you wanna work with. Right? So if we just say pricing is bespoke, you are opening up too wide for you to actually identify the right customer for you that is a good fit for you. Right? Like, I typically work with clients in a certain range between 10 and 100,000,000, and they have a certain profile, and who I feel I can really help. So it's important that you make that available and out there in terms of whatever that marketing message is about where we fit in that position so you can so people can self exclude themselves out. The LMs will pick up on that too and say, oh, they're looking for something different than what this site offers. I'm not gonna serve it there. But because we've been more specific about what that ideal customer profile looks like, we're more likely to be providing value in that in that search, in that conversation. And I would assume that this could even apply to nonprofits. Right? Because boys and girls club, there are sometimes there's costs involved, but sometimes there are, you know, where you guys provide, I guess, scholarships for certain people. And so, therefore, understanding where that fits probably is also part of that, I would think. Making sure that that information is available. So it's not even a pricing component, but it's who is this for? Right. Right. Absolutely. Who is this for? And there's a number of different things that we do across, that is relevant for different stakeholders that we have and for our members, etcetera. So, yes, you're exactly right that we're And we're not just using LLMs to find price or, you know, we're trying to get information. We're trying to learn, and we're using it as a conversation. So do we have valid information that's organized for the agents to expose that based on the conversation, as well. I think it's really important. Yeah. That's super helpful. This is well, coming up on our last question, and we're gonna go back to you, Aubrianna. Do we add content on our website, and how can we apply this to real estate when we don't have traditional product returns or fixed ecommerce cards? I really love this question. This is exciting. The really cool thing about real estate is that you have a lot of data that's already publicly available about the product you're selling as the home. So you have the square footage and the bedrooms, and all of that is within the MLS listing. But what you don't have is the product of you as the real estate agent, and that is the product that you actually need to think about applying to your website. So you don't have returns. Correct. But you do probably have a specific process that you go through with your clients. So how do you take them through? What's unique about you as a real estate agent? What neighborhoods do you service? Do you have a specialization perhaps? Maybe it's, you know, relocation for people from big cities. Perhaps it's townhomes. But, you know, just because you don't have, again, a product that can be returned or an ecommerce site, you really do have a product and that product is used. So, again, flip the model on its head a little bit, step out, and and think about it. Okay. What is is unique to me? And that's the metadata you wanna put in there, and that's where the AI agent's going to find you and really elevate you and your real estate practice. It's not about the home. It's about how you take them from, you know, a house to a home, I guess. And I think it's really interesting and applicable even across other areas is asking yourself and stepping back, what business am I really in? I think a lot of people make assumptions, and this question may lead to that. And you made an incredible point that it's really less about the home and the square footage, but about the individual that is making that connection. And I think in both of our worlds, experience, right, is an exposure Mhmm. Is something that we are quote, unquote selling. But it's not a tchotchke. It's not even the building that they come to to be a part of the Boys and Girls Club. It is the experience. And so we have to step back and sometimes ask ourselves, what business are we in? And that helps frame a lot of the ways that we progress and move forward. Love that. Absolutely. You know, we've we've had an incredible day, and all of you have been fantastic. I would love to ask you sort of a couple of just speed questions here and have each one of you answer them. As we are going into peak season, what is top of mind for you? We will start with you, Adam, and then that we'll work our way across all of our panelists. What's top of mind for you going into this peak giving season? Yeah. I think just a a constant eye on our channel mix. We talked a lot about, hey. How are we showing up? Channel mix and message and impact and just making sure that each of those stories is exactly where we want and tweaking because, so much of the work we do is is really every like, everyday work, it's topical. And so how are we making sure that we're pivoting and we're making adjustments based on either what's in headlines or what's being talked about online? Libby, in addition to that, I I have a big question around why. You know, we talk a lot about lapsed donors. We talk about people that stopped engaging with our products for whatever reason, and we don't often ask the question as to why. And I think part of it is, have we stayed connected with them in a meaningful way? Have we demonstrated value to them greater than anything else? Have we been