The Great Leveling Up

Imagine if we could shed the distractions caused by the marketing engines we created and shift to our greatest strengths. That reality is happening now.

Marketers have been integrating with machines for decades, but marketing stacks have been clunky, disjointed, and labor-intensive. A.I. will change this and enable us to focus on the big ideas, better predictions, and creative disruptions needed to propel our client’s businesses. Love or hate it, marketers and machines will integrate deeper and faster than ever.?

I remember reading an article in the early 2000s, which was something like "Procter and Gamble Television’s biggest ad buyer halts television advertising to pursue internet marketing options" You could hear a metaphorical pin drop as big advertising finally "knew" their business model was about to evaporate.

That moment reminds me of today as the mainstreaming of A.I. and its capabilities rip through the marketing world, causing fear and endless speculation. Some of that fear is rational, as widespread disruptions cause painful shifts in careers, demands of specific skills can evaporate, while others appear overnight.?

If we embrace A.I. as a?great leveling up, we’ll see past the 10,000 shifting grains of hype and spot the many small opportunities available to test and gain a foothold in this new world.

Though disruptions can be scary, I am optimistic they can unleash our most valuable ideas and strategies over the long haul. With A.I., I see a "Great Leveling Up" where marketers can delegate critical but lower-value tasks to a 24 hour digital assistant for the price of lunch.?

We came to this career to shake things up with new ideas and strategies that help our clients grow. Imagine if we could shed the distractions caused by the marketing engines we created and shift to our greatest strengths. That reality is happening now.

A.I. is changing so fast that any predictions I make could be outdated in days, but I will try anyway.?Here are a few:

Unattended consultative-level interactions?

Complex B2B sales are about asking good questions, deconstructing complicated situations, defining the correct problems, and proposing focused solutions than brief relief and results to clients. This process was once the domain of a highly skilled senior-level consultant, and it still is. However, a consultative leader can now "feed" her intelligent content and example inquiries for A.I. to learn, create an advanced chatbot, and have her chatbot conduct first conversations. These chatbots can lead a discussion that helps frame and distill problems and suggest possible solutions that replicate the consultant’s style and approach. These Chatbot discussions can also provide value to the organization by efficiently qualifying prospects and identifying which ones deserve a live one on one conversation. A consultant-cloned chatbot saves time and directs the consultant to higher probability candidates while providing a 24/7 "digital consult" online to new prospects.

Voice coding

Digital marketing means coding apps, interfaces, and assets that are complex and labor-intensive, requiring many iterations, Q&A, and stakeholder reviews. Because generative A.I. incorporates most types of code as simply another language, it has learned the languages that enable us to tell it what we want without writing a line of code. It can also learn to correct errors, make suggestions and integrate different kinds of languages. We anticipate seeing marketers do things that were once only the domain of software developers, creating marketing applications or customizing them without writing code through natural language commands.

Marketing force multiplier

A best-selling author friend plans to use generative A.I. to write a book in 3 months, which usually takes him 12 months for his first version. In the subsequent 12 months, he plans to release three revised versions when he would typically release a single revised version in 5 years. A marketer who embraces and masters the capabilities of A.I. might expect to double marketing output at a higher level of quality in only a few months of practice. Like my author friend, a content writer can delegate a large proportion of the research time and first draft time to A.I., simultaneously increasing the volume of content?and?increasing the quality and impact because they can spend more time editing, crafting the content, storytelling, and increasing its influence. You still have to bring your A-game and experience, as A.I. is an accelerator more than a replacer. It’s a super aggregator; it doesn’t have lived experience, intention, or the pattern-breaking intuition that makes great marketers great (not yet, anyway).

Dynamic, personalized content

Audience-directed content is not new; we’ve been doing it for decades building websites and digital properties that give user control of what they want and where they want to go. An audience-directed interface used to take days, weeks, or months to create. With generative A.I., we will build audience-directed assets based on segment and user behavior on the fly with predictive algorithms that will anticipate content most engaging to the audience. What we call marketing automation now will feel slow and arduous compared to what we will build shortly.

Predictive agility

A.I. predictive analytics is another valuable tool that can analyze vast data sets to predict future outcomes, enabling marketers to make well-informed decisions rapidly. We can better anticipate customer demand for specific products, know which messages and propositions are most likely to engage a particular segment, predict market and buyer changes, and help us rapidly evolve more effective strategies.

If we embrace A.I. as a?great leveling up, we’ll see past the 10,000 shifting grains of hype and spot the many small opportunities available to test and gain a foothold in this new world.

The Procter and Gamble ad buy shift was the opening bell to the most significant wave of opportunity and wealth creation in history, signaling the world was going online back in the day. Today we are hearing another bell ring in another great wave of opportunities, and I have no doubt those who embrace the new technologies early will have their very own?great leveling up.

Michael Taylor

SimpleMindinc.com

#marketingai , #futureofmarketing