This article is about marketing’s future, which AI may or may not play a role in. Marketing leaders must think about how to future-proof their teams and keep up with whatever comes their way. In other words, they need to innovate.

There are three decisions all marketing teams need to make to design a future-friendly version of themselves. They must breathe, be ruthless about value, and identify timeless skills.

‘Keep calm and carry on’

You might have seen this phrase painted on mugs or t-shirts. It originated in World War II when the British government used it as a motivational message to help citizens survive horrific situations.

Today, it serves to remind us to slow down. Seriously, marketing teams need to take a breath. I started the article by talking about serious challenges, but before we jump into solving problems, teams need to be in the right state of mind.

While things change rapidly in marketing, that doesn’t mean you need to run around anxiously. It is far better to think about issues systematically and slowly. Decisions made out of fear or panic are never optimal. They put too much weight on the worst-case scenarios and completely disregard the upside and possibilities.

Look at how the travel industry reacted to pandemic lockdowns. Most airlines started to lay off people left and right. When travel demand rebounded, many were short-staffed and couldn’t deal with the demand. The outlier here was Ryanair which avoided doing major layoffs, rotated their staff through the small number of available flights, and was able to rebound to full capacity rapidly.

Ryanair didn’t make decisions based on fear or panic. They correctly assumed that travel restrictions wouldn’t last forever and were better off being optimistic. There are always options even in the worst situations, but you will only see them if you’re relaxed.

Before you start hiring prompt engineers, buying the latest AI technology or firing people, take a breath. Get some sleep and come back to the problems with a fresh mind.

Dig deeper: AI in marketing: 7 areas where it shines and struggles

What is marketing actually producing?

Somewhere along the way, marketing has forgotten what they are actually generating for the business. It’s not just writing funny social media posts, designing beautiful landing pages or developing clever taglines.

If that’s all you think marketing is, then I understand why technology like AI can be scary. If your entire job is to write social media posts and then schedule them, you’re bound to be replaced.

Marketing is about helping the customer buy. That means educating the customer, helping them make a decision and then reinforcing the positive elements of their purchase.

Marketing will never go away because we love to buy things. I love to visit Nordstrom — even though they are leaving Canada — but I wouldn’t say I like shopping at their stores.

Nordstrom stores have 20-30 employees, so you’re constantly being interrupted by someone offering to help. I can’t go more than two minutes before a sales rep approaches me. We love to buy, but we don’t like being sold to.

Marketing leaders need to fight for the appropriate perception internally. If other units view marketing as fluffy or a cost center, you have lost. Marketing is a partner in driving revenue and is essential for keeping a company growing at a healthy pace.

Everything else is optional. It doesn’t matter if people or AI write your social media posts or your content or create your images. The big picture doesn’t change. Let the robots take over. It gives humans more time to think deeply about tackling the big picture.

Dig deeper: How to make revenue generation a company-wide effort

What are timeless skills?

The world is obsessed with change. We breathlessly talk about how X will change the world, how X will remove 25% of jobs and how we will soon find ourselves living in a Black Mirror episode.

The reality is that we overestimate the rate and depth of change. Despite the advancements in smartphones, some people still use cheques. I was actually paying my rent by cheque until a couple of years ago. 

We may forget that smartphones are phones, but plenty of people still make phone calls. It may seem like everyone is moving to electric cars, but I bet we will see gasoline cars for the next 100 years — maybe even longer.

Some things are timeless, even in a world of robots. People generally prefer to interact with humans, people need help making choices and people want to be entertained.

As you build the marketing team of the future, think of the skills that will always be in demand. Here are a few for you to consider:

• Customer experience: How do consumers like to buy and how can you optimize the buying experience? This skill is part psychology, part empathy and part creativity. 
• Listening: In a world where everyone is talking, who’s actually listening? What do customers actually want but aren’t saying? 
• Branding: Forget about hacks like mispronounced words and look for people who are obsessed with building 100-year-old brands. 
• Value mindset: Tools are ephemeral, but providing value is not. Look for people who can make the distinction and aren’t caught up in seeing themselves as tool operators.

Conclusion

The death of marketing may be premature. Despite the buffeting winds of change, marketing will be around for a long time. It does need reinventing, though. For too long, marketing has been obsessed with technology. It is losing touch with the human element of marketing and how that can help drive value for the business.

Low-difficulty marketing tasks are going away, and that’s a good thing. It will force good marketers to adapt and think hard about their roles. At the end of the day, we are all in the people business. The challenge is seeing that through the pixels.