consistent? Have we simplified some of our messages? All of those different things. So right now, that's a little bit of what I'm asking myself, and it may be because I'm still relatively new. But why are certain things the way that they are? The reality, when you share the statistics earlier about how many people or what percentage of our business happens in the holiday season and in those last three days, I'm going back to do the math now. I don't know about you. But I'm like, wait a minute. I know what my total budget is. Am I really getting that percentage, 10% of my budget in those last three days? And if I am, why? And how do I make sure that I have the right messaging and start that right now to ensure that I can capture that and more? So that's what we're thinking about right now. Alright. What do you what's top of mind for you, Aubrianna? Well, you know, Libby, it made me think while you're talking about there's that phrase that people will forget about a lot of things, but they won't forget about the way that you made them feel. And so I think there's two components to this season for for businesses. One, really emphasize how you make people feel on those components where there's still a human element involved at the beginning and the end, you know, the stuff that agents are not taking over. So I think honing in on those connections and how you provide and talk about your value to them. And and then I would say the other part of it is taking a look, taking a a closer look at how you can ensure you show up correctly, you know, factually to AI agents so that when you are in that consideration phase, you get the opportunity to make people feel really good. Right? And And I think that can relate to nonprofits and for profits. So just in encouraging us as, you know, marketers, go out there and continue to make people feel, really good about what they're doing. But also hone in a little bit on that middle portion and ensure that your data, your specs, all of that information is really legible and easy to be found and is consistent across all the places that you show up and are able to be in front of an audience. I agree with, what you all said here that it is about being more human and the technology is moving so fast, but ask yourself, is it making me a better human? Am I showing up in in my relationships better because of it? Does it unload me from being able to think about the bigger, more more important questions? And that's what it should do. Right? We're at this precipice where there's some information overload. I actually love the fact that we can use AI to stitch together the data. What does that let me do? Let's me lean in more about the human experience and how we're showing up into those experiences, and that's what it should be unlocking for us. So don't be afraid of asking the LMS to give you information. It's gonna tell you what it sees, and that's actually a good thing. So ask ask it to stitch together the spreadsheet for you and and merge the data. Dig into that a little bit. Don't be afraid. It's gonna help you to actually show up more into the people side of the business, and that's what I'm excited about seeing in in this next phase. Alright. Next speed question. This came up earlier, and I think you said it, Aubrianna. Substance overspend. What's the one bit of advice you would give? We're back in the office tomorrow morning. I'm looking at my plan for peak season. And that quote's ringing in my head, substance overspent. What would be the thing that you would tell me to look at? Well, I think that, you know, there's so many things we discussed. And when we talked about sort of that thirty, sixty, ninety day plan, that first phase of thirty days was really an analysis portion. So taking a look at what you have going on is actually free. Yeah. And it's also something that you can take action on really quickly. And I love that you mentioned, Daniel, asking the LLMs. It was, you know, we had a little break between our sessions, and I thought as some of these questions started coming in, I was like, let me just put this to the test and ask an LLM, hey. I am this type of a business. I'm a services business. How can you ensure that I show up? And you know what? It gave me a lot of answers, and it's really it it's pretty simple. And I think sometimes we think it's overly complicated to do these things, but it's as simple as asking. So I would say the thing that I will put in place is take that quick reality check. Where do I show up? Do I show up? And if I don't, how can I address it? So that might take you an hour to address. It might take you a day or two to address, but it's not going to take you an entire quarter, especially if you're starting with your top products, your top services, you know, your top offerings that you have and really just focus in on that. And it's also a really healthy exercise as a business owner, as a marketer to go through that because, Libby, as you've mentioned, is it to the point enough? You know? Am I rambling? Is my story direct enough? Or are we just trying to tell this very big robust story and it's really as simple as I sell candles that make people smile? I don't know. Yeah. Exactly. Alright. So, Libby, I'm a nonprofit marketer. What's that one thing I should be doing tomorrow? Remember, I don't have a lot of budget. I can't buy some big TV promotional campaign. I have limited resources, and I may even have limited data. What's the one thing I should