AI in Action: Power Moves for Modern Marketers

Welcome to this episode of Solution Spotlight. I'm your host, J.D. Miller. I'm excited to partner with our friends at Emarsys today, and in today's episode, we're going to explore the broad and nuanced role of artificial intelligence in modern marketing. We're going to discuss different types of AI and their applications and Megan Hostetler and Aadil Kumar are joining us today, and we're going to tackle the transformative effects of AI in areas like personalization, analytics and content generation. Plus, we'll address the ethical and regulatory challenges it poses to marketers. I'm excited to dive in, but first, let's learn a little bit about you, Megan. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Awesome. Thanks for having us. So my name is Megan. I've been in the marketing technology space for a little over a decade now. I'm a Product Marketing Director at Emarsys, so that just means, in short, I get to work with some of our amazing clients across the globe and see what cool things that they are doing with our product and showcasing that to the world. So really exciting role and excited to be here to talk about AI. Wonderful. Aadil? Hello everyone, and thank you very much for this wonderful opportunity. A little bit about myself. I am a Product Manager at Emarsys, and I've been with the market for the past four years, and I've been given the wonderful opportunity to direct our strategy and our vision when it comes to the space of learning of generative AI. So I take care of creating that vision and translating that into a strategy about how do we go to market with our generative AI products, and also keeping a very big eye, keen eye on the execution of our journey of our products overall. But yes, looking forward to this very exciting conversation ahead. Let's dive on in. And when people talk about AI, they often mean something more specific. But the term itself is rather broad and nuanced. So, Megan, give us your take on what we're talking about when we say AI for marketing. You mean AI is a big buzzword now? Let megive you a bit of context from like a marketing lens too. So, from my perspective, marketing teams have been using machine learning for a long time now. With rules set up for marketing automation and thinking about the right predictions that can set up the right experience for the right customer at the right time. So this could be product recommendations. It could be send time optimization, it could be predicted lifetime value. And what I think is a nuance or something that marketers are trying to kind of shift how they do their day to day jobs is using a different type of AI with generative AI. So that's more making sure that their day to day tasks are done more efficiently and effectively. So to just give you some perspective, a lot of the customers that I work with and a lot of marketing teams, sometimes they are just going from sending batch and blast emails to doing something with their campaign that is a little bit more relevant. So we're seeing brands from all across the spectrum using different types of AI. So their AI maturity is evolving. Well, what I think is important to note is that sometimes when the new and the new trendy AI comes in and we can't forget about some of those key foundational aspects of AI, like machine learning that get the job done. They send out those timely personalized experiences for those marketers. But you also have to think over 55% of a marketer's day to day job is spent on actually creating that campaign. So and I know Aadil is all in on all things generative AI to make those more seamless for the marketer. Exactly. The space in generative AI is very interesting. And that 55% that you mentioned, Megan, is exactly who we're targeting. That 55%, we want to bring that down to maybe five. And I think that's the biggest value add that we're trying to look for with generative AI specifically, what we've kind of noticed is that it's really good at a certain section or subsection of tasks when it comes to marketers. And what we're going to do is increase the overall productivity that a marketer has while using the Emarsys platform. So what we're doing is trying to map out all these different workflows across the Emarsys platform and understand how we can disrupt these existing workflows by introducing generative AI into the mix. How can we level up the automation one step at a time with the Emarsys platform using the process of generative AI? Aadil, how does this AI revolution feel different? Well, I think, or first and foremost, I think it's a level of attention that it's getting. I mean, the thing is, transformers as a concept, which is the cornerstone of what generative AI is based off of, was introduced back in 2018/2019 with a Google paper. But what made this big switch happen was introducing this chat based interface that ChatGPT did. I think what it allowed ChatGPT to do, or OpenAI had to do, is kind of flex the model underlying the interface. Right. So what they wanted to show is like, look, this product is super smart, the model's super smart, in fact have a conversation with it. And that kind of convinced everyone that this is the next big wave. I think one key aspect that really shows that this is here to stay is its pervasiveness across different industries. It's not just marketing or content creation that is being impacted by generative AI. It's the whole space as a whole. So, for example, across automation, even my grandmother is talking about AI and what it can do for her. She doesn't now have to think about how to translate across all the different language that our kids speak. But she can just write one message and send that across to all of our kids. And the fact that normal people's lives are being affected by such a new technology is, I think, a good indicator that this is a change that is here to stay, and the overall level of abstraction in which we operate is going to increase to the next level. So Megan, what