The post Designing the marketing team of the future appeared first on MarTech.

Marketing teams should focus their efforts on one of the most tangible areas of improvement: decision-making. Real change happens when different decisions are made. In this article, you will learn how embracing diversity leads to better decisions.

Dig deeper: What are diversity, equity and inclusion, and why do marketers need them?

A diverse workforce leads to diverse ideas

I believe that what most companies want when they talk about diversity is actually the diversity of thought that is supported by diversity in the workplace. If the same kinds of people make all the decisions, you will end up with stale or tone-deaf ideas.

Look at what happened when companies started releasing ads early in the pandemic. The following video shows how similar many ads were in structure, tone and messaging.

When an organization lacks diversity of thought, they are bound to look and sound like everyone else. Marketing is supposed to be the creative engine of a company, but it can end up feeling like an echo chamber. AI is only likely to make this worse. What will happen when everyone is asking similar questions to the same chatbot? 

This is where diversity in the workplace can help marketing teams innovate. All teams are sitting on a goldmine of ideas but don’t always see them. Perhaps it is because the idea is inside the head of an intern or someone else whose contribution is overlooked. Many teams don’t have a good way of surfacing ideas democratically.

Instead, many teams are stuck making the same mistakes based on their biases and preferences. Diversity of thoughts and inclusion in decision-making allows everyone to contribute in tangible ways. 

Dig deeper: The business imperative behind inclusion and diversity

Decision-making evolves slowly

Many marketing executives will agree with my description of the status quo above. The next step is taking the necessary steps to change it.

Some diversity advocates push for initiatives that imply significant leadership changes. For most companies, drastic and dramatic ways of making changes will cause more chaos than good. In reality, decision-making evolves slowly over time. Executives have a deep conviction that their job is to make the most critical decisions. That’s what their title and salary reflect.

I always tell executives to expand their expectations to focus on helping their teams make the best decisions possible. They might need to make the final call themselves — for example, on hiring — but they can also work with others to develop and implement ideas.

Executives can start to change how their team makes decisions slowly. They can slowly remove themselves from the day to day and move to more strategic decisions. This will allow a diversity of views to emerge and be heard.

A decision-making matrix for marketing leaders

I created a simple model called the Leadership Decision-Making Matrix based on the work of Victor H. Vroom and Phillip W. Yetton. My model has three types of decisions, and I also created four criteria to determine which one you should choose.

Leaders can make a decision themselves, with others or delegate it completely. There are four factors to consider: 

• Speed.
• Conflict of interest.
• Empowerment.
• Information. 

Every decision presents you with a variety of options. 

Individual decisions

The first option involves making a decision independently. You may need to gather external information from documents or rely on your internal thoughts. In either case, you will weigh all the evidence and decide on your own. Many leaders believe that all their crucial decisions fall under this category, and they bear the weight of their organization every time they make a decision.

Group decisions

The second option is involving others in the decision-making process. You could ask a colleague or team member for their opinion or formally gather a group to discuss the decision. At the end of the discussion, you can decide for yourself or delegate the responsibility to the group.

Group decisions can foster consensus and ensure key opinions are taken into account. However, depending on the nature of the decision, they can also lead to disastrous outcomes.

This approach is where you can start to make diversity real. It’s no longer just you making all the decisions, but you’re letting others have real input. For example, frontline employees in a hotel will typically know the most common issues guests face. If you’re running a hotel but never asked these employees for their opinion, you would make decisions based on incomplete information. 

Delegating decision-making

The third option involves delegating the decision to others. In this scenario, you completely remove yourself from the decision-making process and support whatever decision is made by those appointed to make it. 

Delegation is essential for executives to maintain a healthy work-life balance, although not enough utilize this strategy. It is also crucial to note that delegation can backfire if the people appointed lack the necessary skills or information to make the right decision.

Dig deeper: By the numbers: Diversity and inclusion are good business

Choosing your decision-making approach

Making a decision yourself is the fastest, while delegating is often the slowest. Speed can be just as important as getting a decision right. Executives who are overwhelmed tend to make slower decisions as you can imagine.

You can deliberately empower your team members by involving them. Executives must groom the next generation of leaders. You have to give them real power. Allowing them to make certain decisions is one step in that direction.

For others to make decisions — in a group or by themselves — they need the necessary information. Netflix has taken this idea to an extreme by allowing unprecedented access to company information. It’s up to you to decide the level, but it needs to be enough to make important decisions.