be doing? The one thing that you should be doing is revisiting why you exist. That doesn't cost money either. And then asking yourself, so what if I understand why I exist, why people are engaging with me, how can I, with limited resources, make that connection? And sometimes, I talk about the fact that for me, simply sitting down with our most important asset, which is our young people, and having a conversation reinforces the things that are most important. The mission and making sure that their story is told. One thing I can be, one thing we can be because of all of our experiences, is the liaison and the advocate and the advocate for whatever the mission and the thing is. And nobody is gonna believe in your service or product or experience more than you. So take the time, sit down, remember your mission, your why, and make it happen from a place of simplicity and authenticity. Earlier, you shared with me the story of speaking to the little kids. I'd love for you to share it with the audience because that's about how do you bring this whole mission home. How do you bring it home? So we have the fortune of having our support center, and notice it's called the support center. So that's the so called headquarters. The support center connected to one of our clubs. So whenever you're having a bad day, you can hear the wonderful screams and of delight coming from the other side. But one particular day, the second graders in the club decided they found out I was the CEO, and I happened to be a woman, and I happened to be a woman of color, and they wanted to speak to me. So they asked my EA if they could get on my calendar. And so she came to me and said the second graders in the club wanna know if they can get on your calendar. And so I said, of course. Because this to me is the most exciting thing that I will do for the next month. And so we cleared some things, and I was gonna go talk to the second graders. But now I wanna be prepared. So I said, well, I'm gonna bring a book so I can read a book to them. They said, no. No. We have questions. So I went in, and I spent the time with the second graders. They asked a ton of questions from the time I hit the door to the time I left the door, most of which was trying to figure out how old I was. So that was interesting. But after they did that, they also had really valuable and intelligent questions about the business, about my responsibilities. And what it also reinforced for me, going back to stories that we can tell, is that this is the reason that we do the work. Mhmm. And these this this our future, they are bright. So for people that say, oh, the kids are that are gonna inherit this world. They're inheriting a terrible world. Yes. Maybe. But the other thing is they are very ready for it, more ready than we think they are. They're very intelligent young people. So we just have to continue to nurture that. Adam, what's the one thing you're gonna tell that non profit leader to do tomorrow? Well, after you ask yourself your why and and reground yourself, as Libby shared, in going through the lens of what's free and what are we what's low cost. And, you know, one of my favorite things to do throughout the year is to have our, you know, our marketing department, our marketing team create toolkits for social media because back to the human can be important, like, our human networks. We have our board of directors. We have our youth councils. We have our alumni. We give them everything they need. Equip them to go out and be your micro micro influencers out on social media. So provide them with the script with just blanks that they can fill in. Make it very simple. Provide them with the stories. Tap into, you have youth of the year, we have bigs and littles of the year, we have our alumni hall of fame stories. Take all of those, package it up, make it super easy, something that they can copy and paste, and just mobilize your community. So, Adam, let's make this personal. I know you're a big Yep. You're a little Giovanni. What are you going to tell Giovanni about this season? Because you've got a great story with him, and I'd love for you to share it with the audience. Yeah. Giovanni and I were matched when he was entering the fourth grade when I got when I was hired in my role at Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. I had already been a big brother earlier in my life, and I told my wife, if I get this job, I'm gonna become a big brother again. And then I had to put my money where my mouth was as soon as I got hired and I got matched. So I can always tell how long I've been at Big Brothers Big Sisters by how long Giovanni and I have been matched. So we're matched in the fourth grade. We have survived the global pandemic, and now we are entering Gio's senior year of high school, which is just unbelievable. And each year, you know, the big and the little get it, you know, get asked. You know, it's pretty informal. Do you wanna continue? How's everything going? So and I, at this point, as somebody who is much older than Giovanni, I just am, inspired and honored that every year he has said yes to continue being matched with me. But no. Yeah. You know, our season's changed. We've you know, he's going to be 18 this year. He's gonna enter adulthood. That means nothing changes for us, though. And I think that's probably the biggest message for him this season is, you know, now we're talking about, you know, for the past year, what's next. We've figured out how