The future of marketing is clearly unclear, but here are a few observations. One thing I’m sure we can all agree on: we need to have a plan.
I’ve had a couple of interesting chats in recent weeks with clients who are trying to take a step back from day-to-day activities and formulate a plan for coping with the major but unpredictable changes coming to business in the next couple of years. I admire them for finding the time to do this, and hope their foresight pays dividends.
We all agreed that it’s essential to focus on everyone getting training to use Ai tools, right now. There are already massive productivity gains to be had, with more to follow. In addition, those people who understand what’s available will be in a position to spot opportunities as they turn up.
The future of marketing is clearly unclear, but here are a few observations:
Opportunities for customers to network will continue to reduce to the point of being negligible. Conferences and exhibitions outside of pure science are only being kept alive by good marketing to presenters and exhibitors. Online alternatives such as forums and interactive webinars have never taken off and will not do in the foreseeable future. Independent, educational trade journalism is all but dead. This means it’s up to us – as suppliers – to keep customers informed.
Third-party advertising with a genuine RoI will probably start and end with whatever Google rolls out to replace its traditional search ads. Our shared view is that this Google future probably lies in some sort of “hand us your budget and we’ll handle it” Ai solution.
Apart from spending money on wherever search advertising goes, and Ai training, we felt that the two other main areas for marketing to concentrate on would be smarter content creation and outbound marketing, and Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) – i.e. SEO for Ai assistants.
Your views may differ, but one thing I’m sure we can all agree on: we need to have a plan.