Based on these factors, you can decide how to start letting go of decisions. I once worked with a CEO who would micromanage everybody, including myself. He was constantly bouncing between teams and making all the decisions for his team. He was the bottleneck in his company and was overworked.

Diversity of thought means having a diverse team and allowing all group members to have input into decision-making. This is how diversity becomes tangible instead of just well-meaning words on a wall.

Making diversity work for your marketing team

The political nature of some diversity initiatives shouldn’t turn off marketing teams. Focus on tangible ways where you can make diversity work. 

Decisions are the juncture where real change happens. You can debate things, write mantras on a wall and take people through all kinds of training, but if they are making the same decisions as in the past, something isn’t working. Focus on using decisions to realize the value of diversity on your marketing team. 

The post How marketing leaders can make diversity work within their teams appeared first on MarTech.

This is a timely article, especially since ChatGPT went viral. If you haven’t been following the news, ChatGPT is a project by OpenAI, a company working on making AI tangible in the business world. It functions like any kind of chatbot where you can ask all kinds of questions and get answers back in seconds.

The “cool” factor is that you can ask highly specific questions and get back answers that could have been written by a human. For example, I asked ChatGPT to tell me the three most important elements in marketing but to give me the answer in the form of a haiku.

Here’s what I got back.

The trouble with AI is sorting through the hype. Parlor tricks like my haiku question are cool, especially on Linkedin. But we need to get to the essence of the value AI can provide while being clear on what it cannot do. Here are a few guidelines for thinking about AI in 2023 and beyond. 

Dig deeper: Why we care about AI in marketing

Where AI shines right now

AI is still in its early stages. Despite what you may see and hear in conferences and Linkedin posts, AI still has a long way to go. It can do several things quite well but it still struggles with others.

If you read or follow certain people, you would think we are just a few months away from living in a Black Mirror episode where AI rules everything.

Keep in mind that some use cases of AI — such as self-driving cars — have been “10 years away” for more than 50 years. I don’t doubt that we will accomplish certain feats but it will take longer than expected. 

In the meantime, here are the areas where AI can legitimately help marketing teams. 

1. Cleaning data

Marketers have a love-hate relationship with Google Sheets. It’s common to encounter dirty data that needs to be cleaned before it can be used.

I recently helped a team clean an Excel file with hundreds of contact requests structured in the worst way possible. AI — and even ChatGPT — can help you here.

There are now Google Sheets extensions that sort through your data and apply transformations. You even see the beginning of this kind of shortcut built into Google Sheets directly by suggesting formulas you can use.

2. Transcribing videos

Video captions are huge in today’s world — just look at any TikTok video. Luckily transcribing is becoming easier with AI, and it’s surprisingly accurate. 

You can do it after the video is recorded or even in real time. The addition of subtitles provides all kinds of benefits and you no longer need a human to give you great captions. 

3. Creating assets

The days of Getty images might be over. AI can create images or assets of all kinds. I saw a project that creates human avatars to be used in marketing. The assets look realistic and don’t carry complex usage licenses.

There will still be demand for pictures of real places and events but other artistic work will be slowly replaced by AI-generated images.

4. Surfacing insights

Tools like Google Analytics are using AI to surface insights from your data. Some insights are pointless, while others are worth exploring. Expect to see more of this kind of data analysis as a way to sort through the increasing amount of data that marketing teams collect.

Marketers do not lack data, but insights. AI might finally be the breakthrough that allows us to dig through a never-ending pile of data points. 

Dig deeper: ChatGPT to support digital experience analytics

Where AI struggles

We are not being replaced by AI — yet. Maybe poem writers might struggle to find work but AI can’t match certain human skills. The debate on whether this will always be true is a topic for another article.

AI should be viewed as support for marketing. You will still need real humans for several tasks, but thanks to AI, you can free up your time to tackle the three areas below. 

5. Creativity

AI can surface insights but creativity is still the realm of humans. Deciding what campaigns to run, how to appeal to human desires and how to bring it all together is something only humans can do.

Kayak recently ran ads — the Kayak Deniers — that were brainstormed by AI. They looked at the language and topics that were popular in social media and then created ads around them. 

They are clever but will be less impressive once everyone starts doing them. If everyone is using the same algorithms, you will end up with the same answers. Hence, the value of human creativity.

6. Uniqueness

While AI text may be factual, it is missing the unique voice of humans. We all know authors we could recognize by simply reading a few sentences of their writing. You can still infuse the concept of a voice into all your content.

AI will kill boring content that simply states facts. That’s probably for the best. If someone wants the facts about B2B marketing, they should go to Wikipedia. If they want to solve their problems, they need humans to help them.

