Growing with AI: A Strategic Roadmap for AI-Driven Marketing Success

(Listen to this post instead of reading it.)

If you’re a modern marketer, you shouldn’t be dipping your toe into the shallow end of the AI pool, but (rather immediately) cannonballing into its deep end.

While AI continues its steady march into business and society, the need for specialized AI marketing talent has not grown as quickly as predicted. We only need point to large layoffs in 2023 as why the transition has been a bit sluggish.

Leadership (potentially) can be looking at GPTs like shake and bake input/output machines and think marketers need only know a few prompts to condense their workloads and they’ll be able to do more with less.

Don’t let this point of view permeate your marketing program.

“Embrace AI not as a short-term cost cutter, but as a long-term strategic partner for sustainable growth and innovation.”

What steps you should be taking to incorporate AI into your marketing teams.

As a marketing leader, I advise that you spend at least five hours weekly to learn and work on the following points. This isn’t a complete list, but it’s a good starting point to get the wheels moving …

1. Conduct an AI marketing audit.

An essential step in your marketing department or studio is to comprehensively analyze and assess the real application of AI in its current state. This involves observing and (honestly) discussing how your team members are utilizing AI and not how they are projected to use it.

Identify the skills gap by inspecting the competencies needed to harness AI fully against the current skill sets present in your team. Realize AI is not only implemented for task automation but for task augmentation. Think about AI as a “collaborative technology,” which can help your team work smarter and enhance their productivity.

Recognize areas where AI can save time, automate manual tasks, improve response times, enhance precision and contribute towards making strategic decisions based on data and predictive insights.

In studying these patterns, you will reshape your team’s time allocation to focus on more strategic and critical aspects of business, fostering efficiency and innovation.)

[Note: If you're an enterprise organization, the use of LLMs and other AI tools for marketing are great at volume and creativity but they may lack the level of guard brand rails you may require, so you definitely need to have the correct authoritative stakeholders (for review) when leveraging AI to develop consumer-facing content to ensure it stays on brand, and is ethical.]

2. Research and map marketing adjacent AI tools across your department.

What tools can you leverage to assist with strategy, tactics, AI lifts that have been added within apps you already are using but may not know about, and, of course, the day-to-day tasks.

Don’t only look in your marketing department for AI efficiencies, but across your entire organization. Do your homework, meet with pertinent stakeholders and matrix it out in your annual roadmap.

Remember, while mastering AI prompts can be a valuable skill in the modern marketing landscape, it’s important to remember that these prompts are tools, not a comprehensive marketing strategy and their use alone doesn’t guarantee desired business outcomes.

“The key to successful implementation of AI in marketing lies in blending the technological capabilities of AI with the creativity and strategic thinking of humans.”

3. Seek reputable AI & ML marketing training and education.

Currently, undergraduate degrees that specifically combine marketing and AI are still rare in 2023. There are several universities such as University of California, Berkeley (course), Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management (course) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (course) offering AI marketing certificates.

The field of marketing and AI is relatively new and evolving, so many MBA programs and Business Analytics degrees will cover this area as part of their curriculum without naming it explicitly.

There are several paid AI online courses including: Coursera, edX and even HubSpot has released a free AI course.

LinkedIn is also a valuable source to follow AI industry leaders who are testing new AI tools and sharing news around the good, the bad and ugly of it all.)

4. Incorporate an AI marketing strategy.

While AI can automate tasks, analyze data and even produce content, the real value of AI in marketing comes from strategically applying it to drive better decision-making, growth and deeper customer relationships.

Holistic Customer Understanding, Content Personalization, Lead Scoring, Predictive Analytics, Chatbots and Customer Service, Search and SEO, Campaign Management, Sentiment Analysis and Competitor Research are some high-level strategic considerations on how to apply AI across a marketing department.

