Note: The footnotes for this post will have links for additional reading. Keep in mind that AI / automation is a rapidly-evolving field, so I’ve cast a wider net than may be applicable to marketing alone to capture potential new changes. Please view the post in browser to view the additional footnotes in full detail.
Chicago: May 1886
As the long fingers of mother Earth finally thawed in the late spring, natures’ quiet emergence from winter hibernation was shattered by explosions.
Torn shreds from thousands of pamphlets filled the air like a late snow.
Screams overtook Samuel Fielden’s impassioned pleas for better working conditions as the crowd convulsed away from the percussive force.
“The Haymarket Riot” from Harper’s Weekly May 15, 1886
The square teemed with masses of people with both pro- and anti-union sympathies.
Like the war to come, this explosion forced both sides deeper into their trenches with less room to negotiate and a vast no-mans-land between.
The May 4th Haymarket affair erupted in explosive violence, the Great Upheaval, and eventually a new federal holiday.
State by state, Labor Day became a day to take off of work until finally Grover Cleveland signed it into Federal law.
This Labor Day, in recollection of the workers rights movement, the article will discuss the labor-saving measures of marketing automation.
For many years, printmakers had to manually set each page of type in a newspaper or book.
Small metal letters were painstakingly assembled into the mirror image of what the page should look like before copies could be made.1
The invention of the digital printer made printmaking easy.2
For many years, every marketer would determine the mix of different media ads3 to run based on gut feel.
Nowadays, things are completely different.
Computing Power Over Time (by: Jonathan G. Koomey)
Now, only most marketers determine the mix based on gut feel.
We’ve realized the gains from computers in supply chain management, in healthcare, and in engineering.
In this post, I’ll discuss some of the (often) unrealized gains in marketing.
Demystifying Marketing Automation
Picture this: a world where your marketing campaigns run effortlessly.
Your computer automatically delivering AI-generated ads to your audience at precisely the right moment, dynamically changing the channel mix as needed to maximize sales, and notifying you proactively if there are issues that need your input.
As people react positively or negatively, the systems adjust what the advertisements are composed of to keep your goal brand message while still being personalized.
When the seasons change, the content generated matches the feelings of fall—coziness, crisp fall air, and the calming slow slide into winter as the daylight changes.
You’ve supervised your computer for any errors that it could throw, but it’s been quiet this morning.
You get to calmly enjoy your cup of coffee in a Garfield mug while looking out of your window at the skyline—the same skyline you somehow never noticed when you did things manually.
It might sound like a distant dream, but it's closer than you think.
Welcome to the realm of marketing automation—a mindset and set of practices that can transform your entire marketing process.
Benefits of Marketing Automation
As a marketing novice, the term "marketing automation" might seem like a complex buzzword.
It’s often attached to “AI”, so that means its scary, right?
No, It doesn’t have to be (and a lot of what you hear is hype anyway)4
At its core, marketing automation refers to the use of technology to streamline and manage repetitive and/or very well-defined marketing tasks.
These tasks can range from sending emails and making social media posts to segmenting your audience and tracking user behavior on your website.
Anytime you use computers to optimize a workflow, it’s imperative that you ensure that you’re optimizing to a good KPI. Otherwise, you can make more mistakes even faster.
For a view into how to pick good KPIs, check out this post below…
Imagine having a virtual assistant that tirelessly executes these tasks with precision, allowing you to focus on big-picture strategic planning.
Marketing automation tools empower you to create a seamless customer journey, nurturing leads from their first interaction with your brand to the point of conversion.
Now that we've laid the groundwork for why marketing automation can be a huge benefit, let’s talk about how to look at your processes for low-hanging fruit.
Do an audit of your current state to determine where on the automation scale you fall.
(If appropriate) Do the lower level fixes to get your tech stack built out. You won’t be able to build out any new automation if you simply don’t have the technical framework for it.
Critically examine and list your goals and corresponding related processes to achieve them.
On each process, estimate how many times it occurs, how long it takes each time, and how well-defined the process is.
On each goal, estimate how important it is to your success and how difficult it is to achieve
Rank all of these goals and processes so that the most important goals with the easiest processes are automated first. (Low effort, high impact)
Find the right tools, data, and people to make those initiatives come to life!
5b. Don’t be frustrated when things are more difficult than you initially expected. In all technology things, it’s very hard to accurately predict projects.
XKCD #1425
Conclusion
In the rapidly evolving landscape of marketing, automation and AI have emerged new growth areas for success. By embracing marketing automation, you'll not only streamline your campaigns but also create more meaningful connections with your audience through real-time personalization and adjustment.
Take the plunge into the world of marketing automation and don’t be afraid to use what you’ve learned here to help the projects along.
I say painstaking from the modern point of view. This was an enormous improvement of throughput compared to the previous practice of hand-copying everything
For a realistic view of non-hype-driven news in AI, check out this well-updated list of papers and articles:
Anti-hype LLM reading list
Goals: Add links that are reasonable and good explanations of how stuff works. No hype and no vendor content if possible. Practical first-hand accounts and experience preferred (super rare at this point).