7. Strategy

Humans still need to figure out the strategy. Making these decisions isn’t just about looking at the data but taking into account a variety of factors. Sometimes marketing teams have to make choices that don’t match the data because their experience (a.k.a., gut) says so.

We can see this play out in the chess world. World-class players like Magnus Carlsen rely heavily on AI to prepare for matches and run through different positions. However, during games, Carlsen is known to make the opposite move a computer would recommend. He knows that his opponents are looking at the same data creating an opportunity to make unexpected decisions.

Expect to see more companies rely on AI and then be surprised when competitors make seemingly “wrong” moves that work. Strategy will simply evolve to take into account what kinds of algorithms other companies might be using and how they can be defeated. 

Dig deeper: 17 AI-powered writing tools and how to make best use of them

AI is here to stay

The rise of AI will continue. You would be surprised at how much this innovation touches today, but most of it happens behind the scenes. AI is freeing us from mundane tasks so we can focus on those things that truly matter.

We must embrace AI and use it to drive revenue and growth within our teams. In an era of decreasing budgets and higher expectations, marketing needs to pour more resources into creativity with fewer people. AI will help bridge that by becoming one of your most effective unpaid assistants.

The post AI in marketing: 7 areas where it shines and struggles appeared first on MarTech.

I’m seeing a similar shift at other companies. It is increasingly clear collecting more data won’t move the needle. Companies want their data to help them make better decisions and more of it isn’t always the answer.

Here are some ideas on getting more insights without needing more data. 

The broken link in data

The obsession with data has protected this area from deep scrutiny. Few people would argue against the importance of data, even though it’s not always clear if it’s actually helping. 

That’s because there’s a missing link between it and business outcomes. To be fair, the connection isn’t always obvious. Unlike other things, such as paid advertising or sales reps, causation can be difficult to prove. Did data help you increase sales or was it something else?

The fuzziness has prevented companies from quantifying the true ROI of data. Since ROI is tricky to measure, many companies avoid the discussion altogether. Data is seen as an operating cost that doesn’t require a cost analysis. 

It shouldn’t be this way.

Macy’s is a great example of data driving better decisions and tangible value. Specifically, it let them avoid the inventory glut that plagued other retailers. Looking at their customers’ spending habits (through co-branded credit cards) they noticed more spending going into services. This aligned with other economic indicators and the surge in spending in other service industries like travel.

Macy’s leadership team has a monthly meeting where they discuss all of these data points and focus on determining the “so what” behind the data. At one of these they decided to change their upcoming orders and buy more products used for going back to the office or on vacation. 

Data helped Macy’s avoid costly inventory waste and shows how the broken link in data can be fixed. In essence, Macy’s has a clear process for making data-driven decisions. While you may not have the same resources as Macy’s, you can achieve many of the same benefits by taking advantage of a simple idea: decision playbooks. 

Dig deeper: Why we care about data-driven marketing

Quantifying data ROI using decision playbooks

Data is supposed to help individuals make better decisions. The problem is that how individuals make decisions is opaque at many companies.

This is where decision playbooks come in. A decision playbook is a document outlining the exact steps needed to make a decision. Let’s say that your team wants to run an A/B test on a key part of the conversion funnel. Do you know all the decisions are needed to launch and evaluate any given test?

Here’s a short list of what you would need to decide.

• Step 1: Determine the biggest opportunity area.
• Step 2: Find a KPI to measure success.
• Step 3: Design a test, including multiple variations.
• Step 4: Evaluate the test impact.
• Step 5: Capture learnings for future tests.

You can already see where data comes in. Steps 1-3 will use some kind of data analysis. Other decisions may also include some data once you get deeper into things.

A decision playbook would outline all the decisions needed to run a successful A/B test. More importantly, a clear playbook makes it easier to know where data is playing a role. After you run through the playbook, you can determine the value generated (e.g., a 5% increase in sales).

Data isn’t the only thing that drives success so we can’t attribute 100% of the value to it. In my experience, an attribution of 10%-20% is reasonable. If we take the low end of 10%, we can start to see the value of data to your organization.

The process here isn’t complex. If you consistently capture the value generated by key decisions and then attribute a portion of it to data, you will start to justify the value of your data. Best of all, you can see how this number changes over time. 

Dig deeper: Why testing is a marketer’s most powerful tool

Designing your own playbooks

Every marketing team can start taking advantage of decision playbooks. However, you need a proven approach to get up and running quickly. Here’s how I typically help companies bring consistency to their decision-making.

