AI continues to make a notable impact on businesses and is transforming the marketing landscape, giving CMOs new opportunities to leverage technology and drive profitable growth.
We are now seeing how AI makes it easier to streamline marketing and sales, allowing the two functions to work more effectively in collaboration. AI delivers value to marketers and organizations at all stages of the sales funnel like never before. It allows marketers to create more personalized campaigns and generate qualified leads faster.
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Digital Marketing and MarTech Executive Search Firm: How AI Impacts the Future of Digital Marketing
Today’s CMOs need to make sure their teams have the acquired skills that allow them to leverage AI- in order to generate qualified leads and nurture them throughout the entire funnel. Those who fail to accept and embrace the AI evolution will struggle to stay relevant.
It goes without saying that every organization has different marketing goals and different funnel elements. However, as a digital executive search firm, we vet for certain skills in marketing talent that every organization needs to drive digital growth and revenue.
Whether your team is brand new or well-established, here are the key skills your marketers need in order to successfully adapt to the rise of the AI:
Advanced Data-Savviness
Big data is something that’s better left for AI-powered tools to handle, as they’re more equipped to manage and sort through massive amounts of data than humans are.
While AI tools can be used to serve predictive marketing and sales data, and where prospects are in the sales funnel, marketers must be able to apply the data they have at hand to effectively make connections and deliver personalization to their customers. Marketers who are able to leverage AI and attribute findings to specific elements that trigger actions – whether it’s a certain type of content or call to action – can serve their core customer better than ever.
High EQ and IQ
No matter how much AI evolves, sales will always be driven by customer relationships. And truthfully, machines and robots won’t ever be able to connect with customers in a way humans can simply because they lack emotional intelligence (EQ).
Modern marketing is based on storytelling, emotional connections with the customer, and recognition of what makes your end consumer tick. While it’s crucial to have high technical and analytical skills to understand the data that AI provides, marketers must have empathy and psychological depth to apply those insights and genuinely connect with their audience.
The evolution of AI will make it possible and much easier to market to a customized audience of one, and to truly serve hyper-personalized messages and offers. Marketers who have high IQ, but lack EQ and other important human traits like empathy, creativity, and leadership will have difficulty in connecting data insights to the right message.
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Balance of Creative and Technical Skills
AI will be able to give marketers incredible insights and predictions that weren’t possible before. From evaluating the success of your message for a specific audience in driving sales to predicting if a lead is more likely go with a competitor, the power of AI is impressive.
When looking for marketing talent with creative skills, digital executive search firms seek marketers who have the ability to sense what their target audience needs and how to appeal to them in the most compelling way. AI allows for a better understanding of the customer and optimizing the experience in a customer-centric world, but lacks the imagination that humans naturally possess. This is where cutting-edge marketing talent beats out AI by a long run.
Ability to Adapt
There is no doubt that the rise of AI and the future of digital marketing will call for marketers who are highly capable of adapting to major changes. After all, the rise of AI is predicted to change the space of marketing 10 times more than the introduction of the Internet did.
Marketers on your team will need to be lifelong learners and be motivated to constantly acquire new skills and re-assess their success requirements. They must have the ability to learn while adapting in order to drive digital growth, support the sales funnel, and ultimately contribute to the bottom-line.
AI is a fascinating development in the digital marketing space, bringing along new challenges and opportunities for CMOs. Those who encourage their teams to keep up with innovative technologies and continue looking for the new definition of cutting-edge talent will be able to leverage AI opportunities better than competitors.
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Closing Words
Artificial intelligence empowers organizations and CMOs to make more accurate decisions, more efficiently. And we are just at the beginning of the AI rise, which ultimately means more opportunities to maximize revenue over time.
AI and the human mind are a powerful match. However, for organizations to use technology and drive meaningful results, they first and foremost need the right talent in place. A CMO who isn’t digitally-adept and cannot identify the right talent and skillsets to bring onboard to leverage AI, will be blindly leading their organization toward a slow and unpleasant downfall.
No amount of revolutionary technology can reach full potential without the proper human support. We know adopting AI is no easy task – but it’s doable if your team is well-equipped for the major transformation.