Small team, big impact: Bamboo Rose starts a content creation revolution
A conversation with Chief Marketing Officer Jennifer Schiffman and Director of Content Marketing Melissa DiPietro
AT A GLANCE
2x
Content output
Days to hours
Reduced writing time
15
New ABM campaigns made possible
WATCH THE CLIPS
LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW
Bamboo Rose headquarters
Boston, Massachusetts
Industry
Technology
Key features used
Recaps Apps Ask Writer
Departments
Marketing
Listen to the Bamboo Rose story or read the edited story below
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Jennifer Schiffman is the CMO of Bamboo Rose, an industry-leading SaaS PLM solution for retailers. Jennifer is passionate about solving consumer business problems with enterprise technology solutions and cultivating performance-oriented cultures.
Melissa DiPietro is the Director of Content Marketing at Bamboo Rose. Focused on SaaS and retail, Melissa has over 12 years of experience in demand generation and revenue marketing.
Read or listen to the story of how Jennifer, Melissa, and the Bamboo Rose team use Writer to double their content output, boost efficiency, and ensure brand consistency across the company.
Hi, I’m Jen Schiffman. I’m the Chief Marketing Officer at Bamboo Rose.
Bamboo Rose is a private-equity-backed SaaS company. We sell into the retail segment, everything from fashion and apparel to general merchandise to food and formulation. We provide an enterprise-level solution that serves a customer from the very beginning of the product development process all the way through to PO creation, supply chain, finance, and logistics.
“Writer feels like another team member that we’ve got on our side. It speeds up the process and improves the work that we’re putting out every day.”
The marketing function at Bamboo Rose is really prioritizing growth for our business. When I started, we were a small team, but we still had a lot of output that we needed to create so that we could get to market faster.
We had just acquired another business, and we’ll continue to acquire more businesses. We started thinking about how we were going to slice and dice so that we could have a demand function, content function, product function, and really build out robust capabilities. I wanted to stay at that strategic level and also expedite content creation because we had a lot of content that was outdated.
We have some strategic third-party agencies, but technology was the big piece of the puzzle in how we grow. So, in thinking through how we were going to solve that challenge, we decided that we should be looking at generative AI.
As the one person focused on content marketing, I’m looking for ways to expedite the process. I’m looking for customer case stories and blog posts to help get the word out there, drive some buzz for the company, and share our customer success working with retailers.
Some of the challenges that I was seeing before having a tool like Writer was that writing just takes a long time. It takes a long time to get started. It takes a long time to get that draft out, to get ideas on paper. Having a tool like Writer expedites that process.
When ChatGPT became a big thing, everyone began looking into what’s the right solution. We wanted to pick something that was going to be security-appropriate for our business, where we could input intelligence around what we’re bringing to market, all of the consultative selling approaches and messaging structures that we have and not be worried about the quality of the output.
When we really started looking, we wanted to make sure that it was an enterprise solution for content marketing support.
Writer was one of the tools that I was familiar with and immediately knew we would want to look into it and evaluate whether it could facilitate that faster collaborative content approach for our organization.
“For anyone who’s wondering if [Writer] is something their team needs, if it is really going to accelerate things, I would say the answer is obviously yes.”
Jennifer Schiffman CMO
How do you use Writer to support your acquisition strategy?
As part of our acquisition strategy, organizations join us with their own content. One of the ways we can leverage Writer is to edit that voice and make sure that the new content is blended well. If we’re going to integrate our websites or we want to update those one-pagers and sales presentations, Writer can accelerate our ability to create that synergy and speed up time to market to unify the perception of the company so that we don’t feel disparate.
One of the things that stood out to me about Writer was that you can do recaps, which for us is fantastic because you can actually take videos and webinar recordings and upload them into the system and it will spit out a transcript and jumpstart blogs and other pieces of content. Before using Writer recaps, we would use transcripts. Writer organizes the thoughts, the key points, and quotes, which is huge.
I love the apps. I’ve used the case study app a ton because one of our initiatives for this year is to write more customer success stories. So for me, having an app to start from has accelerated the writing process.
I also love the Ask Writer feature. It’s come a long way since we started using the product. I can ask it questions or give it prompts, and it will generate some great content as a starting point to help me get to the finish line faster.
Having a tool like Writer gives me more time back in the day.
At Bamboo Rose, we don’t have an internal PR function or a PR partner, so I have found it really helpful to use Ask Writer. I tell it that it’s a publicist, tell it the story that we want it to tell, give those key facts and inputs, and the individuals that are going to need to be providing quotes, and I get a really solid first draft. Of course, we have to go in and make some edits, but it’s a great starting point, and that’s been really helpful as we’re trying to create a sense of rolling thunder with news about Bamboo Rose. We have a lot of new leaders. We’re also acquiring new companies and some exciting new customers, and it’s a great advantage to be able to speed up the workflow.
A press release that might have taken two days to construct and circulate now takes an hour maximum to create a great first draft with Writer.
Using Ask Writer to write a press release
What impact have you seen since you began using Writer?
One of the ways that I’ve seen Writer help our team is that we gain back time from a content production perspective. We have a small team and we need to write a lot of content, but we also need to operationalize a lot of campaign strategy. Writing the content is just one piece.
And if we’re spending all of this time writing the content, we don’t have time to orchestrate with our sales organization to make sure that content is distributed. One of the things that I really like about having Writer expedite the content creation process is that it frees up time for the organization to focus more on distribution and getting attention on that content. That is what brings our prospects to us so we can grow.