to get him his first job, and those are just part of it. And, I think we should all, as we continue to look for you know, we're all marketers, so we are constantly in the data and we're using the resource and the tools, but let's also make sure that we prioritize human connection and look for those mentoring moments. It is a two way street. The mentors get just as much out of the experience, if not more than the mentees. I love it. That's a great story of loyalty and retention all rolled up in one. Ways. Both ways. For sure. Both ways. Daniel, what are you gonna tell that marketer to do first thing tomorrow? Yes. So, I definitely wanna go back to ask the LLMs what it knows about you and your business and see what it spits out and start from there. We talked about the segmentation quite a bit. Right? So I would definitely look at what those cohorts are and do you have the right data. I would do the 12 question questionnaire and figure out, okay. Wait. We should lean into this area. We don't know enough here, and let's do some experiments around that. That's gonna get you that thirty day runway, so you can get a little bit ahead of the holiday season. That's very tactical. It's very practical, and it's applicable to everybody that's probably watching today of getting back to some of the basics so you can attack attack on the other side. I do love that we kept talking about being genuine and how we're actually leaning into the experiences we're providing to our users, to our readers, to our customers, to everyone who's engaged with us that it's that is human because we are drowning in so much technology. And when we get back to those real conversations that are grounded in who we are and what we prioritize, it is more authentic. It probably will lead to better sales too, but that's more of a great outcome by being real and authentic to who you are as a business, how you wanna show up into those conversations, get grounded back into that, so that technology help you have better conversations with people. Awesome. Great. Well, last question before we close it out today, speed round here. We're coming into peak buying and giving season. What's the one thing you are searching for? You wanna ask me first? Okay. What am I searching for right now? You know, I'm searching for a vacation. We need to get a little bit of time and get out get out right now. And I'm actually I built a, a search, using tools to help me figure out how to plan a Northeastern vacation and figure out where I wanna go. So I use the LMs to help me start doing discovery about what's right for that and uncover some great things. And, hopefully, we'll have a great road trip. Awesome. Aubrianna. I would say I'm searching for connection. I think that this everybody is so busy in life right now, and I think there's such an opportunity to just stop and pause and connect with your family, with friends, with people around you, and with your why. I think that's a really beautiful thing to do at the end of the year before you go into next. Mhmm. Libby. I am part of the sandwich generation. So I take care of my mother as well as my son who's a, college student. So I'm searching for resources that help me to be much more efficient in taking care of people from two different generations. I'll I'll pressure from two different lenses. One from the marketer. So, you know, Labor Day is coming up. And from my retail career and also as, you know, as a as a CMO today, it's about back to routine. And so that means our consumers are getting back to routine. They're kind of resetting. They're so it's perfect time as we head into this busy season of the year. As a parent, what does it mean? Like, okay. Now where do we find time? Where do we make time? Because school's back in session, all the sports leagues begin up, dance begin. So we all get busy. So I think just remembering that, like, we as marketers are also us as consumers as well and and look at it both ways. Absolutely. Absolutely. About you? What am I searching for this peak season? Well, I've got a couple of things. I am looking for an automated litter box for my two cats, George and Tipps. So I'm doing all the search, and I have asked the chats about it. The other thing that I am searching for is a better, peptide journey. I'm on a peptide journey like everybody outside the city. So I'm learning and learning and learning and learning. So I'm trying to figure out what's the best thing to do so you can live longer and live healthier and, you know, live in peace. So I can do good work with the Boys and Girls Club and Big Brother Big Sister. I can work on my LLM. I'm doing all of my vibe coding and building apps, and then, obviously, I've gotta retain more customers in my consulting practice. So I'm trying to trying to do it all at this point. I love all of your responses, and I have just genuinely enjoyed all of our conversation today. As we close and I have to thank all the people who've been watching us all day. This is live. It's truly live. So thank you for your time and your attention. As we sort of depart with our audience here and move to the next phase of this, I just wanna make sure you understand for marketers, we do truly commit to your success. And Intuit Mailchimp has its customer success managers waiting for you. Book an appointment. Take the time to really dig into the tools that you have to make sure you understand what you're capable of doing and how to truly ensure your success this peak