1. Raise awareness of consistent decision-making

Many teams often experience inconsistent results. Some campaigns are great while others miss the mark. The distinction comes down to how decisions were made. Without a playbook, it can be difficult to optimize these kinds of decisions.

2. Determine the most important decisions your team makes

A/B tests, new campaigns, go-to-market strategies and others typically make the top of the list. They are decisions that happen regularly and require a significant investment of time or resources. 

3. Design what the ideal decision-making process should be and compare it to what is right now

You will find some steps are often skipped and others aren’t fully completed. Common mismatches I see include not validating the data used, lack of alignment with the overall strategy and failing to get feedback from the rest of the team.

4. Train all relevant people on the decision playbook

The playbook is something anyone can reference when confronting these decisions. Just like doctors or pilots use a checklist — despite thousands of hours of training — marketing teams also need guidance on how to make the best decisions, every single time.

You can’t rely on luck

Marketing teams cannot rely on luck when making decisions. Hoping that they looked at all the relevant data and interpreted the results correctly.

Decision playbooks will start to make the link between data and insights clearer. It will allow teams to justify their spending in this area and best of all, drive data-driven decision-making.

It all starts by making the decision to get more value out of your data.

The post How to quantify the ROI of data using decision playbooks appeared first on MarTech.

Switzerland gives marketing executives a few lessons on how to handle difficult situations. Executives are confronted with a need to respond to current affairs, and often to tricky political events. CMOs and marketing leaders need to make sense of their stances.

It’s not just about politics. There are plenty of conversations today about values, commitment to popular causes such as climate change and direct action in response to government actions. Marketing leaders constantly tell me how difficult it can be to tackle these decisions. In this post, I want to share a few lessons on how marketing leaders and CMOs can handle these situations.

Remember, you always have a choice

Let’s start the conversation by reminding yourself that you always have a choice. Nike may choose to release ads supporting Black Lives Matter, but it doesn’t mean every company should necessarily follow their lead. Marketing teams can feel a suffocating desire to respond to the events around them, but sometimes, the right answer is to be silent.

The first responsibility of a business is to its shareholders and customers — marketing is meant to support the business. In some cases, companies can help the business by taking clear stances, but that’s not always the case. Unlike individuals, it’s not just a matter of what is ethically right or aligned to your individual beliefs. It’s a question of what is right for the business. 

The fundamentals of good marketing haven’t changed much in recent times. Marketing is still built on strong brands, clear messaging and tangible value for customers. Choosing to layer on values that align with certain causes or initiatives is an extra choice that not every company has to make.

For brands, the biggest risk isn’t staying on the sidelines; it’s hypocrisy. Consumers can tell when a brand is being honest. I am reminded of pride parades that corporate brands have completely taken over. At this point, it feels like a checklist item for them. Consumers notice these actions.

Wading into controversial topics can be tricky and unpredictable. Marketing leaders must act like doctors, remembering their first rule is to “do no harm.” Even large companies like Pepsi can make serious blunders — such as the Kendall Jenner campaign that was meant to promote a message of inclusion but created a completely different response. 

In those moments where you feel the pressure to respond, remember that you have a choice. 

Be careful of outliers

Outliers are always louder than the average. Most U.S. consumers identify as “moderate.” However, political campaigns can make it seem like the country is divided into opposites. Choosing a side may be completely unnecessary, depending on the makeup of your customer base.

While it is true that some consumers will go out of their way to support brands that also align with their beliefs, every company needs to check if this assumption applies to them. Burger King has made public statements in their ads, such as the “Equal Buns” campaign, but it’s hard to imagine that politics is what consumers expect from a fast food company.

Some argue for the benefits of polarizing statements. It is better to have a small group of passionate customers than a large group of ambivalents. The evidence for this idea is contradictory. Some studies will show increased support for brands that have made public statements, while others show the opposite. 

Delta lobbied against the voting restrictions in Georgia in a clear statement of support, but how many people will be choosing or avoiding Delta because of their actions? It’s hard to know. 

The same can be said for employees. Companies like Basecamp and Coinbase have made news after banning controversial conversations. You can find reports of people quitting in response but also those who support the separation of work and personal beliefs. On the other hand, Netflix has made it clear they support free speech, and if their employees don’t like their content choices, they are free to find another job.

We can criticize or laud individual companies based on our own beliefs, but every company has to make choices based on their unique makeup of customers and employees. When I work with companies on these issues, I ask what they think would be best for the business. That is the starting point for tackling thorny issues.