I tend to take a long time with the writing process. For personalities like mine, where that white canvas approach leaves you paralyzed, it’s a great jumping off point. So I’m saving some time by just being able to get started immediately. Some of those writing tasks that would take multiple days are now taking hours, so we’re seeing significant savings in our content creation.
We have three segments we’re going after, with many personas. We have 15 campaigns in our ABM phase. To get to the point where we would be able to accumulate, create, and distribute all of that content, we had to have a solution like Writer. Otherwise, it really wouldn’t be possible. The volume of material that we’ve been able to put out simply wouldn’t have happened without having generative AI on our team.
Writer has definitely allowed us to speed up and also to produce two times as much content as before.
“As a content marketer, I’m in the tool every day.”
Melissa DiPietro Director of Content Marketing
Has generative AI changed the way you collaborate with agencies?
From an account-based marketing perspective, there is so much that we need to put out to be effective in speaking to all the right audiences and all the right personas.
One of the ways that we’ve worked with our strategic agency partner on ABM to get those campaigns in the market quickly is to leverage Writer to extrapolate and create all of the content that we need to fuel those campaigns. We might have a great asset, a pillar piece that we need to be able to edit, and Writer can help articulate the value drivers that are associated with each persona, and then it can be used in the campaign going forward.
“Writer expedites the content creation process and frees up time for the organization to focus more on distribution.”
Jennifer Schiffman CMO
What are some of the long-term goals you have with Writer?
We definitely are looking forward to leveraging Writer more throughout the marketing organization. Right now, it’s primarily used in the core content function. From a product marketing perspective, there are lots of opportunities as we look to extrapolate the more technical information that we want to share about products for releases.
I could see opportunities for our product team being able to leverage it as well as possibly services and sales teams to reach out to customers.
One of the things that I found really interesting is that there seems to be new and interesting ways where you can coach these AI tools. Could we use Writer to be an administrative assistant for us? Can Writer get embedded into all of our data and analytics platforms? And we can ask questions about the leads that came in that week or that day. Can we ask it about campaign attribution? So I have a lot of curiosity and hope that we can leverage the tool in some more supportive ways from a performance marketing perspective.
What would be your advice for other leaders who are considering generative AI solutions?
For anyone who’s wondering if this is something their team needs, if it is really going to accelerate things, I would say the answer is obviously yes.
You need to build a business case for how Writer is going to help your organization. But once you have it, you’ll find all these opportunities that you might not have even anticipated before you invest in a tool like Writer.
Another thing that I would suggest for companies that are considering whether this is going to be a benefit to them or not, is to really think about how the team is structured, who’s going to be responsible for owning the utilization of that tool, and getting the others in the organization to use it as well. I also recommend having a clear set of metrics you want it to deliver, such as speed to value or increase in content volume, and then being able to track to them.
As a content marketer, I’m in the tool every day. It’s one of my browser tabs that’s always up. I love having it handy for quick things like LinkedIn posts or quick blog posts. I just went to an event last week, so I used it to do a recap. It’s been great to expedite all the writing processes and help save us time in our day. So if you’re a content marketer, I would definitely look into a tool like Writer.
I would absolutely recommend a tool like Writer to small teams, large teams. Whether it’s just getting things done and getting them done faster, it’s a huge benefit. I’ve been part of Fortune 500 companies in the past, and I think it would have been amazing to have a tool like this to really help express that voice and create the consistency that you need when it’s hard to manage teams of those really large sizes. A tool like Writer, it’s going to get you what you need.
“Writer has allowed us to produce two times as much content as before. The volume we’ve put out simply wouldn’t have happened without having generative AI.”
Jennifer Schiffman CMO
What’s next for your team and what are you looking forward to?
What we’re looking to do in the future is to continuously leverage Writer for all the value that it can bring to help us once we get insights from our account-based marketing campaigns, our nurture email sequences, to help us expedite the edits, the changes, the extrapolations, the new campaigns that we’re building going forward.
Writer feels like another team member that we’ve got on our side. It’s something that we can go to that speeds up the process and that improves the work that we’re putting out every day.
![Using Ask Writer to produce a press release
Input:
You are a publicist. Draft me a press release announcing Jeff Fedor as the new Chief Product Officer at Bamboo Rose. Jeff joins Bamboo Rose following the acquisition of Backbone PLM, where he was CEO. He reports to Bamboo Rose CEO Matt Stevens. Jeff has 30 years of experience and has founded four companies. Include this quote from Jeff, "I am thrilled to join Bamboo Rose, leading the product function. Our team is dedicated to transforming the retail industry and we have the best global customer partners to help us along the way."
Response:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Bamboo Rose Appoints Jeff Fedor as Chief Product Officer
[City, Date] - Bamboo Rose, a leading provider of retail management technology solutions, is pleased to announce the appointment of Jeff Fedor as its new Chief Product Officer. Jeff brings with him a wealth of experience and a proven track record of success in the industry.
Jeff joins Bamboo Rose following the recent acquisition of Backbone PLM, where he served as CEO. With over 30 years of experience and having founded four companies, Jeff brings a deep understanding of product development and a passion for driving innovation in the retail sector. In his new role, Jeff will report directly to Bamboo Rose CEO Matt Stevens and will be responsible for leading the product function.
"I am thrilled to join Bamboo Rose, leading the product function," said Jeff Fedor. "Our team is dedicated to transforming the retail industry, and we have the best global...](https://writer.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/img-3a.png)
