Even with the amazing technology available to use marketers today, we still need human intelligence to make it work correctly. There are a lot of companies out there who’s message is to make your marketing easier by automation, but is that the right approach?
I've recently realized that in my industry, we are more dependent on technology than ever before. "Back in the day," when our only advertising options for clients consistent of TV ads on one of the only three networks (ABC, NBC, CBS), newspaper ads, or radio ads, the value of creativity was at an all time high. After all, ad space was limited to the few that could afford it and creative messaging and production was the hallmark of a good campaign.
Flash forward to today and companies have more options than ever before.
In fact, it's advisable to be in as many places as your target audience is. Throw in the fact that now mobile devices get more screen time than television and suddenly you have a culture of very confused business owners and marketing managers.
We recently started doing text message marketing for one of our restaurant clients. In order to implement this one part of the client's overall marketing plan, our team had to do the following: the administration of getting an account set up, present several different options for presenting this new way of communicating to patrons, create a contest for the servers to implement so the program succeeds, design check inserts, create and schedule actual promotions, create and send out weekly messaging to go to the people who sign up, ensure functionality among social media and the existing website, and the list goes on and on.
My point to all of this is that even with the amazing technology available to use marketers today, we still need human intelligence to make it work correctly.
There are a lot of companies out there whose message is to make your marketing easier by automation, but does this isn’t a comprehensive approach. While technology has come a long way, it still isn’t able to understand basic human needs and emotion. That skill is a uniquely human characteristic and isn’t marketing supposed to speak to the core of our needs, wants and emotions?
Even the simple tasks mentioned above require human interaction and with this onset of automation, I guarantee that before long clients will crave it. As far as technology as come, it still cannot create a single idea, register emotion or make a complex choice based on experience. That is still very much a human domain. Social media platforms are still just tools and will always require a human hand to wield them.