season. Those opportunities aren't often afforded to us, and I'm a big believer if help is being offered to you, take it. It doesn't hurt, and it doesn't really cost you anything. And I think all of the guidance that you've heard from all of our speakers here today has been phenomenal. Go back through your notes. Rewatch the on demand because there's so many amazing nuggets of insight, practical guidance, and understanding about AI, about humanity, about retention, around acquisition that you should be really putting to great use tomorrow. But as we close, what's if you were to recap this day in a single word, what would it be? I'll start with you, Aubrianna. Oh, what would it be? I I feel like this has been, a series of opportunity. It really has been. Right? I think that every session has been, what are the opportunities that I can take advantage of today, next month? And, and I think that's a really exciting exciting thing to to see that. I'm looking at the glass more than half full. Awesome. I I think it's really a bit about grounding and go and thinking about who we really are as marketers, as humans, as companies, and connection. So that's that's what I'd like to say about it. Libby, two words, authenticity and consistency. Consistency. Consistency. Yep. I'll say energized and ready for peak season. Alright. I love it. We're ready for peak season. That's what we wanna hear, and we hope that for all of you who have joined us, we've given you not only practical guidance, but some inspiration and some motivation so that you too are ready for peak season. We want you to win. We want you to be successful. Intuit Mailchimp is here to help you. That's our commitment, and that's what we want to do for you this peak season. A lot has changed in a year, so please take advantage of that opportunity. And I can't stress enough how fantastic Daniel, Brianna, Libby, and Adam are. Please make sure you're looking at their resources, you're following them, and just understanding the great work that they're doing in their respective organizations and for their nonprofits. But this has been an incredible day. So it's all because we wanted to ensure that you're successful this peak season. So thank you again, and I really wanna thank our speakers. And I'm glad all of you have gotten to meet each other. And we're live here in Atlanta on this beautiful day. I think it's it might be raining outside the studio, but we don't know. We've come to the end of our time together. We have to tell you that this has been exactly the kind of day we had hoped we would have. A lot has changed in the year, and we wanted to meet the moment with honesty, real tactics, and motivation. Let's connect the dots because these three sessions weren't random. They were built to work together. We opened with the AgenTic storefront, and that 1300% jump in AI driven traffic Adobe tracked last Cyber Week told us something important. The way people find you is changing fast, and you have to be ready to be discovered by machines, not just humans. This isn't just about getting ready. It's about staying ready. AI isn't slowing down. It's accelerating. Then we moved into value meets values. And those network for good numbers, 30% of nonprofit giving landing in December, 10% in the final three days of the year, showed us what real urgency and real trust look like when you strip away everything and you're left with just the relationship. And we closed with Retention is the New Acquisition and the Bain Research, a 5% lift in retention driving up to 95% more profit is maybe the most important number of the entire day because it's the one every single one of you can act on starting tomorrow regardless of your budget, small, midsize, agency, partner, or nonprofit. This season will be run on retention. Let me say it again. This season will be won on retention. Three words defined us today. Discovery, trust, retention. That's the through line. That's your playbook heading into peak season, and we want to close the way we opened. We told you this morning that we've got you, and we meant it. We sincerely meant it. This entire day, the speakers, the research, the live q and a was built around one goal, making sure you walk away with something you can actually use. Whatever the size of your team, whatever your industry, whatever headwinds, you're navigating this season. Rising prices, softer confidence, supply chain noise, none of that changes the fact that you now have real tested strategies in hand from people who are doing this work at the highest level right now. If you didn't get your question answered live today, don't worry. We've got you there too. Our team is going to be following up on outstanding questions. And remember, the full day will be available to you as an on demand recording, and the resources will also be made available to you. So you can rewatch any session, you can pull the data points again, and you can share it with your entire team. To our speakers, thank you. Thank you for your time, for your honesty, for your positive energy. To Intuit Mailchimp, thank you for building a program that actually serves this community, marketers, agency partners, small businesses, mid sized businesses. And to every one of you who showed up, submitted a question, and gave us your morning, thank you. Now take the guidance and support we've shared and go get ready for your best peak season ever. I'm Sharon Harris, and we'll see you next time. Have a great rest of your day.