What’s best for the business?

The idea that businesses are a force for good isn’t new. Peter Drucker talked about the role organizations played in society 50 years ago, and the debate continues to this day. I contend that businesses first have a responsibility to their customers and shareholders. As a business becomes more successful, it can explore offering support to their local communities — whatever that means for the business.

Brands should approach making statements with a bias toward the evidence.

First, survey your customers to determine their level of interest in specific beliefs. You may discover that you serve young consumers who tend to be politically active. These customers could be perfect candidates for a more outspoken brand.

I am skeptical that consumers are consciously evaluating every brand to see if it aligns with their beliefs. I don’t think most consumers buying laundry detergent think, “I wonder if P&G is doing any work against racism?” They simply buy the best detergent for them and move on. Every brand needs to understand their own customers before making assumptions. 

Second, you should explore what statements to make. It can be tempting to get into the “statement business” and start announcing your beliefs on everything. These actions have to support the core business of marketing. You need to choose carefully where to make a statement and where you might stay quiet. There are far too many issues in the world for any company to get involved.

Third, keep your focus on the fundamentals. CMOs have the shortest tenure on the Fortune 500 and not because they aren’t outspoken enough. Marketing needs to make a solid case for its impact on revenue and the business. Communicating beliefs is a “nice to have” once the fundamentals are handled.

What are your beliefs?

It can be unthinkable to imagine a country staying neutral during World War II but Switzerland proved otherwise. Brands need to think through their beliefs and what they care about. They may realize that they do not need to make political statements. It’s not important to their customers or their business. 

Like other things in life, peer pressure can seem daunting. Every brand chooses sides, and that’s what modern marketing is about. It’s more important to stand by your beliefs regardless of what your peers are doing. The best brands make choices that make sense for them and not others. 

The post Should CMOs be political? Lessons from Nike, Delta, Burger King and others appeared first on MarTech.

What would be comforting is a solution. Well, here you go.

I’ve helped many marketing teams close the gap in their technical capabilities without writing a single job description. The reality is you have many more options than you can envision right now. All you need to do is expand your frame.

Expand Your Frame

When making a decision, framing helps you focus on the proper outcomes. The hard part may be setting the frame to the right size. Make it too small and you miss big chunks of the panorama. Too large and you lose the details. 

It’s also a fantastic way to think more strategically. While others are getting up in tactics, e.g., hiring, you can think of the outcome you’re hoping to achieve and determine the fastest way to get there. 

The frame here is not that you need to hire someone, it’s that you need a certain set of tasks completed. Instead of hiring you should consider two other options: automation, i.e. no-code, and adjusting your team’s priorities. Looked at that way, you may already have all the skills you need.

No-Code & the New Engineers

The rise of no-code software tools is one of the most significant developments in the marketing world. No-code tools are meant to be used by non-technical folks. They have drag-and-drop interfaces and tend to be highly user-friendly. Examples include Zapier, Tray.io, and countless others.

A huge problem for marketing teams is their technology is too complex. Doing anything significant means getting an engineer. Even sending emails requires technical help. With multiple no-code options in every category, there’s no need for this.

Instead of hiring someone to support marketing automation, find a software solution anyone can use. In practical terms, it means avoiding options like Salesforce, which requires in-house expertise, hundreds of pages of documentation and the proper alignment of the moon to make it work. Other solutions are drastically easier to use, though they may have less functionality. 

I tell my clients to prioritize the ability to connect their tools rather than just their raw capabilities. You may have the best email marketing solution, but it’s not as valuable if you can’t easily export data to a CRM. Be biased towards no-code, and you can avoid hiring.

I recently helped clients connect their Hubspot, Google Sheets, and a website using only no-code tools like Zapier. We were able to get everything done in a matter of weeks with no involvement from their engineers. In addition, the marketing team could send better-targeted emails and measure their performance better. All they needed were the right tools.

Adjust Your Priorities

Think over how your team spent their time over the past week. Were they working on the highest impact tasks? Unfortunately, there’s a good chance the answer is no. It’s easy to fall prey to “busy work” or get stuck doing jobs that should be automated.

Bill Gates once said there’s no point hiring someone to do an inefficient process. You’re just scaling bad habits. Instead, clean up your processes before adding more bodies. You may discover plenty of time to research software tools and tackle new tasks.

Dig deeper: Broaden your marketing ops talent perspective

The fastest way to adjust your priorities is to run a time audit of your team. Ask each member to record how they spent their time over an average week. You can then work with them to figure out how to remove tasks from their plates. Low-hanging fruit includes manual input, work that no one sees or failure work—where tasks are redone multiple times. 