makes it meaningful and what does the future state of marketing look like? Yeah. And I think you gave a good example, Aadil. And I think the word that I would use is blending. And so the reason I think this feels a little bit different to me is, there's been trends in the past and, your boss or your leadership has been pressuring the marketing teams to do it. But I think it's different now because we're experience it as a consumer, as a human, in a different way. So I think the human aspect of it is blending in to corporate and to the working world. So I think for my perspective, what the future means here is, Emarsys has been in the AI space for over a decade now. I think, when it comes to building AI into everything that you do, it takes a foundation. So what we're looking to do is to build that AI foundation that just makes it a natural part of your day to day life when it comes to boosting productivity and creativity. And that allows the marketer to create those personalized experiences at scale. So that foundation, I think, is just going to help us to naturally bake it in, because I think if it's not a natural fit into what you're already doing from a data perspective, from a skill set perspective, from a user experience perspective, it just won't get picked up. We want to make it in a way that a grandma can use. I think it's a great example. Great example going back to what you said, but just making it a natural flow. Well, to take that a step further Megan, then what aspects of the marketing process do you feel are most suited to AI? You know, for example, where AI can deliver the most value or works best to support marketers? Yeah. You know, I think, one thing that I think goes maybe unnoticed is the unsung hero, if you will, is helping marketers just understand when and where and how they should be engaging with their clients. So there are a lot of brands out there that aren't taking advantage of existing technology. When it comes to AI that can help them engage with their customers in a new way. And a lot of that is because they don't have the time to do so. So part of what I envision of the future of AI is with all of these new gen. AI features that can help them go from 55%, creating content and creating campaigns down to say, 5%, they can use that time back in their day to create more sophisticated product recommendations that not only, pull in your sales data or pull in your website data, but how can you make sure that that is connected to your ERP? How can you make sure that it's connected to your weather data that's coming in or your loyalty data? How can you connect across your entire customer experience to make sure that you're making the most of your AI, but making the most of your marketing campaigns overall? So let's take the flip side there. Aadil, is there anywhere that AI is not likely to be effective? I think this is a hard question to answer, especially given the pace in which AI keep evolving from day to day, to be honest. But I think something that I feel very confident in saying that AI will not be good at is maintaining that human connection. I think, what AI will be good at is content generation, summarization, planning, strategy, so on and so forth. But when it comes to understanding your customer base and really forming a deep, nuanced way of getting across to these different customer bases is going to be really hard. And I think what I would like to think of is this quote that I heard from, Marty Cagan. So he's one of my favorite product managers from Silicon Valley Product Group. He talks about how, for example, listening to a summarization of a UX research or customer research is like listening to the summary of a vacation. There's no way you're going to understand the actual process of going on vacation. The fun you had, that perspective, the nuance that you gained during that experience. And I think that's something that's going to be really important as we move into this very, very AI driven, content driven world, making sure that we maintain that human connection. So make sure as a marketer, you kind of focus on understanding your customer base in a very true and a very human way. Aadil, I got to follow up then. What are some of these AI advancements that you've seen recently or are on the horizon that you're most excited about. Is it personalization, is it analytics, is it content generation? Talk to me about that. Well it's very interesting because I think, marketing in general is one of those industries where there's a lot of data generated and analyzed. And within the Emarsys perspective, we spend a lot of time understanding customer behaviors across the different channels and form this kind of customer 360. However, our brands are not necessarily able to capitalize on this information to optimize their marketing efforts in a 1 to 1 level. And what we really wanted to drive with this new wave of generative AI technology is to make sure that we can have 1 to 1 level outreach. So every single customer, every single contact that you have within your database should be able to receive 1 to 1 personalized content that changes depending on the context that they're in at that moment. When it comes to personalization, we have existing features from AI segments to send-time optimization, as Megan mentioned before. But what we're looking to understand is how we can really level up our content creation or content generation game. Also, when it comes to analytics, the thing is, having a one size fits all analytics dashboard is a very hard thing to do. Different companies and different brands are going to want to understand different aspects from their data. And what we want to do is allow for that flexibility to the marketer. What do you exactly want to see when you're looking at an analyst dashboard? What do you consider to be good performance? What is the next best action? And we want to be able to provide you with all that information that can feel your marketing strategy in the best possible way. Megan, with