The key to successful implementation of AI in marketing lies in blending the technological capabilities of AI with the creativity and strategic thinking of humans. The focus should be on augmenting human capability with AI to deliver more personalized, efficient and effective marketing.

“Don’t view AI as the replacement of seasoned wisdom; instead, use it to amplify strategic insights for a robust future.”

5. Hire consultants to reshape marketing and cross-departmental teams.

Several businesses, due to pandemic-induced complications, haven’t given due attention to their long-term prospects. They’ve been preoccupied with determining and dealing with the immediate fallout — a combination of extensive layoffs and deciphering effective strategies for the integration of AI and Generative Pre-training Transformers (GPTs) in-house.

The focus, due to the upheavals of the past year, has primarily been on surviving the immediate storm and grasping the intricacies of AI, its potential impact and relevance to their operations. The belief was to first comprehend AI and GPTs’ roles internally before seeking external aid in the form of AI transformation consultants or AI marketing strategists.

However, this approach might not be the most effective in the long run. While understanding AI’s purpose and functionality in-house is vital, reaching out for expert guidance could significantly streamline the transition.

By seeking guidance from AI transformation consultants or AI marketing strategists, businesses can be guided efficiently through the six critical areas of implementing AI — skills gap analysis, employee education, auditing AI usage, understanding AI’s potential in improving productivity, strategically implementing AI and ensuring AI’s effective role in team augmentation.

Going forward, it’s critical for businesses to recognize AI integration is not just about the immediate future. It’s about paving the way for long-term success by transforming operations today. We should start viewing AI as a potent tool not just for survival, but for thriving in the future market landscape, making companies more resilient, innovative and competitive.

6. How AI digital transformation consultants can help you.

These AI professionals can guide companies through the transition, advising them on how to effectively harness AI within their teams.

They can demonstrate ways to streamline processes, automate routine tasks, drive customer engagement, and ultimately, enhance business performance.

These specialists can train your in-house teams on leveraging AI tools, ensuring the company is self-sufficient moving forward and can effectively use these digital tools to navigate future challenges and boost growth.)

Why AI isn’t a cost-cutting route in marketing.

Equating AI adoption to cost-saving measures — such as cutting down or halving seasoned marketers’ salaries — is excessively simplistic and potentially detrimental.

Even the premise that freshly graduated marketers or marketing generalists can smoothly substitute the senior knowledge and insight that seasoned marketers provide is flawed. (This makes me think that younger marketers do social media better because they grew up as digital natives.)

This presumption undermines the wisdom and understanding that comes from years of functioning within an industry, which can hardly be replicated overnight.

AI can augment and enhance human roles but can’t replicate human strategic thinking, judgment, creativity, and, importantly, the unique value seasoned professionals bring to an organization.

Believing AI’s role to be a short-term Band-Aid to slash costs and replace experienced professionals can lead organizations down a dangerous path.

AI’s infancy will mature.

If your organization is truly headed in the direction to more immediately scale back on marketing headcount, you may get away with the compression strategy for the next year (or so).

But as AI matures, so will the skills needed to build, implement and manage advanced AI marketing and organizational systems. It’s going to get more complicated … and more sophisticated … really … fast.

And while universities are developing high-level overview AI & ML course certificates, they currently do not cover the knowledge gap via degree program certificates. It’s going to take colleges and higher ed institutions a few years to develop AI focus within marketing degrees or as a minor.

Right now we’re in the midst of the AI wild west.

You’ll need to sort through and find AI marketing experts and AI marketing consultants to support your organization through these new and potentially challenging, times.

If your company hasn’t started considering AI adoption, now is the right time to start examining how these technologies can transform your operations.

And if you invest early and recruit strongly now in AI marketing knowledge workers, you will most likely gain a long-term competitive advantage.

“Profitable growth isn’t just about AI adoption; it’s about aligning AI power with human intelligence.”

AI is a long-game folks.

The internet turned 50 years old last year.

Can you imagine AI in the next 50?