Like any field, marketing is always changing, and so are our roles in it.
Thanks to the digital marketing revolution, marketing doesn’t look anything today like it did 10 years ago.
And a marketing mix may look very different in 10 years, with privacy pushes, new tools, and budding technology built on AI (Artificial Intelligence) / machine learning.
And that’s OK.
There will even be new marketing jobs we can’t even picture yet, and yours might get easier as automation takes over your more tedious tasks and gives you better data.
Just as pre-industrial revolution workers couldn’t have dreamt of software engineering jobs (let alone remote ones!), AI may create marketing needs you can’t yet imagine and jobs that don’t exist yet.
It will certainly change the way you work.
Combined with the way it can redirect, automate, and absorb some of the necessary yet less inspiring work you do (think tracking reports), AI leaves a lot to be excited about.
What Is AI, Anyway?
AI is a set of software and tools that combines machine learning with robust data sets to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence and that enables problem-solving.
When it comes to marketing, AI has been a silent member of your team for a long time.
AI enables:
- Predictive marketing – AI has been fueling predictive marketing for years. From predictive product suggestions to lead scoring to social media tools that foretell the best time and kinds of images to post, predictive marketing empowers marketers by equipping them to engage prospects at the most opportune times in the most opportune ways.
- Targeted advertising – By tracking customer engagement and buying habits, AI improves ROI by making advertising dollars go further, generating leads more efficiently, and driving conversions more often.
- Content distribution – AI clues you in to which content resonates with your customers and leads them to take action. It also helps you deliver the right content to them at the right moment, when they’re most likely to buy.
- Understanding your customer – At its core, AI helps you understand your customer. It gives you insight into how they behave and what they value, and ideally, how and when they are most likely to engage with your products and services.
New Tools, New You
AI automates a lot of your tracking, analysis, and campaign planning, freeing you up to focus on the more creative aspects of your work.
It also offers you key insights into your customer behavior, informing your decision-making and helping you produce significant ROI in terms of leads, traffic, and sales.
AI tools will never be able to replace human connection or come up with the best creative for a client campaign.
They cannot conceptualize, strategize, show compassion, or evoke emotions at a visceral level, all of which are core to successful marketing.
You can find and enjoy a sweet spot where you and AI live in symbiotic harmony.
You’re still the wizard behind the curtain; AI is just an extension of you that can tackle some of your more menial, tedious tasks and make you look like a rockstar.
Not Your Grandma’s Ad Campaign
Remember when direct mail was a core element of any sound marketing strategy?
Now, tools like AI give us access to data and ways to interact with it that allows us to personalize our customers’ experience so intuitively that we’re serving them content they want to see, right where they are, and the ability to act on it in the way they want to. How far we’ve come!
Some people resent being followed around in this way, and there’s a privacy dance-off that’s occurring between consumers, service providers, and regulators as we speak.
While this plays out, there is an important perspective marketers should keep in mind as they prepare for and think about the future:
As much as consumers want convenience, they want to be seen as more than a click or a number.
This is why, even as AI powers more and more tools, your role (like many others in industries AI is penetrating) will remain essential.
AI offers many perks previously unavailable to you, like process efficiencies, more conversions, and the freedom to be more creative.
It also empowers you to deliver an unprecedented, boutique-level of personalization both retail and B2B consumers are beginning to expect.
Target Responsibly
Another human complexity AI cannot replace is the ability to make ethical decisions.
With all these AI-driven insights, how do you balance the revelations about your customers’ behaviors and the actions they’re likely to take in connection with your product without exploiting them?
With tightening privacy regulations and heightened customer expectations for personalization, this is nothing to take lightly.
It’s like having the nuclear codes without using them. This is where you come in.
Should you be worried?
AI is advancing, but not at a pace we need to worry about. Plus, as with any massive labor shift, the progression of AI is poised to create more jobs than it replaces.
According to the World Economic Forum’s most recent The Future of Jobs report, “85 million jobs may be displaced by a shift in the division of labour between humans and machines, while 97 million new roles may emerge that are more adapted to the new division of labour between humans, machines and algorithms.”
Was that a mic drop I heard?
The Human Connection
Despite evolutions in AI, there are some mandates that won’t change for marketers. The need to:
- Connect with people on an emotional level
- Build brands on trust and authenticity
- Deliver reliable service to clients and internal customers
- Live up to your promises
- Deliver products that delight customers
No matter how much additional technology you plug into the marketing process, and no matter how sophisticated those tools become, these aspects of your role will remain true.
How you execute them may change, but the irreplaceable human value you bring will not.
At Magneti, we’re obsessed with understanding this convergence of evolving tech and people. We’re focused on using technology to scale and strengthen human connection versus replacing it.
Want to explore this intersection with us? Talk to a digital marketing expert today.