AI tools now capable of generating creative content, what implications does this have for content marketing strategies? Yeah. So we had that same question ourselves of, you know, with all this AI coming in, will we lose our authenticity as marketers and be able to reach those customers? So we took a step by partnering with Forrester for some research here. And we surveyed over 160 decision makers in marketing. And with that, we found 41% said that their businesses are putting customers at the heart of their strategy by leveraging data and prioritizing the preferred channel. Which, don't get me wrong, great. We love data. We love preferred channels. But I think what that said to me and what was interesting about that is the same group said that customer lifecycle marketing, which is very important, was the least priority strategy. So this made me think to myself, okay, if they remain on this same path and they just focus on what channel is right for that customer, they aren't taking into context everything that's going around that customer throughout the entire journey and where they are in that specific lifecycle stage. So it's not just about the channel, it's about the context. And I think for marketers, that's where they need to focus. So if they can pull in AI tools to help them understand where their customers are in their life cycle stage and where they're predicted to be in the future, I think that'll help them in the long run to have more empathy and not just use AI to use it, but to use it in a way that's meaningful for the customer. So Aadil then, how can marketers ensure the authenticity of their brand voice when using these tools? Well, we're trying to do some of the work for them. So what we're trying to allow for is to bring in brand specific content, be that your corporate identity, how you like to approach a narrative, your tone of voice when you interact with the customer. We want to be able to provide a platform where you can bring all that information in and allow you to use that information to craft your messages that are kept aligned with everything that you want to portray as a brand. And so we're trying to understand how we can utilize that by more and more to help fine tune the content that goes out to the individual context. So and this is keeping one eye towards the future. So what we're seeing right now in the industry is the the abundance of RAG based systems. RAG is retrieval augmented generation. And the reason that the RAG is such a big thing or a big concept at this point in time is because large language models at this point in time don't have a huge context window. So when you open ChatGPT, you know that it has a 4000 character context window, and that context window is going to disappear in the future. So what we want to be able to provide to our marketers is a place where we can collect all this information in the Emarsys platform and always use that information and pass it across to the prompt in order to create very brand specific tones of voice and narratives that can really make their marketing communication stand out. We live in a time of marketing fatigue, and I think one key cornerstone of the future is that marketing is going to be a lot more streamlined, a lot more optimized, a lot more directed to the user that is going to. So Aadil then, how can companies address concerns about privacy, data manipulation and content rights infringement or content authenticity? Great question. And it's one of the most important questions of today's day and age. As you know, AI tools often require vast amounts of data to function effectively. So this raises a lot of concerns about how this personal data is collected, used and protected. Companies should think of addressing these issues by adhering to the strict data protection guidelines. You have GDPR within the EU, you have the CCPA within the states. So following those initial guidelines is a good approach. But as an organization, what will really make a difference is establishing those ethical guidelines around the use of AI that prohibit manipulative practices. Regular audits, regular checks by independent bodies can help you ensure that you're compliant and maintaining the ethical guidelines for successful use of AI in the future. Something that you really have to watch out for in the space of generative AI is the fact that generative AI can really replicate and generate content based on existing materials. Meaning that these existing materials could come from copyrighted material. So you need to make sure that you keep an eye to avoid inadvertent plagiarism or intellectual property violations. Really important. And you also need to make sure that the quantity generated is authentic. So, that's something that we also tried to provide you help with, with allowing you to kind of fine tune and specify that content the best way possible. But those are some of the things that you need to keep in mind. Megan, then what specific skills should marketing professionals focus on effectively to use AI tools? Yeah, I think it can be a bit overwhelming and you'll likely have some sort of team that will help you for things in privacy and infringement and making sure that you're checking all the boxes there. And I think as a marketing professional, you're essentially the quarterback to make sure all the lights are staying on. So I would say from a skill set perspective, sometimes you just have to make sure you can get in the consumer's shoes. So you asked a great question earlier of like, when is AI not a good use case? So it's important to think about when you are kind of doing your research of what good looks like. Also, look at things that don't look well from a consumer standpoint, experiences that maybe AI got a little creepy or it just didn't get helpful or constructive for you as a shopper. So I think keeping that mindset and continuing to share that back with your team, to your leadership, to keep everyone focused on what is the end goal here? The end goal