Kim's Marketing Matters | No. 9

I get questions and inquiries to "pick my brain", and a newsletter following a (sounding)B.O.A.R.D. format seemed like the best way to give structure to the hodge podge of reflections and lessons learned. I appreciate you subscribing and please share with anyone who might find this content helpful!

B2B Marketing Trends & Best Practices.

"We need another marketing brochure/datasheet/deck/company overview/flyer/case study."

Do we really, though?

Earlier this year my team and I conducted a content audit across all products.

It provided us with a visual map of gaps and opportunities on what we could focus on next.

It also showed areas we were over-indexing on and may no longer be as relevant.

Aside from external performance, we also began to track internal metrics last year such as asset views and downloads to see if the content type or format requested was actually being used or not.

This not only helps prioritize tactical efforts, but also identify high-level trends in buyer interests and market needs in order to refine content topics and tailor asset types as next steps.

Especially for smaller organizations with no dedicated designers or creative team members, revising, revamping, and repurposing high-quality content and high-performing assets will go much further than creating net new, one-and-done materials that are mediocre, or that maybe two and a half people will look at.

Opinions, Observations & Optimizations I'm making, both at work and/or outside of it.

Marketers are often lifelong learners, by nature/nurture, otherwise you won't last long nor be successful as one.

However, I've been thinking a lot about how humans learn v. how Gen AI learns in the age of iterative technology and large language models.

What gets lost?

A whole lot, when our brains and neural pathways get used to learning by Googling or conversing with ChatGPT for speed and efficiency's sake without questioning its validity, accuracy, or sponsored results, v. learning through multisensory play (creativity, fluid/divergent thinking, ambiguity), collaborating with others (conflict resolution, communication, empathy), or trying to very frustratingly hunt down some piece of obscure research information in a library (persistence, patience).

More of my musings and further reading here.

Analysis of a great marketing ad/campaign I came across this week.

Speaking of learning, it was back to work and school this week and I can't believe I now have a third grader. Where did time go?!!

As a neurodivergent parent of a neurodivergent child, I keep thinking of this timely/timeless ad from Timex as I came back to my own 1,249 unanswered personal and professional emails after a week of digital detox while on vacation. Thankful to my awesome team for keeping things running on track while I was out so that I could come back still feeling zen v. frenzied.

What a great reminder to hyperfocus, put a proud stake in the ground, and embrace a perceived weakness (i.e., no device connectivity) as your biggest superpower and value proposition.

Research & Resources I'm currently digging into.

A new report by the AI-Enabled ICT Workforce Consortium found that 92% of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) jobs will go through moderate to high levels of transformation due to AI.

The research aggregated findings across 47 different ICT job functions, including cybersecurity, data science, and software development, among other "non-technical" titles.

9 out of 10 workers will need reskilling and upskilling, primarily in entry- and mid-level roles.

And while the report states that 100% of jobs will require AI literacy skills, I would also highlight that this also means 100% of roles will require data integrity and data analysis training as well, as AI relies on ethical, quality data.

Read the full report here: The Transformational Opportunity of AI on ICT Jobs

The AI-Enabled ICT Workforce Consortium is led by Cisco and joined by Accenture, Eightfold, Google, IBM, Indeed, Intel, Microsoft, and SAP.

Data point(s) that caught my attention.

According to LinkedIn and Microsoft, there's been a 142x increase in LinkedIn members adding AI skills like ChatGPT and Copilot to their profiles since late 2023.

Are you one of these folks? Y/N

If yes, where/how are you learning these skills?

If not, do you plan on to?