Harness AI, scale data innovation and select the right marketing platforms to drive marketing growth in 2024.
Well, friends, we have reached the end of 2023. Maybe some of you in ecommerce and retail are pushing the “send” button feverishly and trying not to lose your minds with all of the last-minute requests and pressure this time of year brings.
If you’re on the B2B side, you’re trying to get in every sale you can to achieve your goals.
For everybody else, you’re kicking back, polishing up your year-end reports and wondering what the big deal is. You’re the lucky ones.
But whether you’re fielding yet another “Send another email!” demand, trying to close one more sale, or watching the “out of office” email replies pile up in your work inbox (again, lucky you!), I want you take a little time to look back at three of the big lessons we learned in 2023 and how they could affect your planning for 2024.
3 takeaways for 2023
I’m fresh off an email industry conference with a ton of new ideas based on sessions I attended and discussions I had with marketers from some of the most well-known brands in the world. From these conversations, I discovered some true approaches to innovation and a humble approach to what they were doing.
You would think that these brands, all household names, would have their collective act together, but it’s not always that way. I learned along the way that for many of these brands, 2023 was a rebuilding year, a time to reflect and rethink their business.
That was fantastic to hear. Marketers from big and small brands acknowledged that they had to embrace change to stay competitive.
Here are three takeaways from 2023, based on my own agency work and what I learned from my conference observations, along with my thoughts on how to apply them to planning for and working in 2024.
1. AI continues to dominate the conversation
Generative AI is still in its infant stage. But what has become abundantly clear over the last 12 months is that it has become a standard requirement for doing business.
Using AI, and, in this case, GenAI, is no longer an option or an elective for brands at the leading edge of innovation. Marketers up and down the scale need to play around with it and figure out how to incorporate it into the marketing workflow to save time, know their customers better and target their marketing messages accurately.
Specifically, you have to become an expert at prompt definition, which shapes how you write prompts for engines like ChatGPT.
This means learning the most effective ways to position your prompt. You can’t just say, “Write me song lyrics in the voice of William Shatner.” Instead, you must focus on the specifics of what you need. Mastery of that practice will be instrumental for success in 2024.
But I must also reiterate my mantra: “Strategy first, tactics second.” I’ve seen and heard lots of talk about prompt definition and how you ask genAI to do what you want. You can solve this easily in the strategic step of your campaign plan by thinking about what you want to accomplish.
Beyond ordering priorities and assets, what’s important is what you define in this strategic step before you get into the weeds of figuring out how to write the prompt. It’s more than knowing which customers should be included or excluded from the query. It’s thinking through the program and deriving the strategy first.
Lesson for 2024
Being in touch with your own strategic layer of thought will be fundamental to your success with GenAI and your exploration of the technology. Pause and ask, “Why does my customer care?”
AI is not going away. If you have buried your head in the sand or assumed that AI is just another shiny new object, you’re 100% wrong.
The faster you can embrace AI in the forms most meaningful for your business and implement it, even on a small scale, the faster you will gain a leg up on the remaining doubters and help you compete with early adopters.
Don’t let 2024 come and go without planning for AI.
2. Innovation at scale
Earlier, I mentioned that 2023 was a rebuilding year for many enterprise companies. These big corporations are rethinking not just their production but also their customer strategy and how they will act on another major topic of 2023 conversations: How to get closer to communicating one-to-one with customers.
How do we use data for relevant messaging? How do we actualize the data and use it to activate customers? How do we use data to measure intent?
Some marketers for these companies have told me they feel they’re late to the party on what they’ve done to innovate and implement their data strategies. It was a true joy to tell them, “You’re actually at the forefront of thinking about this the right way.”
I don’t care when you come to the party as long as you get there. Whether you’re an SMB, a mid-market firm or an enterprise company, it’s never too late to increase personalization, dynamic messaging, or data activation at scale. It might require a mindset shift, but don’t feel bad about not implementing it earlier. It just takes longer for some companies, and you have more time to benefit from other companies’ mistakes.
Applying it to 2024
Regardless of the path you take, achieving your goal is what counts. Rethink not just your tactical execution but also the strategy of getting in touch with your customers’ intent. What do they need? What do you know? How do you provide that, regardless of the channel?
As data becomes more fluid and accessible, as genAI bridges the gap between what we couldn’t do before and what we can do now and what we’ve talked about with relevant messaging, dynamic content and use of data, we can be more in touch than we have ever been.
Your 2024 plan should be in rethink mode. How are you doing and how can you do it better?
3. Companies are on the move to new martech providers
Along with rebuilding processes and strategies, I still see companies at the enterprise level investigating or moving to new stack providers.
Our work helping enterprise clients evaluate and migrate to new platforms increased substantially this past year. Marketers are no longer willing to tolerate platforms that don’t help them achieve their ideas of success.
Previously, companies like these would switch providers to reduce costs or get access to new features or better customer service. Today, they focus on how their platform capabilities align with their program goals. We’ve seen moves where the cost of doing business with email actually increased because the new platforms were more innovative and could help them meet their goals.
Applying it to 2024
Look at your martech stack. Don’t be afraid to ask others, including outside experts, whether you should consider replacing vendors.
Also, consider whether you’re using the martech you have now as well as you could. I’ll be the first to say many companies don’t need to switch. They just need to explore the capabilities they aren’t using now.
On the other hand, if your platform can’t keep pace with your company goals, it’s time to consider your options.
Yes, change is hard. Change is a bear. But, on the other hand, you’ll gain the ability to move faster and more efficiently toward your customers at scale.
Marketing insights for a successful 2024
Gosh, 2023 has gone by in a flash. It seems like just (January 15, 2024) I was toasting myself in the hot Greek sun, and before that was New Year’s Day. A lot has gone by in the lives and successes of our clients and others in the industry.
As you sit there pushing buttons, closing sales, or doing a little online shopping on the company dime because you’ve wrapped up the year, here’s one last assignment. I promise it won’t take long, but we usually overlook it in the year-end scramble.
Write down what you accomplished this year. It doesn’t have to be world-shaking. It could be just one thing. But be proud of getting through the last 12 months without dealing with COVID, shortages or any other negatives that made the first three years of this decade so difficult.
Yes, we all can do better no matter our company’s size, from the largest to the smallest. We must also take stock of what we have accomplished and be proud of it.
Take a minute, pat yourself on the back and celebrate with your team. You’re a marketer. You’re making it happen. You’re frickin’ awesome!
See you in 2024!
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