here is making a consumer's life easier and making it helpful, and helping them discover new products and helping them to eventually make that purchase and convert. So Aadil then, where can these marketing professionals acquire these skills and how do they stay updated with AI advancements? Well, one word: YouTube. I am very biased when it comes to this response because I love YouTube, I'm a YouTube fiend. But honestly, there's a lot of great information, that's available for free consumption across the internet. And I would really keep an eye on some of the best YouTube channels when it comes to content dissemination. Sign up for AI driven newsletters, and make sure you keep an eye on the Emarsys Marketing blog post as well. But besides that, I really do think that some tangible skills that you should keep in mind when thinking about the future and like how you can kind of embed these skills, are one, organization. So I really think that knowing how to collect and clean and organize data in a way that you can pass it along to a large language model or any generative AI model, is going to be a game changer for your workflow. So making sure you have all your information, what you do as a person, collect it in a way that it can be consumable, that really, really help you make the most out of these AI driven models. Prompt engineering is an ever evolving tool. I do think that, as we level up as a species in terms of tool usage, the next part of this evolution is, understanding how much of a generalist you can be with this very generalization driven tool. So, for example, instead of you specifically deciding, one aspect of your marketing strategy, you should think about the whole marketing strategy as a whole. You're kind of taking the position of a director in a movie, so you don't really have a specific skill set that you kind of bring or specialize in, but rather you kind of understand how every moving part of this picture needs to look. You kind of direct the overall vision, the overall strategy, and that's something that's going to be very important for the future. So Megan looking, I love looking into the crystal ball, by the way. Looking 5-10 years into the future, how do you predict AI will further transform the marketing industry? Yeah, I'm excited for it. I mean, there's pros and cons of any kind of new technology that comes out. There are a lot of unknowns. But for me, you know, I talked to a lot of marketers. Some have very small marketing teams. And like I said, you know, I keep going back to this, but marketers have a tough job of just keeping the lights on. Email is the breadwinner, and they have to make sure those emails are going out because that's what's bringing the bank, bringing the money in. So they have to keep those things on while still getting creative. And I think what AI is helping them to do is spend less time on those manual day to day tasks so that they can get creative. So now what I'm excited to see as a consumer is how can marketers step up their game and have that level of innovation when it comes to creating campaigns that are really resonating with me as a shopper, that they'll now have time for now, that they can use AI to their advantage and make their teams more effective. And there's so many little things within a campaign that you really don't think about. So, for example, a subject line generator, that's something tha you see in an email and it seems really quick. But as a marketer, they are handcrafting those subject lines. And we have a customer, Betty Bossi, that is working with us in a pilot, and they were talking about, our new subject line generator and how it just help them instead of with switching between different tools, they were able to use our different prompts so that they can create these subject lines in less time and faster without all the hassle. And you'd be so surprised by how much effort that that subject line is now taking off someone like this marketer's plate so that she can use that time for more creative campaigns. So Aadil, what should marketers be preparing for now to stay ahead? It's a really tough question. I mean, if you were to think about the 2008-2007 iPhone moment, it was really hard to predict the state of the world as it is right now with iPhones. Right? So the iPhone moment was the culmination of a lot of different things miniaturization, the introduction of touch screens, Wi-Fi and cellular data access, and a focus on a different kind of user experience when using a device. Similarly, with AI, we have better ways to process and collect data, abundance of data, much more optimized models, efficient computations, and multimodal understanding. So it's really hard to kind of understand where all of this is going to lead. But I think one thing I like to think of, or one thing that I feel will be a thing in the future, is that AI will possibly lead to the existence or the creation of a digital companion. And this digital companion is going to be with you across whatever you do. And as a marketer, marketing is something that has to be a core tenant of what you do in your daily life. Now, I guess the question you need to ask yourself is how can I equip myself to harness the full potential of a digital companion when it does become a reality? What would this new way of AI technology provide to me in a set of tools that I can start automatising as parts of my workflow, parts of my day? Are you ready to have the best personal assistant that you possibly could have? And if you were to have that assistant, what would be the things that you ask you to do? Wonderful stuff. Megan, Aadil, thank you so much for joining us here today. Thanks for having us. Thank you again to Megan and Aadil for sharing their insights and experiences here today on Solutions Spotlight. You can learn more about Emarsys and how they're taking AI to the next level at emarsys.com. As Aadil mentioned, that blog is a great resource as well. Thank you for listening to this episode of Solution Spotlight.