After running an audit for one team we found they spent way more time cleaning up data rather than using it. We figured out what was causing the errors and duplication, solving them through formulas and other measures. They were able to shift around 20 hours to other tasks. Many teams have similar hidden opportunities.

Digital-First Means Being Lean

Being digitally savvy isn’t about hiring as many people as possible. Digital channels offer the ability to be lean as you scale. Think of influencers who run channels with millions of views out of their parent’s basement. They have a lean but effective production. Years ago, the Instagram team had less than 100 people before being acquired by Facebook.

As you shift into digital, you have the opportunity to restructure your marketing teams and take advantage of trends like no-code. The first step is to expand your frame. After that, you might see more opportunities.

The post Closing your team’s technical gap without hiring appeared first on MarTech.

Marketing teams need higher standards for what is considered an insight. AI is now deployed in analytics tools to surface insights faster than you can read them. Take a look at how Google Analytics does it.

You can’t let analytics software tell you what an insight is. Only your team can determine that. Of course, the software can help, but the final decision is yours. If you don’t maintain standards, your team will eat the equivalent of “fast food” insights.

The rise of fast food insights

Fast food tastes great but has few nutrients. I love Popeyes and will go out of my way to get it every once in a while. However, I don’t pretend to make healthy choices when eating there. 

I work with marketing teams, and I see “fast food insights” all over the place. They report metrics they don’t care about, like pageviews, bounce rates, etc. They celebrate if their likes increase to an arbitrary target without considering the metric.

Insights need to drive behaviors. Do you change anything in your strategy if a metric goes up or down? If not, then why are you tracking it? It would be like checking the weather every day but deciding to wear whatever you want regardless of the forecast. 

Like fast food, these kinds of insights can feel great.

I once worked with a marketing team that measured their agencies’ performance by pageviews. Their paid spend was directed at the channels that drove the most visits. There wasn’t enough discussion on what the users were doing once they landed on the website.

Your team needs to have a balanced diet. Fast food insights are fine every once in a while but not as your daily bread.

Fast food insights are also popular because they give the impression that someone is data-driven. Simply working with numbers can provide confidence to anyone. However, don’t let the means justify the ends. Data-driven is not about working with numbers but about driving meaningful results for the business through the help of data.

What are your standards?

Take a second to think about what standards are enforced within your team. Many companies default to standards set externally. Their customers expected them to reply within a specific time frame or expect a certain price from their products. Investors expect specific revenue targets and goals.

You need your own standards. I once worked with a consumer fitness company with 30 pages of stringent branding standards on the proper sizing of their logo and specific fonts that should be used.

As a result, all media that represented the brand was always consistent. Perhaps their standards were too rigid, but at least they knew what they wanted and weren’t willing to settle for less.

Great companies impose high standards on themselves. Think about Gucci for a second. Do you think they care about why people don’t buy their products? Unlikely. 

There are countless reasons why people don’t purchase their products. Instead, Gucci focuses on why people buy and how to get more of those customers. They don’t lower their standards, i.e., price. Instead, they raise them even further.

Raising your standards on insights

The data world is going through a fascinating change. For a long time, the issue was too much data. Then software and AI got better, and now the issue is too many insights. Creating standards for insights is the long-term solution.

When it comes to insights, the most important element is being able to explain its importance. In my first book, “The Data Mirage,” I discuss the WDIM or “What Does It Mean” question.

WDIM is a simple reminder that every insight needs to have a believable explanation. For example, if 40% of your customers come from Kansas, what does that mean? Should you change your marketing to focus on that region? Is that good or bad? Are these the customers you want to be attracting?

WDIM starts to get to the heart of the issue. Raising the standard means that you won’t consider an insight until there is a clear WDIM attached to it. If someone is sharing an insight, ask for the WDIM. In slide decks and reports, WDIM should be the focus.

Discussing insights without WDIM is a waste of time. Over time, your definition of a good WDIM can increase. It might not be enough to raise a couple of good questions. You might be looking for strategic connections to the business or relevance to current campaigns. 

You can also think about imposing technical criteria on your insights. For example, I have helped companies impose minimum requirements such as:

• Statistically valid
• The pattern is seen over multiple days or weeks
• Insight verified by two or more data sources
• Builds on a new previous successful insight

If your team is just getting started with data insights, it still makes sense to enforce standards early. You don’t want to build a culture that believes in weak insights. Over the long term, it can hurt trust in the data. Why would anyone trust insights that haven’t proven helpful to the business?

