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AI marketing expert tips can help businesses leverage the power of generative AI to compete effectively with larger, better-resourced competitors. In the age of AI, marketers need to embrace this new capability and act quickly to stay competitive. This article outlines five key strategies that marketers can use to fully leverage generative AI and build or remake an effective marketing capability. By following these tips, businesses can harness the power of AI tools and achieve success in their marketing efforts.
1. Abandon the Gradual Approach
To fully leverage generative AI in marketing, businesses should abandon the gradual approach to building a marketing strategy or capability. Instead of building one capability at a time, businesses should build all functions simultaneously. AI enables businesses to cost-effectively kick off a wide range of capabilities all at once. By integrating numerous marketing capabilities, businesses can enhance their power to influence customers, which is the ultimate goal of marketing.
AI tools enable a small team to quickly develop market, competitor, and customer intelligence and analysis. This analysis can guide businesses in reaching and influencing target customers effectively. With the insights gained from AI analysis, businesses can create or recreate core marketing functions using AI to speed up the process from content ideation to creation and distribution. However, it’s important to note that experienced and creative marketing professionals are still needed to operate the AI tools effectively.
2. Build for Departmental Flexibility
Large marketing departments often suffer from siloing, which hinders their ability to adapt to rapidly changing market conditions. In the age of AI, this can be detrimental to a business’s success. AI enables a relatively flat structure that discourages the development of fiefdoms and encourages flexibility.
To build for departmental flexibility, businesses should adopt a “council” approach where every member sees themselves as part of one team rather than a department. This approach does not mean avoiding the hiring of core function experts; instead, it emphasizes the need for a highly integrated and adaptable team. AI tools can provide a small team with outsized capacity, but this team must be flexible.
Council members should also be able to identify and work closely with stakeholders outside of the marketing team, including members of the sales, finance, product development, and executive teams. These stakeholders are essential to success, as their buy-in is crucial for implementing recommended programs and campaigns.
3. Design Operational Strategies Around Functions
AI tools can significantly improve efficiency across various marketing activities, including market and audience analytics, content creation, performance monitoring, digital and social media marketing, customer engagement, and marketing automation. However, businesses should structure their operational strategies around key marketing functions rather than AI capabilities. Marketing functions remain relevant for a longer time than individual AI tools.
By focusing on the functions necessary to influence buyer behavior and avoiding over-investing in current AI capabilities, businesses can easily adapt their operations to new AI tools and capabilities as they are developed. Successful marketing requires the ability to pivot rapidly, and generative AI in marketing enables organizations to do so more quickly. This ability to pivot must be built into the operational approach.
4. Hire for AI Mindset
Successful marketers in the age of AI are highly flexible and adaptable to new techniques and technologies. When hiring marketing team members, businesses should test candidates for adaptability. Candidates should be familiar with and actively using AI tools in their work. This demonstrates their adaptability and willingness to embrace new technologies.
In addition to adaptability, businesses should look for candidates who are analytical-minded and comfortable evaluating and using data generated by AI. In-depth analytics can provide teams with the speed, flexibility, and accuracy to evaluate results and adjust strategies and tactics. Emotional intelligence is also crucial for marketers to design campaigns that effectively influence buying behavior. Hiring managers should focus on candidates with high emotional intelligence and creativity, as these qualities are essential for success in AI-driven marketing.
5. Don’t Forget the Foundation and Fundamentals
Despite the advancements in AI, marketing still requires a foundation on which to build operational programs and campaigns. This includes establishing marketing and sales goals that are tied back to the organization’s business goals. AI can assist in developing language around value propositions and desired market position, but these must stem from the value a company delivers to its target customers and the aspirations of its leadership and business strategy.
AI tools can be used to analyze target customers, the competitive landscape, and the overall marketing strategy. However, an experienced marketer is needed to provide the proper prompts and evaluate the output with a critical eye. AI tools have not yet mastered creativity, integration, and inception, which are critical elements in building or remaking a marketing capability.
In conclusion, AI provides powerful tools for businesses to leverage in their marketing efforts. By following these AI marketing expert tips, businesses can fully leverage generative AI and compete effectively with larger competitors. However, it’s important to remember that AI tools should be used by humans, not the other way around. Human intuition, creativity, and critical thinking are still essential in the marketing mix, and businesses should strive to avoid sameness and embrace uniqueness in their AI-driven marketing strategies.