For many teams, enforcing standards starts with your technical data people. They know the data in and out and are the first line of defense against vanity insights. For non-technical folks, you need to go through coaching on how to spot “fast food” insights. Basic training in probabilities and statistics helps work through the hype.

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The importance of the customer is so significant that most of the marketing buzzwords are about them — customer journey, customer experience (CX), customer insights, and so forth. Any marketing book is bound to include a chapter on why you should be obsessed with the customer.

However, who is validating all of this customer focus? Is it your team or your customers? It’s easy to think that you’re putting the customer first while making it harder for them to buy from your brand. Let’s look at what it really means to be customer-centric.

The reality of being a customer

It’s hard being a customer. Why do we keep coming across hurdles to purchase the products or services we want if we are so important? Think of the examples where buying was a frustrating experience.

You apply for a job by uploading your resume, and you’re then asked to enter the very same details on the next screen. You try to file an insurance claim, and suddenly, it’s impossible to get someone on the phone. Your flight is canceled due to COVID restrictions, but it takes two hours to reach customer service.

Recently, I was staying at a Hilton in Miami. I had a long day of traveling, and I couldn’t figure out how to turn on the lights for the life of me. Luckily, the Hilton sent me an SMS confirming everything was in order. I replied that I couldn’t find the light switch for the lights. They replied that they were unable to help me with this request. This idea was designed with great intention but poor execution.

Every day we face similar challenges when interacting with businesses. I imagine that every marketing team constantly talks about how important their customers are and then makes them go through unnecessary hoops. Would you put your mother through this kind of service?

Closing the reality gap

When working with marketing teams, I tell them they can close the reality gap by doing one simple thing. They should open their notebooks or laptops and get ready to take notes as the instructions are somewhat complex. Ask the customer.

I hear you! You’re already asking the customer, right? Apart from poor service, we are now bombarded with customer satisfaction surveys. The Hilton could not help me, and they also wanted me to fill out a survey to know how they did. Is anyone actually reading these survey responses?

Let’s dispense with vanity metrics like NPS. It’s interesting to know that someone is a promoter, but how does that improve the service? Marketing teams need tangible feedback. You can get that in three ways.

1. Shop the business as a regular customer

Airlines executives will book a first-class flight to see first-hand the “customer experience.” However, first-class is a different world than the economy. They should look at economy class and board last to see what most customers go through.

Marketing teams need to know what an “average” customer actually sees and not just focus on the 1% experience. Flying first class is amazing in any airline. Flying economy in some airlines feels like punishment. 

2. Quality over quantity in feedback

I worked with a company that would always call customers to get their feedback. Calling doesn’t scale, but you’re bound to learn more from a few calls than from reading thousands of surveys—if anyone reads them at all.

Technology has made it easier to get feedback, but teams don’t need quantity, they actionable insights. Designing experiences for real people is easier than creating them from random data points. 

Despite my expertise in data, I constantly tell teams that they need to look beyond the data points. Real people are hiding underneath all of their charts. Talk to them.

3. Get an outside perspective

Services like secret shoppers are beneficial because you can get unbiased feedback. You might overlook specific details because of your familiarity with your product or service. 

I recently used a self-checkout machine, and the grocer ran into critical issues because someone tried scanning an orange instead of typing in the number. The customer could shut down three out of the four machines with the same error. I can’t imagine scanning an orange is an obscure or unexpected customer action.

Don’t forget the baby

One popular comedy trope is when parents “forget” their baby and drive off without them. I imagine this sketch resonates more with non-parents than people who have encountered something similar. 

In customer experiences, you need to avoid “forgetting the baby,” aka the customer. It’s easy to get caught up in what you could do and forget if the customer even cares about it. It’s nice to develop an app with all the bells and whistles but do the customers even need it?

Costco’s fast-food menu is an excellent example of customer-first thinking. The prices have barely changed in years, the food is delivered quickly, and purchasing is easy. Costco does not add complexity where it’s not needed. 

Despite growing to behemoth levels, Amazon still delivers packages on time. It’s cool to purchase anything from one place, but the core promise is a painless buying experience. It’s easy to refund items, and they arrive on time. That’s what the customer cares about.

Putting customers at the center will continue to attract headlines. Companies will claim that they are now focusing on the right variables—though it’s unclear what they were focusing on before. Teams need to ensure that these aren’t just words on a wall. Someone needs to consult the customers to hear what they think about your efforts.

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